Calendar changes off the table at DNC meeting

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) will not consider changes to the party’s presidential nominating process at this weekend’s meeting in Washington, D.C., after a report that a powerful committee planned to debate substantial changes to the calendar in 2024.

The Des Moines Register reported Friday morning that a resolution drafted for the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee would have upended the nominating process by requiring states to apply for the first slots on the calendar, potentially ending the monopoly Iowa and New Hampshire enjoy on holding the first two nominating contests

But two members of the Rules and Bylaws Committee told The Hill that the resolution would not come up on Friday. They had not received drafts of the resolution, which one member of the committee said was drafted by staff.

The Register quoted James Roosevelt Jr., the longtime co-chairman of the rules panel, who said he did not expect “any final conclusions” from this weekend’s meeting at a Washington, D.C., hotel.

The resolution was said to require states to apply for one of as many as five early slots on the calendar. States applying to hold their contests early would have to demonstrate they would hold a “fair, transparent and inclusive primary” — a direct shot at Iowa, where state law requires a caucus.

“They don’t roll things out like that by surprise,” the second committee member said in an email.

Roosevelt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The DNC has informally debated changes to the nominating calendar to uproot the early state contests, an argument that grew more heated after 2020, when results from Iowa’s caucuses were delayed for weeks by vote-counting problems — problems that a later audit found were in part the fault of meddling by the DNC itself. The state Democratic Party chairman resigned after the snafu, which robbed caucus winner Pete Buttigieg of any meaningful boost in the weeks that followed.

Some members of the Democratic National Committee have long sought to upend the presidential nominating process, arguing that allowing two small, largely rural states to hold the first contests does not reflect a party that relies on minority voters and those who live in urban areas.

To address those concerns, Democrats allowed South Carolina to hold the third nominating contest on the calendar, to give Black voters a greater say in choosing the party’s nominee. Beginning in 2008, Democrats added Nevada, a state with a large Hispanic population and two urban cores, to the early mix.

DNC C hairman Jaime Harrison, who hails from South Carolina, has been publicly noncommittal on changes to the calendar. Speaking to CBS News on Thursday, he refused to say whether he supported allowing Iowa to maintain its first-in-the-nation status.

“The DNC’s going to do what it does every four years which is evaluate what happened the last presidential cycle and make a determination of what we want to do next,” Harrison said. “We’re going to make sure we do what’s in the best interests of the party going forward.”

Since taking their place at the head of the field in the 1970s, Iowa and New Hampshire have zealously guarded their places on the primary calendar. Their status brings them both influence with the presidential field and the money that comes with early advertising and investment in the state. One study by the Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau in 2019 found coverage of the caucuses alone was worth nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in free advertising for the city.

Updated: 9:30 p.m.