Party's Legal Experts: MI & FL Must Lose At Least 1/2 Of Their Delegates

[kpete]

Party’s legal experts write in memo ahead of Saturday’s meeting that the two states must lose at least half of their delegates for moving up their contests.

DNC: Fla., Mich. Can't Be Fully Restored
Wednesday, May. 28, 2008 By AP/NEDRA PICKLER

(WASHINGTON) — A Democratic Party rules committee has the authority to seat some delegates from Michigan and Florida but not fully restore the two states as Hillary Rodham Clinton wants, according to party lawyers.

Democratic National Committee rules require that the two states lose at least half of their convention delegates for holding elections too early, the party's legal experts wrote in a 38-page memo.

The memo was sent late Tuesday to the 30 members of the party's Rules and Bylaws Committee, which plans to meet Saturday at a Washington hotel. The committee is considering ways to include the two important general election battlegrounds at the nominating convention in August, and the staff analysis says seating half the delegates is "as far as it legally can" go.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1809854,00.html