Michigan delegate compromise offered

[villager]

Source: AP

Michigan delegate compromise offered

By KEN THOMAS, Associated Press Writer

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., in a letter to DNC Chairman Howard Dean, proposed that Michigan's 83 pledged delegates be chosen at congressional district conventions according to the results of the state's primary.

The party stripped both Michigan and Florida of their national convention delegates because they moved their primaries to January dates that were earlier than party rules allowed.

Under Stupak's formula, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who received 55 percent of the primary vote, would receive 47 delegates.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who pulled his name from Michigan's ballot, would receive 36 delegates. Many Obama supporters in Michigan voted for "uncommitted," which received 40 percent in the primary.

The remaining 73 delegates would be awarded based on the percentage of the popular vote garnered nationwide by Clinton and Obama after the last Democratic presidential primary is completed.

<snip>


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080331/ap_on_el_pr/primary_scramble

[MercutioATC]

1. It still doesn't result in representation for the voters.

It's a bastardization of the process that allows some people to feel good until they think about it.

[Hawkeye-X]

2. I'm afraid that Dean will be rejecting Stupak and tell him to wait for the

credentials committee to figure this out in June.

Hawkeye-X

[goforit]

23. MI and FLA should completely be rejected. 2nd chances are just not fair.

Then every state should have a second vote as well, which of course would be absolute chaos.

[LakeSamish706]

3. I think if for no other reason but to shut the Hillary supporters up, Obama should...

go for this. The fact still remains that these states should not count in accordance to what the DNC had decided... But...

[Tyler Durden]

13. Ok. decertify the NH primary and the IA caucus.

They broke the rules too, and Michigan and Florida STILL let their sorry whiny asses go first.

By the way, just keep pissing off Michigan. Florida was probably a McCain win anyway, but Michigan goes red more often than blue. All you have to do is keep pissing them off.

[MaineDem]

14. Tyler, don't you get it yet?

NH and Iowa did not break the rules. As much as you repeat the sentiment that they did, it doesn't make your statement correct.

:eyes:

[Tyler Durden]

15. Perhaps you should READ the rules:

Rule 11.A. of the Delegate Selection Rules for the 2008 Democratic National Convention states the following:
11. TIMING OF THE DELEGATE SELECTION PROCESS
A. No meetings, caucuses, conventions or primaries which constitute the first determining stage in the presidential nomination process (the date of the primary in primary states, and the date of the first tier caucus in caucus states) may be held prior to the first Tuesday in February or after the second Tuesday in June in the calendar year of the national convention. Provided, however, that the Iowa precinct caucuses may be held no earlier than 22 days before the first Tuesday in February; that the Nevada first-tier caucuses may be held no earlier than 17 days before the first Tuesday in February; that the New Hampshire primary may be held no earlier than 14 days before the first Tuesday in February; and that the South Carolina primary may be held no earlier than 7 days before the first Tuesday in February. In no instance may a state which scheduled delegate selection procedures on or between the first Tuesday in February and the second Tuesday in June 1984 move out of compliance with the provisions of this rule.


Andre Walker from "DEMOCRACY FOR NEW HAMPSHIRE" lays it out perfectly, so I'll just quote him:
http://www.democracyfornewhampshire.com/node/view/5465

"As a prelude to this diary, I am serving notice to anyone who may feel the need to opine about how the Florida & Michigan delegations should not have their voting rights restored at the Democratic National Convention; and how it is breaking the rules by seeking to have those two states' delegations votes count in Denver; notice is hereby given that before you hit that "submit" button to post your comments, you better make damn sure that what you're saying is consistent with the Charter & Bylaws of the Democratic Party of the United States, the Call to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the 2008 Delegate Selection Rules for the Democratic National Convention, and the Regulations of the Rules & Bylaws Committee for the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Ladies & Gentlemen, this whole mess surrounding the state delegations from Florida and Michigan is a result of the Rules & Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee not strictly adhering to the 2008 Delegate Selection Rules for the Democratic National Convention by applying the rules equally and fairly to all states.

(SNIP) (This is where he inserted the text of Rule 11A.

"We already know that Florida and Michigan violated Rule 11.A. by moving their primaries to a date before the first Tuesday in February. There is no argument there, but what about Iowa, New Hampshire, and yes, South Carolina too.

