Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Levin & Dingell: New Hampshire Cheated Too

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Emphasis mine below:

In 2006, the Democratic National Committee adopted a rule providing that four states – Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina – could hold their presidential primary or caucus in January, with the rest of the states following. The rule dictated that the early states hold their contests in a specific order – with New Hampshire coming third – and no earlier than designated dates between Jan. 14 and Jan. 29.

…

But last August, the New Hampshire secretary of state indicated he was going to schedule his state’s primary before the date specified, clearly defying the sequence and timing the party had set. Michigan Democratic leaders repeatedly asked the Democratic National Committee if it intended to penalize New Hampshire for this violation, but the committee refused to act.

Rather than allow this broken system to persist, we challenged it by deciding to apportion our delegates according to the results of a primary scheduled by the Michigan Legislature for Jan. 15.

The Democratic National Committee proceeded to selectively enforce its calendar rule. It gave New Hampshire a waiver to move from third to second place in the sequence. But Michigan and Florida, which had also moved up the date of its primary, were denied waivers. When Howard Dean, the party chairman, says that states should not be allowed to violate the rules, he ignores the fact that when the committee itself decided not to follow the rules and granted a waiver to New Hampshire, it set the stage for the present impasse.

Could anyone shed light on this? Is their description of the events accurate? Any NH folks who can weigh in?

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Comments

  1. The original schedule was IA, NV, NH, SC, Everyone else.  New Hampshire was a bit upset about this, but was probably going to live with it, since Nevada was a caucus state and they would still retain their status as the nations first primary.  It was only after Michigan scheduled it’s primary for January 15th that New Hampshire responded by moving their primary up to January 8th, since State law requires them to be a week before any other primary.  Dean and the DNC chose not to penalize them for this, however the Republicans did knock them half their delegates.

  2. The six early states — IA, NH, NV, SC, MI, and FL all jumped the clock from the DNC schedule.  All six held their events earlier than the unanimously approved calendar set by the DNC.

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    p>I remember hearing differing versions in planning as to whether Nevada would succeed or precede New Hampshire.

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