david yepsen

Regular readers of this site will remember that in December of last year, we went to bat pretty hard against both the Clinton/Biden/Dodd/Richardson campaigns, and David Yepsen, "the Dean of Iowa Political Reporting," for suggesting that university students in Iowa did not have a right to participate in the caucuses. I think we did a pretty good job (in partnership with a number of youth organizations) pushing against that message, earning retractions from all of the Democratic campaigns, garnering front page coverage on Daily Kos, and getting other organizations involved and on-message. By the end of the year, thanks to our work here and that of organizations like the Student PIRGs, Rock the Vote, YDA, and Young Voter PAC, the New York Times even ran an op-ed sympathetic to our point of view.

We all know what happened after that - despite much fretting about a youth-based field strategy on the part of the media and old-school party hacks, students turned out in record numbers and launched Barack Obama's campaign to the front of the pack.

So it's disturbing to see that, once the glare of the media is gone from Iowa, David Yepsen is back to his old tricks. In a column dedicated to the reformation of the Iowa Caucus, Yepsen takes aim at Election Day Registration:

Ban same-day registration

Allowing someone to just show up, claim residence in the precinct and participate is an invitation to fraud. There were allegations that happened in this year's caucuses.

It's one thing - and probably a good thing - to allow same-day registration on an election day. If there is a question about someone's residence, a provisional ballot can be cast and counted or rejected once the residence issue is settled. There isn't time for that on caucus night.

So, Iowa should cut off voter registrations for caucus participation a week or two before the events are held. That way, those officials or activists trying to run the caucuses can have a fresh list from the county election office of just who is eligible to participate.

Yes, there were allegations of fraud by people with a political interest in claiming so, and who fought the idea of student participation for months because it was a constituency disproportionately lined up against their candidacy.

The fact is, Yepsen, and others who share his opinion, are worried about a hypothetical, unproven problem that may occur in some future place and time. I'm worried about the actual problem we have now: that young people participate in our elections in lower numbers than other groups because they face larger barriers to voting than do older voters.

If we want to see more young people participate - a universal good, recognized even by those who lament "youth apathy" - than we need to make the system more accommodating to the life circumstances of young people.

When it comes to the Iowa Caucus, young people face a number of hurdles that older voters do not:

• Their transience - young people typically need to re-register every time they move. Students tend to move every single year.
• The school calendar means that students typically are not in-state during the caucuses.
• Student schedules and workloads tend to be heaviest when the caucuses are just coming onto the national radar.
• Universities do very little (if anything) to promote student participation in local elections.

All of these are contributing factors to lower voting rates among students, and Election Day Registration is a solution to all of these extra hurdles that students face. Absent any proof of fraud at a massive - election changing - level, it's hard to see how Yepsen can justify making it harder for any constituency to participate in the Democratic process.

We wouldn't put a polling place on the 11th floor of a building with no elevator access and no nearby public transportation and then wonder why elderly and handicapped people don't vote. We recognize that polling places should be handicap accessible and centrally located to address the needs of certain demographics who will use it. Absent any solid proof of fraud, how is a law that addresses the special hurdles that students face any different?

Update: Rock the Vote has issued a statement.

If this is your first time reading about this subject, the gist is this: a variety of Democratic campaigns, at the prodding of David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register, had tried to cast doubt on the right of students not originally from Iowa to participate in the caucus. At times, it has seemed as if both Clinton and Dodd, who were at first vocal on this matter, have stepped back from their position. At this point, no campaign has come forth with a clear statement affirming the rights of students to participate in the caucus regardless of where they were originally from. You can read previous reporting on this issue here, here, and here.

It boggles my mind, but this story gets worse by the day. Seriously how hard is it to understand that both the letter and spirit of the law encourage participation by Iowa students. This whole episode is really revealing the opportunistic, sleazy side of Democratic politics. That it should be this difficult to get Democratic candidates to say that young people can and should vote . . . anyway, here's the latest in this depressing saga:

This weekend, the Biden campaign issued a press release in which it dishonestly blurred the difference between paid staffers who moved to Iowa and students:

Following reports that Gov. Richardson is "asking governmental appointees and other state employees to volunteer to help his campaign by traveling to Iowa before the Jan. 3 leadoff presidential contest," and that Sen. Obama is encouraging out of state college students to "come back and caucus," the Biden for President campaign today called on Richardson and Obama to join the rest of the Democratic field in pledging to refrain from shipping in supporters to affect the outcome of the caucuses. [Associated Press, 12/6/07], [Associated Press, 12/5/07]

"Historically, the Iowa caucuses have been critical in leveling the playing field by producing viable candidates based on the strength of their ideas and character - because that's precisely what's needed to ensure a Democratic victory in the general election," said Biden for President Communications Director Larry Rasky. "The absurd amount of money we've seen in this race already endangers this tradition and mocks our values as Democrats. Gov. Richardson and Sen. Obama have a responsibility to place the people of Iowa before their personal ambitions and pledge not to tamper with the caucuses that will largely determine who is best equipped to tackle both the Republican nominee as well as the challenges before our country."

