Do Party Rules Matter? An Examination of State Party Bylaws and Congressional Nominations
| Published date | 01 July 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X221131556 |
| Author | Matthew J. Geras |
| Date | 01 July 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
American Politics Research
2023, Vol. 51(4) 525–542
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X221131556
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Do Party Rules Matter? An Examination of
State Party Bylaws and Congressional
Nominations
Matthew J. Geras
1
Abstract
This paper considers whether the rules governing state political parties help to explain primary election outcomes. I theorize
political parties will see lower levels of competition during primary elections when they have bylaws that centralize power
within the state central committee. To test this expectation, I created a dataset of state-level party rules by collecting and coding
provisions within the bylaws of all 100 state-level Republican and Democratic parties. I operationalize party centralization of
power as whether or not elected officials are represented within each party’s formal membership, their state central
committee, and whether or not each party has an endorsement or neutrality policy when it comes to contested primaries. I find
the centralization of party power does correlate with lower levels of competition in primary elections for the House of
Representatives in 2018 and 2020. Specifically, parties are more likely to see uncontested primaries when they guarantee ex-
officio state committee membership to their co-partisan elected officials and are more likely to see fewer candidates in general
when they guarantee ex-officio state committee membership to their co-partisan elected official s and when they do not have
rules that require the state central committee to remain neutral during contested primary elections. While evaluating the causes
of this trend is beyond the scope of this paper, these findings appear to be driven by Republican primaries.
Keywords
political parties, state politics, primary elections, competition
Introduction
In 2017, the Utah Republican Party changed their nomination
rules with the passage of Bylaw 8 which restricted candidates
from gaining primary ballot access as a Republican by col-
lecting signatures. The result of this rule change was that the
only way to gain ballot access as a Republican was to win the
support of delegates at the state party’s convention (Masket,
2018;Schott, 2019). Since Bylaw 8 conflicts with Utah state
law, the Utah Republican Party has since had to take addi-
tional action to prevent this rule from going into effect. In
fact, failing to do so would have threatened their status as a
qualified political party and banned them from state ballots
altogether. Despite this, even in the lead up to the 2020
elections, the state party had not been able to fully repeal
Bylaw 8, since a portion of the party’s state central committee
refused to do so (Schott, 2019). Ultimately, the party’s goal in
passing, and preserving, Bylaw 8 is to try and control which
candidates will be allowed to represent the party in elections.
Though perhaps not as controversial as Bylaw 8 in Utah,
many other state political parties have provisions in their
bylaws, mostly concerning the party’s ability to endorse their
preferred candidates, which allow them to have a say in
primary elections. A growing wave of scholarship finds
political parties, when defined as broad networks that include
party donors and activists, are able to sway legislative
nominations towards their desired outcomes, at both the state
level (Masket, 2009) and the federal level (Hassell, 2018), by
recruiting, endorsing, and supporting their preferred candi-
dates, while at the same time clearing the field of other
candidates. This research makes clear that broadly defined
political parties are extremely influential in primary elections
even in an era of direct primaries. However, this line of
research also raises the question of whether formal political
party organizations can be as powerful in shaping primary
elections. This purpose of this paper is to consider the
question“how do party rules affect the competitiveness of
primary elections?”in the context of the Democratic and
1
School of Politics and International Affairs, University of Illinois Springfield,
Springfield, IL, USA
Corresponding Author:
Matthew J. Geras, School of Politics and International Affairs, University of
Illinois Springfield, Public Affairs Center 350 Springfield, IL 62703, USA.
Email: mgera2@uis.edu
Republican primary elections for the House of Representa-
tives in 2018 and 2020. Specifically, I consider whether
variations in the rules governing state political parties help to
explain the outcomes of these elections.
