My Best Life

Caucus Season in Iowa

I'm really in my element this time of the year. It's caucus season in Iowa! I'm a precinct captain for the Hillary campaign. It means getting on the phone, calling my neighbors, and asking them to caucus for Hillary. You may wonder what a caucus is and how it works. Well, I'm glad you asked. Basically, this is how it goes.

First, you show up at your precinct caucus. It is sometimes located where you vote, and sometimes not. However, it is always located near your home, unless you live in rural Iowa, where the precincts are pretty spread out. For example a friend of mine who lives in rural Norwalk has to drive to Winterset, which is nearly 20 minutes away. In contrast, my caucus is being held just six blocks away at Callanan Middle School.

The republican caucus is simple. You show up, split into presidential preference groups, the groups are counted, and then that's it. The democratic caucuses are a little more complex:

1. Show up at 6:30 and register. Here's where you find your caucus site: http://www.iowafirstcaucus.org/caucus_finder.php
2. Sit in your candidate's preference group. There will be signs for every major candidate.
3. Be counted. The caucus leader will count the entire group to get a total count.
4. The preference groups are then counted. In a large caucus (one that elects 4 or more delegates), that means your preference group needs to have at least 15% of the total caucus goers.
5. Determine viability. If your group contains less people than needed to be viable, your group must realign with a viable group.
6. Realignment. Your group has up to 30 minutes to realign. You may realign whether or not you were in a viable group.
7. Recount the groups.
8. Elect delegates. If Hillary and Obama equally split the caucus, and the caucus elects 8 delegates, each group is awarded 4 delegates. Alternates are also elected at this time.
9. Party business. If you'd like to stay to determine the party platform, now is the time to contribute. Otherwise, you can go home.
10. Be proud! You have just attended an Iowa caucus! Yeah for you.

Drunk Boating Lobby??

There is a bill in front of the Iowa House that would change the blood alcohol limit from .10 to .08 for anyone operating a boat on Iowa waterways. The current Iowa drunk driving threshold is .08. Last night on the news, I saw House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy talking about how rare it is for boaters to get in accidents and that a new limit is not needed. Tell that to the family of Michael Brosnahan, the Perry man who was killed by a drunk boater in 2005 on West Okoboji Lake. This bill passed unanimously in the Iowa Senate in January, so I guess the drunk boating lobby has had a chance to organize since then and influence some Iowa House members...

I hope they do the right thing and pass the bill. When drunk boaters take their boats out of the water and drive home, how do they get there??? Hmmm....