Rule 11.A specifically set the date for the primaries & caucuses for those three states as "no earlier than 22 days before the first Tuesday in February" (Iowa), "no earlier than 14 days before the first Tuesday in February" (New Hampshire), and "no earlier than 7 days before the first Tuesday in February" (South Carolina).
Iowa held their caucuses on January 3rd. That's more than 22 days before the first Tuesday in February. New Hampshire held their primary on January 8th. That's more than 17 days before the first Tuesday in February. And South Carolina held their primary on January 26th. That's more than 7 days before the first Tuesday in February.

Under Rule 11.A., five states were in violation of the Democratic National Committee's Delegate Selection Rules, and as such, all five states should have been punished under Rule 20.C.1.a.

Violation of timing: In the event the Delegate Selection Plan of a state party provides or permits a meeting, caucus, convention or primary which constitutes the first determining stage in the presidential nominating process to be held prior to or after the dates for the state as provided in Rule 11 of these rules, or in the event a state holds such a meeting, caucus, convention or primary prior to or after such dates, the number of pledged delegates elected in each category allocated to the state pursuant to the Call for the National Convention shall be reduced by fifty (50%) percent, and the number of alternates shall also be reduced by fifty (50%) percent. In addition, none of the members of the Democratic National Committee and no other unpledged delegate allocated pursuant to Rule 8.A. from that state shall be permitted to vote as members of the state's delegation. In determining the actual number of delegates or alternates by which the state's delegation is to be reduced, any fraction below .5 shall be rounded down to the nearest whole number, and any fraction of .5 or greater shall be rounded up to the next nearest whole number.

Yes, you read that right; under Rule 20.C.1.a., Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, and South Carolina would have all lost their super delegates and had their pledged delegates reduced by half since they all violated Rule 11.A.

However, Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina weren't punished fairly. In fact, they weren't punished at all.
And what about Florida & Michigan?
Well, we all know what happened to them.

Instead of strictly adhering to Rule 20.C.1.a. and reducing their pledged delegates by 50%, the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee decided to take it a step further. The DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee exercised the authority granted to them by Rules 20.C.5. and 20.C.6. which allowed them to "impose sanctions the Committee deems appropriate." And what were those sanctions the Committee deemed appropriate? Stripping two of the largest states in the union of all their votes at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Ladies & Gentlemen, this is what happens when the rules aren't applied equally and fairly. And as I said before, this mess is a result of the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee not applying the rules equally and fairly.
So, the next time someone starts talking about the rules, might I suggest two courses of action:

1.) Read the damn rules first!
-and-
2.) Let them know that the rules were bent to allow for Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina to keep their preferred first-in-the-nation status."

(QUOTE ENDS)


So you see, Michigan and Florida were penalized BEYOND the rules, while the rules were BENT to allow NH and IA to keep "Head of line privileges" without sanction or penalty.

Yes, I "GET IT." I watched State Senator Tupac Hudson (HEAD of Michigan Campaign Obama) TORPEDO the agreed on redo when he got instructions from the National Obama Campaign Lawyers, the Tuesday before the Thursday deadline.

So you see, it IS all politics as usual, and your man is to blame as well.

[Tyler Durden]

16. I am waiting for your retraction.

According to Rule 11.A and Rule 20.C.1.a Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina were also in violation, yet did not receive any penalty. Why is that so?

[davepdx]

19. Because those 3 states applied to the DNC for waivers.

The waivers were requested to change the date for two reasons. These waivers were all approved by the DNC. They did not change the primary/caucus sequence but rather the specific date. Michigan and Florida ended up changing the sequence.

First, South Carolina had a tradition of Saturday Presidential Primaries. They wanted to move up 3 days to accommodate that tradition.


Second, Iowa and New Hampshire asked for and received waivers to move up their caucuses because Michigan and Florida were going to jump ahead in the voting/caucusing sequence that the DNC had approved in 2006.

Reference :
Madfloridian's journal

and
Madfloridan's reference to Garry Rayno's article
in the same "Democracy for New Hampshire" website that you reference.

I'm not arguing whether what happened to Florida or Michigan was fair or not but rather I'm just trying to provide some context as to how and why those three states were not punished. I did just a little research to find this information and if I made a factual error please let me know.

[NJmaverick]

4. Just a gimmick to try and thwart the will of the people

[Liberal Gramma]

9. How can anyone possibly know the will of the people

Hillary Clinton was on the ballot. Edwards and Obama were not. How do you know how many people voted for Clinton because since Edwards and Obama weren't a choice. How do you know how many uncommitted votes were for Edwards and how many for Obama. All the uncommitted votes tell us is that 40% of the voters voted "Anybody but Clinton"

[MaineDem]

12. Exactly!

And many non-Clinton supporters stayed home. The primary vote should be a non-issue in any delegate allocation.

