Iowa House Bill Would Require In-Person Participation in Caucuses
(Radio Iowa) Republicans in the Iowa House have passed a bill that would derail the Iowa Democratic Party’s plan to have mail-in presidential preference cards for the Iowa Caucuses. Representative Bobby Kaufmannis a Republican from Wilton.
“House File 716 is our Caucus integrity bill,” Kaufmann says. “…It requires the Caucuses be held in person.” Iowa G-O-P chairman Jeff Kaufmann — who is Representative Kaufmann’s father — says New Hampshire officials consider the Democratic Party’s mail-in plan akin to a primary and New Hampshire would move its primary ahead of Iowa’s Caucuses. Democrats in the House voted against the bill. House Democratic Leader Jennifer Konfrst says the legislature should not be dictating how either party conducts its business and she questions why Representative Kaufmann — who is a paid staffer on Trump’s Iowa campaign — has taken the lead on the bill.
“It’s hard to imagine it’s not something like greasing the skids for Donald Trump,” Konfrst says. The bill’s fate in the Iowa Senate is unclear. Senator Brad Zaun of Urbandale was the first elected Republican official in Iowa to endorse Trump in 2015. Zaun says he’s wary of legislators telling either party how to run the Caucuses, but he wants to see the changes House Republicans made in the bill before making a final judgment.