A key factor in the success of political parties achieving
their preferred electoral outcomes is their ability to manip-
ulate levels of competition in primary elections. I evaluate
whether state political parties can use their formal rules to
influence levels of primary competition and I theorize state
political parties will see lower levels of competition when
they have bylaws that centralize power within the formal
party organization, the state central committee. To test this
expectation, I create a dataset of state-level party rules by
collecting and coding provisions within the bylaws of all 100
state-level Republican and Democratic parties. I operation-
alize centralized party power as whether or not elected of-
ficials are represented within each party’s formal committee
membership, their state central committee, and whether or not
each party has a neutrality policy when it comes to contested
primaries. Using two different indicators of electoral com-
petition during primary elections for the House of Repre-
sentatives, I find centralized power correlates with lower
levels of electoral competition. Specifically, state parties are
more likely to see uncontested primary elections when they
guarantee ex-officio state committee membership to their co-
partisan elected officials. Additionally, state parties see fewer
primary candidates in general when they guarantee ex-officio
state committee membership to their co-partisan elected of-
ficials and when they avoid requiring the state central
committee to remain neutral during contested primary
elections. While determining the causes of this trend is be-
yond the scope of this paper, these findings appear to be
driven by Republican primaries.
Ultimately, past research reveals political parties, when
defined as broad informal networks, play an important role in
shaping the outcomes of legislative elections and this research
shows that when political parties are viewed in their insti-
tutional form, they still plan an important role in shaping
levels of electoral competition. To connect these findings, I
begin by reviewing the existing literature on how political
parties can influence primary elections. Next, I offer my
theoretical expectations as to why state party rules should
exert an influence over levels of primary competition. After
doing so, I outline my methodology for testing this theory and
then present my findings. Finally, I conclude by placing my
findings in the context of the larger literature on political
parties and offer avenues for future research.
Political Parties and Primary Elections
Recent research argues political parties should be viewed as
networks or coalitions of interest groups, social groups, ac-
tivists, and policy demanders working together to win
elections in order to implement their goals (Cohen, et al.,
2008;Bawn, et al., 2012). Moreover, this scholarship finds
that when seen as networks, political parties are often quite
successful at swaying primary elections towards their desired
outcomes at both the state and federal level. For example, at
the state level, informal party organizations, made up of
officeholders, activists, donors, and other political brokers are
able to control nominations to the California Legislature by
recruiting, endorsing, and funding their preferred candidates
(Masket 2009). National party networks can use their re-
sources, particularly financial resources, to have similar in-
fluence in congressional primary elections. Specifically,
congressional candidates are less likely to dropout out of their
primary and are more likely to perform better when they are
supported by their party’s network of donors (Desmarais,
et al., 2015;Hassell 2018).
There are several explanations as to why party networks
are able to wield such influence in primary elections, despite
the fact modern U.S. elections are often described as can-
didate centered. First, political parties play an important role
in candidate recruitment (Lawless & Fox 2010;Crowder-
Meyer 2013;Broockman 2014;Karpowitz, et al., 2017;
Dowling, et al., 2022). Second, political party networks
control useful electoral resources, including campaign funds,
endorsements, and political consultants, all of which are
immensely beneficial when bestowed upon candidates
(Jewell & Olson 1978;Kolodny & Dulio 2003;Dominguez
2011;Benjamin & Miller 2019).
1
Moreover, despite the fact
party networks can be diverse with multiple goals, there is a
high degree of collaboration among the different actors within
each party network (Kolodny & Logan 1998;Brunell 2005;
Koger & Noel 2010). With this in mind, political parties can
sometimes take advantage of many voters’lack of political
knowledge to nominate party loyalists over other more
moderate candidates (Bawn et al., 2012). Finally, even when
electoral reforms, such as campaign finance laws and non-
partisan elections, are implemented political parties are not
necessarily weakened because they are capable of adapting to
and working around such reforms (Masket 2016).
The Role of State Party Organizations
Overall, the evidence that political party networks have the
ability to sway primary elections towards their desired out-
comes is convincing.
2
Despite this, it is also necessary to
consider what role individual members of a party network
play in this process. When viewing political parties as net-
works, state central committees are just one of many actors in
a party network; however, since state central committees have
immense power in shaping both party rules and goals in each
state, they can also be viewed as individual institutions. As a
result, it is necessary to consider what role state political
parties play in shaping primary elections.
Early conventional wisdom suggested state party orga-
nizations were generally weak. In the 1960s, there were
relatively few strong state party organizations (Mayhew, 1986).
However, other research suggests these claims were
526 American Politics Research 51(4)
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