As has been reported on MassLive and discussed here on BMG, there has been a proposed change to the rules for the 2014 convention. I started this as a comment, but as it got long, I decided to do a separate post. The most substantive difference proposed is to the 15% rule. After the 2002 convention, the rules were changed to what we had in place for the 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012 conventions. For those conventions, a candidate for state wide office needed to get 15% on the first ballot in order to appear on the primary ballot.
The Rules Committee proposal would allow anyone getting 15% on the first ballot to appear on the primary ballot. If no candidate achieves a majority, then all candidates would be eligible to take part in a second ballot, with 15% on the second ballot allowing a candidate to appear on the primary ballot. If no candidate receives a majority on the second ballot, then there is potentially a third ballot to determine the Democratic Party endorsement.
The above is a summary. See the full text of the proposed rules for the exact language of what is proposed, but I think my summary reflects the situation. The 15% rule is in paragraph III.C.2.
The argument in favor of the two chances for 15% is that with a large number of candidates, it potentially could make it mathematically impossible for some good strong candidates to have ballot access. The argument against the expanded opportunity to achieve 15% is that even if we have a number of good candidates, we would want the strongest candidates to appear on the ballot. I want people to think about this, outside of the context of time at the Convention. Is it a good idea or not?
There is certainly merit to either approach. I believe that most people want a democratic convention in the small D sense of the word. I think that most people want delegates to be able to participate in all the votes. The longer the convention goes the fewer people will remain to participate.
If the two ballot approach is approved as proposed with no change to the proposed 15 minute candidate presentations and attendance roll call, then the convention might get rather lengthy. Now let’s talk about time.
I made a best guess estimate to the convention time line based on my understanding of what has been proposed and my experience with time frames at previous conventions. For the purposes of this exercise I am assuming that the number of candidates is as follows:
Governor – four candidates
Lieutenant Governor – three candidates
Treasurer – two candidates
I’m not making a prediction here. For time estimation purposes I chose a number that is intentionally optimistic. I also made the assumption that there would be no resolutions or Charter Amendments.
10:00 AM Convention called to order.
Invocation
National Anthem
10:25 AM Candidate presentations begin
11:00 AM Attendance roll call begins.
12:00 PM Roll call and delegate alternate switches completed.
Candidate presentations resume
02:00 PM Speeches finish. First ballot begins
03:30 PM First ballot finishes.
04:00 PM Second ballot begins
05:00 PM Second ballot finishes
05:15 PM Third ballot begins.
06:00 PM Third ballot finishes.
06:30 PM Acceptance speeches done
I consider this to be an optimistic timeline, but I may be wrong. I put it out here for discussion purposes. Maybe an hour for the attendance roll call and 90 minutes for the first roll call are too long. Maybe we don’t need half an hour from the time the first ballot finishes to be ready to move onto the second ballot. Once we finish the first ballot, especially if it is 3:30 PM, people begin to leave so the second ballot is more efficient. I allocate an hour for a second ballot and 45 minutes for third ballot. Realistically, there may not be a third ballot.
I also think that the number of candidates is an optimistic estimate. If I were a betting person I’d be betting on more than I listed above. The optimistic timeline assumes that no one additional gets in the Governor’s race. There are two candidates running for LG and a third who is reportedly poised to announce. I’m hearing many names for Treasurer, but to my knowledge there is only one person actively campaigning, but I think that it is safe to say that at least one other person gets in. If you think that more candidates will be in, then add approximately 17 minutes per candidate. If another constitutional office opens up, then we are potentially doing up to six roll call ballots, under the rules as proposed.
This timeline is intended to give a ballpark level idea of the time frames for a convention with the rules as proposed and to get people to think about what we value at the convention. If a process with two chances for 15% is important, then maybe we should look at shorter presentations. Maybe the length of the presentation should not be decided in September, but after the number of candidates is clearer.
As a member of the Democratic State Committee, I will be voting on this at the meeting on September 7. I am interested in hearing what Democrats think. If people like the proposed rules, please let me know. If you think that time could be spent differently, what are you willing to give up? People are welcome to comment here. I am happy to discuss this directly with folks if you are interested. I can be reached at KateDonaghue AT aol DOT com.
Allowing too many candidates on the ballot is undemocratic. Too many minor candidates end up taking votes away from one or more of the serious candidates. The more this happens, the more likely it is that the winner is not the candidate the majority would have preferred if they picked between only the serious candidates. Unless we introduce instant runoff voting to our primaries, we need to make it hard to get on the ballot.
All I want to know is who proposed the change, for what reason, and why now?