[Tyler Durden]

17. Fine.

Then use DNC Rule 11.A and Rule 20.C.1.a to decertify and remove the votes of New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina. They broke the same rules as Michigan and Florida, yet got no penalty.

[mbperrin]

18. Second that.

If rules are rules, let them be rules. Period.

[Zhade]

21. They're not the same rules, as has already been pointed out to you.

NT!

[knitter4democracy]

24. The courts ruled our primary invalid.

Turnout was in the toilet. So, why should we validate the primary?

I think we need a new election entirely.

[Demeter]

5. No, I Don't Think So, Stupak

Please try to be a credit to the motherland. Either one.

[AlabamaBrightBlueDot]

6. WTF

Michigan knew if they broke the rules they would be penalized. If those VOTERS are disenfranchised, they should look deep and see who exactly is to blame.

Maybe Hillary should just deal with it and play by the rules. Is that too much to ask?

I do not think that a commander in chief should be known for bending the rules, scheming and scamming to win delagates and whining her way through the primaries.

To the people- the VOTERS in Michigan and Florida... I am sorry that your party leaders got you into this mess. My kindest thoughts to you and I hope you remember that you can vote them out just like you voted them in.

[Zhade]

22. Nor should she be known for telling bald-faced lies about nonexistent sniper fire.

Yet she is, because she lied, repeatedly.

When will she finally accept her loss and move on?

[vanboggie]

7. That's not representative

I would have voted for John Edwards if I could have. Never got the chance (grumble, grumble)and many of those uncommitted votes were for Edwards. So my second choice would be Hillary, but my vote goes to Obama? Granted this is better for Hillary, but still it is not representative.

As a Michigander for Edwards, I guess it really doesn't matter to me which of the Hillobama duo gets the delegates. However, since our stupid party leaders got greedy and threw away our votes, I say keep us out of it completely. The results are meaningless.

[GoesTo11]

8. Huh and Hmmm

That's really complicated and convoluted. Look, Stupak already knows how votes were cast in all the congressional districts, and he can guess within a percent or two how the popular vote will shake out in the end. Why come up with a big weird system to say Clinton gets 11 more delegates out of Michigan than Obama and use this system to show that that's the fair outcome. Would anyone have said going in "why don't we split pledged delegates by vote share at the congressional district level, and then split all others proportional to national popular vote, counting caucus votes in some weird way". Probably not. Because it's just ad hoc. Also, when he says the non-pledged delegates will go by popular vote, how is he going to count the Michigan vote, huh? Very confusing. Basically, at this point we're never going to find a way to deal with Michigan's delegates that is fair given what happened during its primary and would also be fair in the abstract. I don't know what the answer is, but in the end, this is just a debate about how many net delegates Clinton will gain over Obama and that's a clear way to frame it.

Actually, it's a fascinating negotiation problem. As it stands, Michigan has no delegates. Clinton says that this will hurt his prospects for taking Michigan in the GE. So, she says he should accept some arrangement that gives up net delegates to her now (reducing his chance of taking the nomination) in exchange for better prospects in November. In addition, she's got a better negotiating position the more it appears that not seating MI will hurt in November, and so she's got an incentive to exacerbate the problem (by talking about disenfranchisement all the time), so she can get a deal that gives her more net delegates of all these possible arrangements. If Obama either thinks he can take MI in November regardless, then he doesn't need to give in. On the other hand, if Obama is way ahead in pledged delegates, then he can offer to give up some in MI to stop this discussion (but in that case, those delegates would do Clinton no good). Game theory says Obama tries to run out the clock and settle late by giving up some delegates for Clinton to save face, but only after the nomination is essentially locked up. Clinton tries to offset this by deteriorating MI's prospects as fast as possible. Hmmm.

[wogget]

10. Any solution

that prevents a summer of missed opportunities and bloodletting should be seriously looked at if the two remaining campaigns can agree to it. With the Clinton campaign vowing to take it to the credentials committee, essentially promising to never drop out unless MI and FL are resolved I say resolve them.

[madrchsod]

11. dumb and dumber

this too won`t go anywhere

[Zhade]

20. No. It's already been ruled an unfair election; clinton broke the rules by not removing her name.

Absolutely not. I'd say the same thing if Obama (or Kucinich!) had been in her position.