Full Reading: Week 1, Section 2

Origin and History of Caucuses

FROM A RADICAL EXPERIMENT TO A SACRED POLITICAL BIRTHRIGHT

By Richard C. Seagrave

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The current discussion and interest regarding Iowa's "first-in-the-nation" precinct caucuses usually begins with the assumption that the founders of our present  system were very clever and perceptive in realizing the political and economic advantages that we would experience by being first out of the box every four years. Our indignation with aggressive competitors like Louisiana, and our defense of our unique status,  seems to be based on our notion that Iowans are a perceptive and representative cross-section of voters, well-suited to be influential, and that this was our  plan and rationale right from the start.  It is amusing, instructive, and certainly enlightening, to recall how we got to our present situation. 

It is no exaggeration to say that our present caucus system was born in the streets of Chicago, during the unfortunate events surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention. To the dismay of many of the hard-working supporters of candidates Senator Eugene McCarthy and Senator Robert Kennedy gathered in the city, it became clear during the proceedings that essentially all of the convention delegates had been selected as much as a year in advance, primarily by party leaders.  Events that had transpired during the preceding months, including President Johnson's dramatic withdrawal from the race and the inspirational campaigns of McCarthy and Kennedy, had apparently no practical effect on either the selection of the delegates or on their actions. In the rueful aftermath of the convention, a commission chaired by Senator George McGovern of South Dakota and including newly elected Senator Harold Hughes of Iowa was formed by the Democratic National Committee to make recommendations for a more timely, responsive,  and representative process to select its national convention delegates.

In Iowa, State Democratic Chair Clif Larson and the state central committee appointed a four-person working group in early 1971 to draft a scheme to implement the principles being developed by the McGovern Commission, preferably in time for the 1972 election cycle.  The group consisted of former lieutenant governor Bob Fulton of Waterloo, State Central Committee member Blanche Koenig of Fort Dodge, Richard Bender, now an aide to Senator Tom Harkin, and me, Dick Seagrave, then Story County Democratic Chair.  Our guiding principles in coming up with a set of recommendations for a new process were three-fold.  The first goal was to make the process more representative.  To accomplish this, we borrowed (from, of all places, the Students for a Democratic Society) the idea of proportional representation for the selection of delegates to each succeeding convention. The second goal was to allow enough time between the steps in the process to allow for shifts or events that might occur during the time between the precinct caucuses and the national convention. Our third, and most important, goal was to increase participation in the process (and of course in the party), by creating a situation in which newcomers to the process could aspire, and actually succeed, in becoming national convention delegates. The design of the process was based primarily, (and naively, it now seems) on the desire to thoroughly consider issues, with the candidate selection process  originally of secondary importance.

Primarily because of the immense load of paperwork that needed to be done between the steps of the process (precinct caucus, county convention, two district conventions, two state conventions, and the  national convention), and the need to educate and bring successive slates of delegates up-to-speed on the issues,  we decided to allow from 4 to 6 weeks between the steps. Remember that we had no "user-friendly" computers or high-speed copy machines in 1972. When we counted backwards from a July national convention,  we settled on the 3rd week in January for our caucuses.  Never in our dreams did we realize we would be "first in the nation", nor did we ever expect anyone outside Iowa would pay much attention.

It was a sizable chore to convince state party leaders, including Senator Hughes and almost every other elected official, that this process could possibly work. It was indeed cumbersome; who would come to a precinct caucus in January?; and could we really stand this much democracy?. Certainly  our Republican friends regarded our schemes with a mixture of amusement and detachment. Following  a series of narrow intra-party organization votes, we went ahead anyway.  On a very cold wintry night in January of 1972, we were astounded not only to welcome a handful of representatives from the national press as temporary residents, but also to see our fondest dreams realized.  We had a record turnout, which energized the party and in time infused it with a new generation of leaders. And of course, we put ourselves on the political map.  It only took a few election cycles for our Republican friends to realize that they could also benefit from such a scheme, and they soon joined us in our timetable, although their enthusiasm for the process of proportional representation for delegate selection has been more limited.

What started off as an experiment to increase participation, using a  timetable designed to accommodate inefficiency, low technology, and slow communication, has in only two decades apparently evolved into a sacred Iowa political birthright.  A humbling look at the past can be beneficial, even in politics.

Richard C. Seagrave

Des Moines Register, December, 1995

Richard C. Seagrave, at the time of the writing of this opinion piece was Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at Iowa State University. He

served as Story County, Iowa Democratic Chair from 1970-74, and was a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention. He was instrumental in the creation of the modern Iowa Presidential Caucuses together with Cliff Larson also of Ames Iowa.

 Test quiz on Origin and History of Caucuses

Videos

• Interview with Richard Seagrave and Richard Bender, founding fathers of the Caucuses