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Monitor: Election 2020
The Iowa Caucus Is for Whites, and Not Anyone Else
Recent rule changes won’t fix our ongoing electoral diversity problem
In 1972 the first Black woman ever elected to Congress, Shirley Chisholm, ran for president of the United States with the campaign slogan “Unbought and Unbossed.” That same year the Democratic Party changed its primary calendar, allowing Iowa to be the first to caucus. This decision followed a very raucous 1968 Democratic convention that brought protests of the Vietnam War and other chaos that pushed Democrats to change the upcoming caucus rules. It’s interesting to think that the first Black woman would run for office the same year Democrats would enact a change to rules allowing one of the most rural and White states in the country to be the first indicator of the Democratic presidential nominee.
For no other reason than habit, the rules governing presidential election primary season have remained unchanged for almost 50 years. Until now.
Dems have worked somewhat to introduce rules intended to address access, language, and other diversity issues in terms of physically being able to attend the caucus events and potentially increase diversity. The rule designed to increase “minority participation” includes more Spanish-language…
