Iowa caucusgoers have to show up in person when stating presidential preference

DES MOINES — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Thursday signed a bill into law requiring in-person participation in Iowa caucuses when caucusgoers are stating their presidential preference.

House File 716, passed by Republican lawmakers earlier this year, was spurred by state Democrats’ caucus plan, which includes plans to allow Democrats to cast their presidential preference by mail.

The signing came days before Iowa Democrats plan to consider their delegate selection plan for 2024.

The law requires caucuses to be conducted in person only if the purpose of the caucus is to select delegates as part of the presidential nominating process — leaving open the possibility of doing the presidential preference process on a different date.

Political parties also will be able to set their own participation requirements for the caucuses, allowing them to set things like preregistration requirements. An earlier version of the bill would have required voters to register to vote 70 days in advance to participate in a caucus with either party, but the bill was changed before final passage.

The Iowa Democratic Party has suggested holding their presidential preference process via mail-in cards before the 2024 caucus and announcing the results on caucus night as a way to maintain their first-in-the-nation status after the national party decided to rewrite the party’s early nominating calendar.

A caucus, in which party members gather for hours on a specific night, in part to express their preference for president, has long been criticized as less accessible than a primary. National Democratic Party leaders also wanted to elevate diverse states that better reflect the makeup of the party.

Iowa Democrats were eventually knocked off the coveted spot, but state Democrats kept their plans to hold a remote caucus using mail-in preference cards.

Iowa Republicans kept their spot as the lead state in the GOP’s presidential nominating calendar.

New Hampshire

The Democrats' proposal, though it has not been explicitly spelled out, raised eyebrows among Republicans who worried New Hampshire would consider the Democrats’ caucus a primary and move its primary ahead of before Iowa’s caucuses.

New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan confirmed those fears in a tweet while the Iowa bill was being debated.

The order of states’ presidential nominating contests have existed for decades by a mix of party rules, state laws and tenuous agreements. New Hampshire law requires it to hold its primary before any other state primary, and the secretary of state has the authority to determine the date and whether another state’s contest constitutes a primary.

If Scanlan determines Iowa Democrats’ caucuses look too much like a primary, he can jump ahead of the state.

Iowa Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, a Republican from Wilton who introduced and managed the bill, said it was intended to preserve Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status. Kaufmann is the son of Iowa GOP Chair Jeff Kaufmann and a senior adviser to former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Democrats protested the bill as unnecessary meddling in party business by Republican lawmakers. In allowing parties to eliminate same-day registration, some Democrats argued Republicans were trying to influence the 2024 caucuses in favor of former President Donald Trump.

Democratic response

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In a statement on Thursday, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said Iowa Democrats plan to move forward with the “most inclusive caucus process in Iowa’s history, no matter what.”

“No political party can tell another political party how to conduct its party caucuses. Iowa Democrats will do what's best for Iowa, plain and simple,” she said.

“For many years, Iowa Democrats have worked in good faith with the Republicans to preserve our caucuses. This legislation ends decades of bipartisanship, and now Kim Reynolds has signed off on this attempt to meddle in Democratic Party business.”

The Democratic Party's state central committee will meet on Saturday to vote on the delegate selection plan, Hart told reporters this week.

The draft plan calls for the party to caucus on the same night as Republicans in early 2024, before any other state nominating contest, but they will not announce the results of their presidential preference contest that night.

They plan to conduct their presidential preference using mail-in cards, but when those cards will be mailed or returned, and when the party will announce the results, is not clear.

GOP response

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In a statement Thursday, Jeff Kaufmann applauded Reynolds for signing the bill, saying it would preserve Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status.

“With their bill, the Legislature has given Iowa Democrats the tools to stand up to the destructive, far-left members in their party who oppose the caucus system and Iowa's first-in-the-nation status as a whole,” he said.

“Hopefully, today's bill signing by the governor will mark an end to the Iowa Democrats pushing and then doubling down on an ill-advised, primary-in-all-but-name caucus proposal. The fate of middle Americans having a voice in selecting our next president depends on it."

Primary ties

The new law also alters the procedure in the event of a tied primary election for state legislative races.

If a party primary — typically held in June — ends in a tie, the winner would be chosen by the state party. Previously, the winner’s name was drawn at random by county officials.

The law also allows the state to leave the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, a nonpartisan interstate voter registration organization. Several Republican states have left the organization in the past year.

Comments: cmccullough@qctimes.com