An interesting tidbit in the Miami Herald yesterday highlights the backroom struggle over, and importance of, delegate allocation rules in a drawn-out nomination season. (Whether we are actually in the midst of one, of course, has yet to be determined. Just ask John Sides’s cranky reader.)
Florida’s primary next week is being touted as a winner-take-all affair, such that a plurality winner in the primary vote would bank all fifty of the state’s delegates. But keep in mind two things: first, that Florida was supposed to have ninety-nine delegates; second, that according to Republican National Committee rules adopted in 2010, no binding primaries or caucuses at all were supposed to take place before March 6 (with several exceptions), and no winner-take-all primaries or caucuses were supposed to take place before April 1. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada were the exceptions – they were allowed to hold their nominating event in February. (See here – specifically Rules 15(b), (1) and (2) on the bottom of page 18).
You might have noticed that only Nevada is bothering to follow this rule. The others – and the non-excepted states holding binding primaries or caucuses in January or February (Florida, Arizona, Michigan) – have lost half of their allotted delegates as a result.
Having already taken that hit, Florida figured it might as well violate both rules at once, thus enhancing the value of winning the state. But according to the Herald, “Backers of Rick Santorum want a proportional delegation system, which would allow candidates to win delegates if they won a congressional district. Some Mitt Romney supporters are now quietly raising the same issue—even though they were supportive of winner-take-all when Romney looked as if he’d win the state Jan. 31.” Former RNC chair Michael Steele suggests that Florida should in fact be required to allocate its remaining delegates proportionately.
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Does this mean that all of the Super Tuesday primaries will have to be proportional (as 6th March is before 1st April)?
This could be particularly interesting in Virginia where Ron Paul will presumably get quite a large chunk of the vote as Romney’s going to be the only other name on the ballot…
None of the early caucuses have lost any delegates. None, with the exception of Nevada, is binding in terms of delegate allocation (a loophole for these early caucus states).
The pre-April 1 states do not have to be “proportional”; at least not the Democratic Party’s conception of proportional. There are various ways for/conditions under which states can maintain winner-take-all allocation. You can read more about that in the three links at the top of this post on the RNC rules:
http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2011/02/update-on-2012-republican-delegate.html
To fill out the Florida story, the RNC penalized the Sunshine state half its delegates in accordance with Rule 15(b). There is a mechanism by which the national party could have penalized Florida more — not only for the timing violation, but for the delegate allocation method violation — but opted to stick with the 50% delegation penalty. However, the RNC deferred to the Republican Party of Florida rule that shifts the allocation from the method being discussed by Santorum supporters now — akin to South Carolina’s rules this past weekend — to a straight winner-take-all system if Florida is hit with a penalty from the national party. Additionally, the RNC has also sanctioned the Florida delegation by limiting the delegation’s extra convention floor passes and restricting the Florida delegation’s seating and hotel assignments (meaningless for delegate allocation but a big deal to the elites within the state party).
This is a useful clarification, thanks – I should have included the word “binding” one more time (at least) in the narrative above. Other too-early caucus states such as Colorado (Maine, Missouri, Colorado, e.g.) not mentioned in the post are also non-binding, and thus no sanctions are applied.
Thanks too for the reminder that “proportional” can be divvied up many different ways. The Democratic party method has been much closer to reflecting the share of the vote than, say, the district-by-district division discussed in the Herald post.
Under no meaningful definition should allocation by plurality at the district level be called “proportional”. This is what South Carolina does, right (in addition to some statewide)? And is that why its number of delegates was docked (or am I mistaken on the state’s not having been allowed its full share at the Convention)?
And even the Democratic Party’s method falls short of how we comparative electoral-systems folks typically understand “proportional”.
American exceptionalism?
“Proportional” is the word used in the RNC rules, for what that’s worth.
According to the Washington Post’s “primary tracker”, South Carolina was in the winner-take-all category — see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/primary-tracker/ — but SC also went too early, on January 21 instead of after February 1.
South Carolina was exempt from the “proportionality” requirement written into the 2012 rules (as were the other so-called “carve out” states — Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada). They were penalized half their delegation for holding a primary before February 1. South Carolina is winner-take-all, but that allocation is split across the statewide and congressional district votes. It isn’t straight winner-take-all in the way that Florida will be next week.
The WaPo link is misleading. I hate to drop links to my site repeatedly, but here is a better capture of the allocation by state and how it stacks up against the allocation methods used in 2008:
http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2011/12/republican-delegate-allocation-rules.html
Matt,
Follow that link in my first comment. The memo appended to the post has a description of “proportionality” and some other information about the motivations and process behind the change.
Some Republicans in Texas pushing for the state to switch to winner take all…
http://blogs.star-telegram.com/politex/2012/01/is-the-texas-republican-primary-going-winner-take-all.html