I was a Warren delegate in Springfield in 2012 (my first time as a delegate) and the roll call (just one office with two candidates) seemed to take *forever* (two hours? I can’t remember). Are you sure these aren’t overly optimistic time projections?
Yes, I believe that these are optimistic projections.
As a practical matter, a candidate who cannot muster 15% of the convention on the first ballot is unlikely to do anything but hurt the nominee. He or she is really not likely to be the nominee, let alone to win election.
(Why? Because organization matters, and getting delegates is a good measure of organization.)
The existing rules allow for and to be honest encourage a contested primary. You only need 15% of the delegates, after all.
However, it is not the convention’s job to ensure that there will be a contested primary – to compensate candidates for their organizational shortcomings.
No one will play that helping role for these candidates in the election!
Were I on the committee I would vote no.
Were I to try to craft a compromise it would be to increase the qualifying threshold on subsequent ballots while introducing a disqualifying floor. (For instance: Must get 10% of first ballot to qualify for 2nd ballot. Must get 25% on 2nd ballot to qualify for primary ballot.)
The Charter cannot be changed except at a Convention. While there might be a theoretical scenario by which the Charter is changed prior to vote at the Convention, people should be thinking in terms of what might be possible under the Charter.
Another argument for not changing the rules, since the charter prevents a more-nuanced revision.
The easier way to ease ballot access would be to drop the threshold to 10%. Giving two ballots chance is asking for horsetrading.
I really don’t like being presured to vote for someone, especially someone I have never heard of prior to the convention. I would vote to maintain the current rules, if I am a delegate in 2014.
There’s never really been a problem here. We’ve only had one candidate fail to make the ballot under the current rules in approximately a decade and I don’t think it was because the process was unfair. That candidate could have organized town-by-town with nothing but a search on massdems.org for DTC meeting dates and the listed contact info for town chairs and a lot of trips to the gas station. She didn’t.
If she viewed the convention and going around the state talking to democratic activists as a waste of her time in the early campaign — ie, she wasn’t really interested in running from the Democratic *Party* — she could have run as an independent, only needing to collect signatures to get on the ballot. She didn’t do that, either.
The process is not particularly difficult or onerous or unfair for anyone who could run a statewide campaign, and the rules are widely available and indeed truly unknown grassroots organizations like the governor’s campaign in 2006 were able to not only live within these rules, but use them to his advantage in order to wrest the party endorsement from the then-considered ‘frontrunners.’
Is there a single, solitary candidate in the running for any statewide campaign in 2014 who isn’t expected to make that 15% threshold on the first ballot? And, if so, should they be rewarded for that failure by being given a change to the rules made to advantage them?
If that’s the case, how would it look to suddenly make this small, subtle change that could be seen as a way to bend things in order help one or two “serious” candidates favored by some in the party? Especially when these changes wouldn’t be enough to prevent any less “serious” campaigns their ballot access when they were likely opposed by anyone with any stature in the party? Are we really going to prevent any hurt feelings, or just create new ones?
Alternatively, if this is all really about the fact that the press has recently taken shots at the state party over this issue, is there any way to ‘win’ a PR war with the press who think we abuse the process, when in fact it’s that other party that kept a major candidate off the ballot who polled near even with the candidate who was handed a primary-free race on a silver plate in 2010?
I’m just not so sure how much time we should be wasting as a party worrying about campaigns claiming to be victimized by an entirely fair and transparent process, or worrying about a press that lives by IOKIYAR rules and will find any number of ways to slam Democrats for the most absurd of reasons, while ignoring far more flagrant versions of those problems made by that other party.
Other states have much higher thresholds to get on the ballot — and far murkier processes. This seems like a tiny problem in comparison to other convention problems, like the fact that we held a convention at a location (Tsongas) that was absolutely horrific for anyone with physical disabilities or mobility issues, to the point where I know several people who I later found out couldn’t fully participate — ie their delegation locations were in places they had no access to and they were told the only way they could vote was if they were with their delegation. Now fixing that is a far better use of anyone’s time who wants to work on improving the next convention — and, in all likelihood, would impact a lot more people.
~Ryan
My words are mine and mine alone and do not represent any other people or organizations.
I agree with those who’ve said we shouldn’t prop up candidates who are too weak or too lazy/unorganized to do the work to reach out to activists in time to get enough support from the delegates. If you can’t get 15% from the active base of the party then you don’t deserve a spot on the ballot, frankly. Granted, the 2012 convention experience (I was a Warren delegate) colors my opinion here, but that’s our most recent reference point –and it’s a relevant one, imo.
