Governor Jan Brewer says Arizona will hold its primary February 28, per state law. This violates Republican primary rules and will almost certainly set off a chain reaction.
Arizona Republic (“Brewer keeps presidential primary on Feb. 28“):
Brewer had toyed with holding the Republican primary earlier but opted against it in part to avoid a domino effect in which other states pushed their contests into January. State statute specifies that Arizona hold its election on the fourth Tuesday of the month but gives the governor unilateral authority to set the election earlier.
Brewer had said moving the primary could thrust Arizona into the center of the national dialogue on key issues such as immigration and the economy. Instead, the governor has secured preliminary approval to host the leading GOP candidates in an officially sanctioned debate later this year. A date and place have not been set.
So, Brewer is actually being cooperative here. The problem is that the Republican Party has set up rules about the primary contest and Arizona is breaking them.
Des Moines Register (“Iowa GOP chair: Arizona’s defiance could cause Iowa to reschedule caucuses“):
The Republican National Committee has designated four early voting states: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. Other states that hold a primary or caucus before March 6 will be penalized. States could lose half their delegates and guest passes to the 2012 national convention in Tampa.
South Carolina is now scheduled to hold its primary on Feb. 28, but it is unclear whether the Palmetto State is willing to share the date with Arizona.
It’s also unclear what actions the Republican National Committee may ultimately take against states that defy the March 6 rule or what date other states – like Florida – may ultimately set for their primaries or caucuses, Strawn noted.
Actually, it’s quite clear: States flouting the rules will be penalized by having their delegates awarded proportionately rather than in a winner-take-all format. That will significantly dilute the value of winning a primary and change the calculations about allocating campaign time. But the political fallout is predictable:
Arizona’s move today to defy Republican Party rules and set the state’s GOP presidential primary before March 6 could push Iowa to reschedule its first-in-the-nation caucuses, Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn said this evening. ”It’s too early to assess the impact,” Strawn said. “The question remains whether that will force other states to move up and that would then bump us forward. We don’t know the answer to that yet.”
The Iowa caucuses are now scheduled for Feb. 6.
For no good reason, Iowa has long held the privileged position of going first and thus forcing candidates to spend more than a year campaigning in a tiny, unrepresentative state while barely paying attention to huge, diverse states later in the cycle. But the parties have gone along with this nonsense and crafted rules reinforcing it.
via Taegan Goddard
