The Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to strip Florida of all its delegates to the 2008 democratic National Convention, acording to The Politico. http://www.politico.com/...
I will update this diary as further information becomes available.
Some background may be found here, in a good article from this morning's Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Update 1: It appears that the vote to impose sanctions was nearly unanimous; only one clear dissenting (voice) vote was heard. The move here is clearly a shot across the bow of Michigan, which is considering legislation to set a January 15 primary that would force New Hampshire up to January 8. I'm somewhat surprised by the near unanimity here, which is a clear sign of strength for Chairman Dean, who has been a vocal critic of states jumping the gun.
Update 2: I see a comment here regarding the possibility of litigation. This is unlikely to go anywhere. Democratic Party of the US v. Wisconsin (1981) is a Supreme Court decision that makes pretty clear that national parties have the right to set their own rules for the selection of delegates. Nobody's "disenfranchising" Florida voters -- they can still vote in a primary -- what the DNC is saying is that it can't be used to apportion delegates to the convention.
Update 3: The bottom line here is that Florida may still have a January 29 primary, but it will be what is termed a "beauty contest" with no impact on the delegate selection process. It should be noted that the state party has 30 days in order to propose an alternative selection scheme to avoid these penalties. The most likely scenario is a state-party-run caucus that falls within the "window" but there are some technical issues there under Rule 20 that make that somewhat less than a neat solution.
Update 4: The unanimity here was striking, as the lone dissenting vote was from Allan Katz of Florida. http://www.nytimes.com/... Politically, this has to be seen in hindsught as a pretty shrewd move by the DNC in one respect: pulling all the delegates from the state sidesteps to some extent the problem of punishing candidates from campaigning there with the loss of pledged delegates, because there are no pledged delegates at stake. But not entirely. My reading of rule 20 C 1 b is that any campaign activity there before the January 29 primary triggers the penalty anyway. The only safe bet is to not campaign at all in Florida until after January 29. This part is tricky, and I don't have an easy answer to this dilemma, because these sanctions are mandatory under the 2008 rules. Here's the provision: "A presidential candidate who campaigns in a state where the state party is in violation of the timing provisions of these rules, or where a primary or caucus is set by a state's government on a date that violates the timing provisions of these rules, may not receive pledged delegates or delegate votes from that state. Candidates may, however, campaign in a state after the primary or caucus that violates these rules." (emphasis added)
It should also be noted that the actions today were not the last step in the process for Florida. If I'm reading between the lines correctly, the RBC voted technically to require corrective action rather than voting an outright certification of non-compliance. The distinction is key, because it probably stays the imposition of any possible penalties on candidates for appearing in Florida for at least 30 days. So, for now, the candidates are likely safe (Obama is in Miami today and there's a Univision debate on the 9th of September, IIRC).
But, even if Florida comes up with a caucus that satisfies the rules for picking delegates, a strict reading of Rule 20 gives a pretty credible argument for challenging the delegates of anyone who campaigns in Florida before the 29th of January after the certification of non-compliance and perhaps before. In a close or brokered convention scenario, the Credentials Committee proceedings over this issue could be the key the nomination. A candidate who abstains from the beauty contest would, it seems to me, have a pretty good case for unseating all the Florida delegates of a candidate who does campaign in the beauty contest and replacing them with his or her own delegates and delegates pledged to other candidates who also abstained. Its murky, because the rules don't really address how this would be handled. It could, in theory if things are close enough, be the difference between winning and losing the nomination. And, it should be noted that a challenged delegation cannot vote on its own credentials challenge. If Candidate A campaigned in Florida before the primary and has more delegates than B (who abstained) including Florida (with delegates selected in a compliant caucus), but B has more than A excluding Florida, B could possibly toss the Florida delegates of A out (because there are more votes for B than A with Florida delegates not voting) and therefore win the nomination, perhaps picking up more Florida delegates for B in the process to replace A's unseated delegates. While unlikely, it's within the realm of possibility and a pretty good indicator that any brokered convention in 2008 would be a messy affair.