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Caucuses Give Iowa Influence, but... | |
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THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - January 3, 2008
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Caucuses Give Iowa Influence, but Many Iowans Are Left Out
By Jodi Kantor
The New York Times
Des Moines - Jason Huffman has lived in Iowa his whole
life. Lately he has been watching presidential debates on
the Internet, discussing what he sees with friends and
relatives. But when fellow Iowans choose among presidential
candidates on Thursday night, he will not be able to vote,
because he is serving with the National Guard in western
Afghanistan.
"Shouldn't we at least have as much influence in this as
any other citizen?" Captain Huffman wrote in an e-mail
interview.
He is far from the only Iowan who will not be able to
participate. Because the caucuses, held in the early
evening, do not allow absentee voting, they tend to leave
out nearly entire categories of voters: the infirm,
soldiers on active duty, medical personnel who cannot leave
their patients, parents who do not have baby sitters,
restaurant employees on the dinner shift, and many others
who work in retail, at gas stations and in other jobs that
require evening duty.
As in years past, voters must present themselves in person,
at a specified hour, and stay for as long as two. And if
these caucuses are anything like prior ones, only a tiny
percentage of Iowans will participate. In 2000, the last
year in which both parties held caucuses, 59,000 Democrats
and 87,000 Republicans voted, in a state with 2.9 million
people. In 2004, when the Republicans did not caucus,
124,000 people turned out for the Democratic caucuses.
The rules are so demanding that even Ray Hoffman, chairman
of the Iowa Republican Party and a resident of Sioux City,
cannot caucus on Thursday night, because he has to be in
Des Moines on party business.
Iowans begin the presidential selection process, making
choices among the candidates that can heavily influence
how the race unfolds. Now some are starting to ask why
the first, crucial step in that process is also one that
discourages so many people, especially working-class
people, from participating.
"It disenfranchises certain voters or makes them make
choices between putting food on the table and caucusing,"
said Tom Lindsey, a high school teacher in Iowa City.
Mr. Lindsey plans to attend this year, but his neighbors
include a cook who cannot slip away from his restaurant
job on Thursday night and a mother who must care for her
autistic child.
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Caucuses are quirky electoral creations that depart from
the usual civics-class ideas about fair elections. They
are run not by the government, but rather by the state
Democratic and Republican Parties. The 1,781 caucuses
that take place around the state are small community
meetings in which citizens gather not only to choose
candidates but also to conduct local party business.
Rather than secret ballots, there are public exchanges
of opinions.
While the Republican caucuses are fairly simple - voters
can leave shortly after they declare their preferences -
Democratic caucuses can require more time and multiple
candidate preferences from participants. They do not
conform to the one-person, one-vote rule, because votes
are weighted according to a precinct's past level of
participation. Ties can be settled by coin toss or picking
names out of a hat.
As states jostled for early voting positions in the
presidential contest now getting under way, there was loud
debate about whether Iowa, mostly rural and white, should
be first in line. But "just as nonrepresentative as Iowa
is of the country, Iowa caucusgoers are nonrepresentative
of Iowa as a whole," said Samuel Issacharoff, who teaches
election law at New York University.
To many Iowans, the caucuses are a civic treasure, passed
down from the farmers who introduced them nearly two
centuries ago as a way of organizing themselves political-
ly. In presidential election campaigns increasingly
dominated by sound bites and slick advertisements, the
caucuses promote in-depth discussion of issues and earnest
exchanges among neighbors. Because the caucus rules are
more onerous than those of regular elections, the meetings
tend to attract passionate, well-informed voters.
"It's magic to see people stand up and declare their
support for a candidate, and it's a community activity,"
said Gordon Fischer, a former chairman of the Iowa
Democratic Party.
But many Iowans have been dutifully watching presidential
candidates all summer and fall only to find themselves
unable to participate on caucus night. Take Sally Kreamer,
a single mother in Johnston, outside Des Moines, who says
she cannot escape the pull of her children's dinner and
homework. "I would love to participate," Ms. Kreamer said.
Or Carrie Tope, who works at a hospital emergency room in
Ames and cannot find anyone to take her shift. She
particularly wants to vote this year, she said, because
things are so close.
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Even some campaign volunteers "have bosses who say,
'We really need you at work that night,'" said Jennifer
O'Malley Dillon, state director for John Edwards.
"Unfortunately, they just aren't going to be able to
participate," she said.
Scott Brennan, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, said
the party had no responsibility to ensure that voters can
caucus. "The campaigns are in charge of generating the
turnout," Mr. Brennan said, and the voters who truly care
will find their way to their local caucuses.
Mr. Hoffman, his Republican counterpart, said he was
resigned to the system's inequalities. "That's just the
way it works," he said. (His own lack of participation is
fine, he said, because he is neutral in the race.)
Legally the issue falls into a murky area. The Constitution
promises no affirmative right to vote, just assurances that
specific categories of people cannot be excluded. And
because the parties do not collect demographic data, no one
really knows who does and does not participate. Besides,
since the caucuses are run not by government but instead
privately by the parties, the courts are reluctant to
intervene in all but the most egregious cases.
Changing the rules might mean giving up Iowa's treasured
first-in-the-nation status and also the attention that
candidates lavish on it. Iowa's switching to a more formal,
primary system could violate New Hampshire's self-proclaim-
ed mandate to be the first primary state, undercutting the
informal compact between the two.
"There is no incentive for Iowa to change this at all,"
said Mr. Issacharoff, of N.Y.U. "It corresponds to what
Iowa wants, which is candidates spending time and resources
in Iowa," in order to win supporters dedicated enough to
conquer the obstacles to voting.
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So in order to preserve their early voting opportunities,
Iowa party leaders must defend a system that excludes many
of the state's people from voting.
Occasionally there is a voice of dissent. Just before the
2004 caucuses, a video surfaced in which Howard Dean, then
a front-runner for the Democratic nomination, questioned
whether caucuses allowed as much participation as they
might.
"Say I'm a guy who's got to work for a living, and I've
got kids," Mr. Dean said on the tape, from an interview
that had taken place in 2000. "Do I have to sit in a
caucus for eight hours?"
Mr. Dean's opponents accused him of insulting the caucus
process. He finished third.
Now caucus mania is sweeping the state again, leaving some
voters to observe closely a process they say is closed to
them. In recent weeks, Nick Okland has taken orders from
Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Christopher J. Dodd at
Centro, a sleek Italian restaurant in Des Moines. Mr.
Okland would like to vote for Representative Ron Paul,
he said, but he is putting himself through college and
needs the busy night's tips.
"We wait on all of them," he said, "and then we can't go
caucus."
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