I was wondering what would happen if another state passed a law giving itself the right to the first Presidential primary in the nation. Though New Hampshire people obviously think they are better than people from other states, they clearly have no Constitutional right to set primary dates in other states, so they just move their primary earlier if anyone threatens their position.
What would happen if another state copied their law? Would New Hampshire demand that the National Conventions refuse to seat delegates from the other state? Do you think it would work?
What if the other state held a primary first, but called it “caucuses”? Iowa comes before New Hampshire, but the former holds true caucuses; I was wondering if you could have a de facto primary with different formal name.
Oops, sorry, wrong thread. Thought this was the new advertising campaign for N.H. “Live Free or Die”‘s gettin’ kinda frayed around the edges, ya know? “Can there be more than one New Hampshire?” might be a little wordy, might have trouble fittin’ it on the license plates, but it’s tailor-made for the tourist trade.
The relevant statute in New Hampshire is Section 653:9 of Title 63 (I’m sorry that I don’t know the proper form for citing a New Hampshire law).
It’s pretty short
Obviously New Hampshire isn’t stating any “right” to being first. I suppose another state could pass a law saying that their state’s primary will always be a day before New Hampshire’s and the two states will just keep moving their primaries further and further up to the point of absurdity.
Ultimately, the National Committees of the parties will decide who gets to be first. If the DNC decided this summer that it wanted the first primary to be in some state like North Dakota, that would decide the issue. The DNC could then decide not to seat any delegates chosen by an unapproved New Hampshire primary.
In 1996 when I was living in N.H. some state(s) moved up their primary to come perilously close to New Hampshire’s. They might have been Deleware and/or Arizona. There was an unofficial boycott of any candidate who dared campaign in the evil usurper state. IIRC Steve Forbes lost a lot of support because he campaigned in the wrong place at the wrong time. My memory of this is fuzzy, I must admit.
BobT
In an article on the above site, a former New Hampshire Governor asserts that the law was amended in 1977 “to eliminate any possible future encroachment on the state’s tradition of being first”. Sounds like the assertion of a right to me.
Bibliophage
The evil state you refer to is Delaware. It was heavily boycotted for being only a few days after NH, IIRC.
New Hampshire may assert its tradition as a legal right, but I doubt the Supreme Court would look kindly upon it. I still think that the National Committees of each party could wipe out NH’s special status by changing their rules.
The parties control the nominating process, not the states.
I assume that New Hampshire’s primary stays as the first one because no one seems to mind.
The NH primary is starting to lose a bit of its importance as the Granite Staters have been giving victories to candidates like Tsongas, Buchanan, and McCain.
Seems to me that the clause, “of each year when a president…is to be elected,” would preclude pushing the date into the previous calendar year. This would make the first Tuesday of the calendar year of an election year the earliest that NH can hold their elections.
But, it also seems to me that if some state ‘forced’ the issue, NH would ammend their law to hold the election even earler, even if it meant going into the preceding year. They’re like that, you know.
The order of primaries should be rotated or decided by lot. It’s the only fair thing to do. Period.
I know there’s been a sort of mild rush to try to move primaries before ‘Super Tuesday’ since the races are generally more or less conceded by then and states with later primaries don’t “benefit” from all the press coverage and canditate’s doting. (e.g. the soft-pedaling around the Confederate Flag issue before the SC primary followed by the quick apologies before the California race)
The Alabama Republican Party, for one, held a ‘Straw Poll’ last August, hoping to attract some major candidates that consistently ignored the June 6 primary. What they got was Alan Keyes (the winner), Orrin Hatch, and Angel Rocker.
The party has a certain strategy for getting an electable candidate. Campaigning visibly in Alabama, which is perceived to be out of touch with ‘mainstream America’ (i.e. California, Texas and Florida), and where you might have to spell out your stance on abortion and battle-flags and who knows WHAT else, is not part of that strategy and so the national party establishment will not support the experiment.
On the other hand, if California held their official 2004 primary next December, you can bet that the sheer electoral power would pull in some attention and that New Hampshire would be left to the Rockers and Tsongas’
An unusual law for a state with that motto.
My experience with their civil court system implies that the motto applies only to NH and to heck with everyone else.
I recall entering a gricery store in NH (where they sell wine, their only redeming grace) and stepping back to allow two ladies to enter first as we do in the South. They turned about and ran from me.
Interesting note: In today’s USA Today, there was a story about the fact that the Republican National Committee is considering totally restructuring the presidential primary system for their convention. The idea being proposed is to put the primaries in reverse order of state size. This supposedly would allow smaller states to have a chance to be significant, while keeping candidates from winning unassailable majorities early due to the larger states coming last. In the article, they pointedly note that no one is quite sure what to do about New Hampshire and Iowa.
I had a thought about this some days ago while watching news coverage of the Supreme Court oral arguments over California’s ‘open’ primary system. How about the following: a state can have its spring primary election no earlier than April 1, but can organize that election however it wishes. If a party wishes a different date or organization of its primary, it has to fund and organize that primary on its own.
Not that the main political parties would ever agree…