Having out-of-state staffers participate in the caucus is indeed a shady business in which no campaign should actively engage, but this is hardly equivalent to Obama's encouragement of Iowa students to return to Iowa early to participate in the caucus. I've said it four or five times already, but I'll say it again. These students have the legal right to caucus. They pay taxes in Iowa. They live in Iowa 9 months a year for at least 4 years. Some of them will stay in Iowa permanently. No one should actively dissuade them or try to muddy the waters and confuse them about their rights to caucus. All due respect to Senator Biden, but that, more than anything else, mocks our values as Democrats and his campaign should be ashamed.

Hidden deeps within the press release I also found this little nugget from Governor Richardson:

In addition, Reynolds said Richardson's Iowa staff has not and will not encourage out-of-state students to return to Iowa early to caucus, saying the campaign is ‘going to abide to the letter and the spirit of the law. I think the spirit of the law is what's most important,’ Reynolds said. [Des Moines Register, 12/1/07]

Again, I ask, what is the spirit of the law here? What is the spirit of democracy? I would argue that it is to encourage greater participation - particularly among the youngest members of our society who are just starting to become civically engaged. Apparently Bill Richardson thinks the spirit of the law means disenfranchising youth. Sad.

While Biden and Richardson were coming out on this issue, the Clinton campaign was backtracking. Last week, the campaign seemed to back away from their initial statements on the matter when Clinton’s Communications Director Howard Wolfson released this statement:

“The Iowa caucus is so special because it is based on Iowa values. We believe that every Iowan and every student who is eligible to caucus in Iowa should do so and we hope they do."

I was never very satisfied with this quote. After all, what exactly are "Iowa Values" other than code that folks like David Yepsen can interpret as supporting his "pure Iowa" caucus theory? Additionally, the whole issue here is that Clinton, Dodd, and now Biden and Richardson were casting doubt on the eligibility (or at least legitimacy) of students. This statement did nothing to address that concern.

Now it appears that my doubts were well founded. Chase Martyn, the Managing Editor of the Iowa Independent, posted this on this blog earlier this week:

On the eve of former President Bill Clinton’s visits to three Iowa colleges, Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign remains unsure of whether the roughly 40% of Iowa college students who come from out of state should participate in the January 3 caucuses.

One student at Grinnell College, where over 80% of the student body is not from Iowa, received a phone call from Clinton’s campaign Sunday. The caller invited the student, a registered Iowa voter who is from Minnesota, to attend Monday’s 5:15PM event on campus with the former president. The student, who it should be noted is not a Clinton supporter, sent along this email:

The Clinton campaign called me today and invited me to the Bill [Clinton] event. They also asked who I was planning to caucus for and if I’d ever caucused before. So I decided to call them back and asked if they even wanted me to caucus.

I said, “I’m a Grinnell College student but I’m from Minnesota. Does Hillary Clinton want my vote?”

And the woman said, “That’s a complicated issue, hold on a minute.” So she put me on hold for about two minutes, then said, “I’m going to have our youth coordinator get back to you.” And she took my name and number.

I’m still waiting for them to tell me whether I’m worthy of caucusing for Hillary Clinton.

In addition word is starting to circulate that Bill Clinton, on the stump in Iowa yesterday, was constructing straw-men to dodge the question, suggesting that students "vote their conscience" and stay away from the caucus if they didn't consider themselves "true Iowans". This is a step backward, and an unfortunate instance of the campaign telling youth organizers one thing while doing the exact opposite in practice. It reeks of Republican voter-suppression tactics.

Finally, David Yepsen has turned his nativist rant on the purity of the Iowa Caucus into a column in today's Des Moines Register, in which he continues to make not-so-veiled threats against the Obama campaign for violating the purity of the caucus:

Obama's campaign is telling Iowa college students they can caucus for him even if they aren't from Iowa. His campaign offers that advice in a brochure being distributed on college campuses in the state. A spokesman said 50,000 of the fliers are being distributed. It says: "If you are not from Iowa, you can come back for the Iowa caucus and caucus in your college neighborhood."

Given that many students in Iowa's colleges and universities are from Obama's neighboring home state of Illinois, the effort could net him lots of additional votes on caucus night. It's all quite legal, and other campaigns are signing up nonresident Iowa college students, too. But Obama's effort is unprecedented. No presidential campaign in memory has ever made such a large, open attempt to encourage students from another state to participate in Iowa's caucuses.

(But, then, they do elections a little differently in Illinois than we do in Iowa. At least you can't vote a dead person in an Iowa caucus.)

...

Credibility. It's not going to do Obama or Paul any good to have a showing in Iowa that is tainted. Obama has worked hard in Iowa. He has built an impressive organization and can win this on the legit. He doesn't need to give opposition spinners a way to discredit a victory.

So it's all perfectly legal, but it's shady because Obama is doing it on a larger scale than other campaigns? That's ridiculous. And who are these "opposition spinners?" Yepsen is the Dean of the Iowa Press Corps. He is the one who sets the narrative out of Iowa.

Quite honestly, this is craven, short-sighted stupidity on the part of all the campaigns and of Yespen. This wouldn't even be an issue if the caucus hadn't been moved up to such an early date. Students caucus ever four years, adn this has never been an issue before. Democrats and all Iowans should welcome young voters into the political process, not turn them away. And whoever the Democratic nominee is, come November 2008, I'm sure they will want students voting in Iowa, an important swing state. By making these statements now, they are undercutting their legitimacy later. As for Yepsen, he and I can at least agree on one thing: If Iowa can't get this right, then Iowa shouldn't get this sort of influence.