Big changes might be coming to Iowa caucuses after weekend Unity Commission meeting

Iowans will almost certainly hold caucuses in 2020, and they very likely will be the first presidential nominating contests in the nation.

But recommendations to be finalized this week by a panel of national Democratic activists could force major changes to a political institution that has given Iowa vast influence over presidential nominations and shaped politics within the state for the last five decades.

"We know we’ll be needing to make changes, and we welcome that," Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price said. "We look forward to that."

The Democratic National Committee’s Unity Reform Commission will hold its last meeting this Friday and Saturday in Washington, D.C., during which it’s expected to offer reforms affecting caucuses and primaries across the country as well as the party’s superdelegate representatives to the national convention.

Among the items on the table: absentee voting for caucus participants and publicly reporting candidates’ raw vote totals. Both would represent major changes for Iowa.

The commission’s recommendations ultimately will be taken up by the DNC, with the goal of enacting reforms in time for the next presidential campaign. A wide field of Democrats is expected to take a run at the presidency in 2020. New rules for Iowa and the rest of the states could have a profound effect on how that race plays out.

The Unity Commission was formed during the 2016 Democratic National Convention with detailed instructions on how to reform the nominating process after the bruising contest between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

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(In Iowa, Clinton edged out Sanders by a fraction of a delegate equivalent, setting the tone for the rest of the campaign and putting the party’s arcane process for tallying support and reporting results under a microscope.)

The commission is charged with making caucuses “less burdensome and more inclusive, transparent and accessible to participants.” It is to make “specific recommendations” to streamline the time-consuming “realignment” period in which supporters of candidates deemed unviable must throw their support to another candidate and to publish a “headcount” at each caucus location.

The objective, several commission members and other Democrats involved in the proceedings said, is not to threaten Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status but to build on its existing strengths.

“I’m not sure we’re really talking about changing the process,” said Jan Bauer, a Unity Commission and DNC member from Iowa. “I think we’re talking about reforming the process and making improvements.”

If anything, several members said, appreciation for caucuses and confidence in Iowa has grown over the last year as the commission has done its work. Unity Commission Vice Chairman Larry Cohen highlighted the direct-democracy aspect of caucuses, and their potential for activating voters.

“Voters in Iowa pyramid up to the party leadership from the caucuses,” Cohen, a Sanders aide in 2016, said. “We’ve all learned to have a tremendous amount of respect for that.”

Commission member Emmy Ruiz, a former Clinton campaign staffer, likewise voiced support: “We’re all big fans of the Iowa caucus, their place in the nominating process and the role Iowa plays in that.”

Still, Iowans showing up to caucus for a presidential candidate on a snowy night in early 2020 could face a much different process than they’ve encountered in the past.

In short, commission members told the Des Moines Register, the panel is considering changes that would:

Allow voters who don’t show up on caucus night to participate and have their candidate preferences included in the final results, and

Provide some degree of public reporting on the raw number of supporters backing specific presidential candidates.

While the details remain unknown, both steps would represent revolutionary changes in Iowa.

The Iowa Democratic Party has long resisted publishing raw vote totals on the philosophical argument that expressing results in terms of state convention delegates builds consensus and better demonstrates candidates’ viability. There’s also a more practical argument: reporting raw votes might upend a long-standing peace with New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation primary state.

Similarly, Iowa has moved slowly on expanding participation beyond voters who show up and take part in the preference group and realignment process. Getting voters into a local, in-person meeting is seen as vital to party-building and, again, ensures that Iowa’s caucuses remain distinct from New Hampshire’s primary.

On the whole, though, Iowa activists have been encouraged by the substance and tenor of the discussion so far.

“The commission is going to ask for some pretty sweeping reforms to make this process better,” Iowa political consultant Norm Sterzenbach said. “But, at least from my conversations with people here, Iowans are going to be largely receptive to those changes.”

Sterzenbach, who served as the Iowa Democratic Party’s caucus director during the 2008 campaign, was invited to make a presentation on the caucus process to the Unity Commission last August, and has followed the process closely all year.

Bauer, the Iowan on the Unity Commission, said she sensed a widespread commitment at work to improve the nominating process and elect more Democrats rather than settle scores from 2016.

“It’s been very, very heartening to see that people are really taking the process seriously and really do want to come out with strong recommendations that will build the party rather than continue to increase the conflict,” she said. “Everybody sees the big picture. Everybody wants to move us forward.”