Everyone knows that the Governor and State Legislators are actively considering a move of the 2008 California Presidential Primary from June to the first Tuesday in February.
There is no doubt that it is within the authority of these politicians to move around the date of California’s primary — and they have done so, a lot, over the years. I would go so far as to say that it is extremely likely that it will move.
In some recent news articles about this potential change of date, there have been references to making changes in the way that the major political parties select their delegates to their respective national political conventions.
So this seems like a great opportunity to make it very clear to the Governor and to the Legislators — that is not a decision for the State of California to make… Both literally, and legally.
While the State does have authority to determine when the primary election is held, it is actually political parties themselves that have the legal right to determine how (or if) they are going to use the results from that primary in apportioning delegates their party’s respective Presidential nominating conventions.
I will leave it to some knowledgeable Democrats to weigh in on how their Party handles the delegate selection process, but I can certainly speak to how delegates will be selected by the California Republican Party in the 2008 elections — as I was Executive Director of the CRP back in 1999 when the rules governing this process were significantly revamped. I have written an extensive column on this subject which you can read here. But the very short version is the CRP membership voted to have our delegates selected in what is called a "Winner Take All By Congressional District" system — which is pretty much what is says. California will send three delegates from each Congressional District to the RNC Convention. The delegates for each district will be awarded to the Presidential candidate who receives the most votes (a plurality) in each district. There are a handful of statewide delegates, and those will go to whomever gets the most votes in the statewide tally.
I reached out to FR friend Chuck Bell, is a nationally-recognized political law expert, and happens to be the long-time General Counsel of the CRP, to talk more about this issue. You can read his column here. The views expressed are Chuck’s own, and not those of any of his clients (including the CRP). That said, Chuck lays out pretty thoroughly the legal case for why the political parties and NOT the State of California, have the ultimate decision making authority in this matter.
And hopefully this will keep the policy makers under the Capitol Dome focused exclusively on the primary date, and out of any inappropriate government meddling into the affairs of political parties. Individual Republican and Democrat politicians will have a lot of say about what happens within their respective Party’s process for making and revising Party Rules, but that’s about the limit of it…
As a matter of fact, the GOP rules that will be in effect for 2008 came about as a result of significant involvement by GOP legislators — most notably former legislator (and FR State Capitol Correspondent) Ray Haynes.
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