I too would ask who is pushing this change and why now? Seems unnecessary.
to which this is the solution?
Some people have chatted with me offline to do a timeline with more candidates and maybe a less optimistic view of the time frames in which we can conduct a roll call vote. Let’s say six candidates for Governor, four for LG and four for Treasurer.
10:00 AM Convention called to order. Invocation. National Anthem
10:30 AM Candidate presentations begin
11:00 AM Attendance roll call begins.
12:00 PM Roll call and delegate alternate switches completed.
Candidate presentations resume
03:30 PM Speeches finish. First ballot begins
05:00 PM First ballot finishes.
05:30 PM Second ballot begins
06:30 PM Second ballot finishes
06:45 PM Third ballot begins.
07:30 PM Third ballot finishes.
08:00 PM Acceptance speeches done
I didn’t change much else other than the number of candidates. Anyone can play. Everyone is welcome to develop your own projected timeline. The more I reflect on this, the more I wonder if the actual time allotment for presentations belongs in the rules. Is September an appropriate time to be making these decisions for a convention in June?
that we had the second bite of the apple, we were there past 11 pm.
Make a best guess at numbers of candidates and a best guess at the time frame for segments of the convention within the rules as proposed. What is the end time?
In 2002 the first ballot went 2 1/2 hours. There were challenges that are now prevented by rules changes, but there is always something that slows forward motion in a hotly contested race. Further, this vote was for the gubernatorial contest alone. Use the 2 1/2 hours, then subtract time savings for lack of challenges and add in time for multiple seats, (Lt. Governor and Treasurer), and its at least 2 hours on the first vote.
If there is a contest in any other statewide seat, that will add a separate round or voting.
There are delegates who for one reason or another will find this more than an inconvenience and cannot stay. They will be disenfranchised.
…is to retain the practice of voting multiple offices on the same ballot, which will cut off some of the time.
Sue is making her best guess, using 2002 as a starting point. She is saying better than the 2 1/2 hours that the first ballot took in 2002 because the challenge process has changed, but not that much better, because instead of just one office, as there was in 2002, there would be three on the universal ballot. As Sue says if there is a contest for a fourth race, then we could have up to six ballots. The proposed rules reference the Convention Reform Commission recommendations, which put up to three offices on one universal ballot. Above three we would go to two sets of roll call vote, each set handling, for example two offices in each set. So we might have Treasurer and AG on one set of ballots and then LG and Gov on another. Chris, why don’t you make a timeline estimate? My assumptions may be a little off, but I don’t think that it goes shorter.
I don’t question your timelines, but my own experience causes me to question my ability to guess at this. When it comes to votes I consistently think drawn out discussion and votes will be easy and the ones I think will be quick end up being drawn out.
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/talking_politics/documents/03684473.asp
The current rules are the result of the Dukakis-McGovern commission. This commission was charged with reviewing problems with the 2002 nominating convention.
As someone who attended this convention, I do not support the proposed change to the rules.
the Phoenix piece, by Adam Reilly, makes clear that the Dukakis-McGovern recommendations were not adopted.
Reilly suggests that changes were commissioned in response to fears about a supposed Republican resurgence triggered by the unexpected loss of a special-election Senate seat to some guy named Scott Brown.
I quite agree with you about the 2002 convention. Reich delegates did the party a real disservice by leaving once balloting for their candidate was over.
was a freakin’ disaster. I left at 5:30 and they weren’t done.
How about letting the delegates pick the new DSC chair?
Someone as conservative as McGee is really not cut out to be Chair, and I hear he’s the frontrunner. Let the elected delegates decide, not DSC members who hold their positions because some other DSC members picked them for the committee.
…though that would changing governing documents (Only a convention can change the charter.) and possibly even the law. To be clear the core of the DSC is elected by voters and town committee members within Senate districts, 2 men and 2 women each, though I think add-ons do constitute a majority.
The problem is paper. When you have 40 senate districts sending paper tally forms to the podium, and tellers are taking 40 documents and adding up all the numbers, it takes forever.
If you have an iPad in each of the 40 delegations, you can securely transmit the votes very quickly. The time it takes to count votes in a convention in 2014 and beyond should not be a barrier to crafting the type of system that makes the most sense for the party.
Personally, I think you should have 15% on the first ballot, which prevents all kinds of shenanigans of campaigns switching votes to give ballot access to weaker candidates who would draw votes from rivals in the primary.
The contest is for the Democratic line on the ballot. I think folks who want the Democratic line should be able to get 15% of the vote on a first ballot in order to demonstrate viability in our primary.