Jews ask for change in ’10 Caucus Date

A coalition of Jewish groups is objecting to the date of the 2010 Iowa Caucuses (read their news release below).  Here’s a bit of background:  The leaders of Iowa’s two major political parties announced in July that Saturday, January 23, 2010 would be the date for the 2010 Iowa Caucuses. These off-presidential-year party meetings are not as well attended as the presidential year caucuses. But the 2010 Iowa Caucuses will be important if none of the six potential candidates running for governor win the GOP primary in June with 35 percent of the vote. In that circumstance, a GOP nominee would be selected by convention and the convention delegates are selected in a process that starts at the precinct caucuses on January 23, 2010.

UPDATE with clarification:  you do not have to be present at the precinct caucus to be elected a delegate to the county convention, but if you want to be a county convention delegate, you’ve got to let the precinct caucus leader know in advance of Saturday, January 23, 2010 at 1 p.m. so your name can be put in consideration. There often are more county delegate slots than willing delegates, but it can be an issue if there’s larger-than-normal precinct caucus turnout.

Republican Party of Iowa chairman Matt Strawn said this morning (during taping of this weekend’s edition of “Iowa Press”) he would talk to Iowa Democratic Party chairman Michael Kiernan about the letter the two party leaders have received, but Strawn did not indicate a change would be made.

“The Caucuses are one area in which the parties do work together. Republicans and Democrats alike have to ensure that Iowa protects its first in the nation status and one thing that we need to make sure that we are involving as many people in the process as possible and that’s a decision that chairman Kiernan and I made together that we want to make sure that those folks who have working concerns, that have family concerns have the ability to participate in the process, so we decided in the non-presidential year that, as an experiment, we would try a caucus on a Saturday

“..I was in receipt of that letter (from the coalition of Jewish groups) yesterday, so I’m sure that chairman Kiernan and I will talk further on that issue,” Strawn said. Read more