Recently, there has been some speculation that a deal has been struck with regards to the seating of delegates from Michigan and Florida. Whether or not this is true, the issue of Michigan and Florida has created the opportunity for some introspection:
Where do Progressive Democrats stand on the issue of rule-based governance?
Former President Jimmy Carter said that delegates from Michigan and Florida should not be seated at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, because "they disqualified themselves" from the primary. Senator Hillary Clinton has been actively pushing for these delegates to be seated, and has called this "a civil rights issue". As quoted by Politco columnist Ben Smith, Senator Clinton referred to this issue as "a bedrock American principle that we are all equal in the voting booth."
Indeed, the delegates from Michigan and Florida should not be seated, although I believe that they ultimately will be. It is rather unfortunate for the Democratic Party that Senator Clinton has changed her position on the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) decision to punish Michigan and Florida for breaking Party rules. Clinton’s newfound defiance against the DNC rules has put a strain on the Democratic leadership forcing them to pander between the Party nominating process and the false pretense that this process must reflect "a bedrock American principle that we are all equal in the voting booth."
It is true that the underlying liberal doctrine of the Democratic Party reflects principles of equality and justice. However, in her defiance of DNC rules, Senator Clinton has inadvertently defied these very principles. Additionally, Senator Clinton’s only chance to win the Democratic nomination is by overruling the voters; thus nullifying her position that "we are all equal in the voting booth". After all, it would take the votes of those people who happen to be more than equal to overturn the votes of those who are "all equal".
In fact, Senator Clinton does not want everyone to be "equal in the voting booth", she wants those who voted for her to be "more equal". And the only way to do that is to have votes represented by the pledged delegates be overturned by votes from superdelegates.
The 40 Year Power Struggle
When superdelegates were established in 1982, it was the result of contention over changes to the delegate process initially made as a result of findings by the McGovern-Fraser Commission (led by Senator George McGovern, an early supporter of Senator Clinton’s Presidential bid), which was formed during the brokered Democratic Convention in 1968. The McGovern-Fraser Commission, which found that hostility during the convention was related to Democratic Party leaders choosing Hubert Humphrey as the Party’s nominee, despite the party members (the voters) strongly in favor of nominating Eugene McCarthy. The Party’s nominee did not reflect the will of the Democratic voters, because Humphrey and his surrogates controlled the majority of delegates that chose the nominee. Because delegates were appointed by party leaders, and because Humphrey and his supporters were the party leaders, they overruled the wishes of the voters. As a result of this debacle, the Democratic Party changed the way delegates were allocated, giving more of a voice to the voters, whose interests the party should be representing.
In 2003 during the last Presidential campaign, Mark Stricherz wrote a story for the Boston Globe titled "Primary Colors: How a little-known task force helped create Red State/Blue State America" [As a note, Stricherz has a new book due out very soon related to this issue] In that article, Stricherz explains the original purpose of changing the delegate selection process, and notes the final outcome of the commission’s recommendation:
"First, the commission could require state Democratic parties to comply with its wishes -- the equivalent of Congress being able to do the same to each of the 50 state legislatures in the country. Second, it would require soft quotas in the selection of delegates. Women, young people, and blacks would have to be represented in numbers "in reasonable relationship" to their demographic presence.
Third, there would be an end to the practice of appointing ex-officio delegates (i.e., the cronies of the bosses) to the convention. Today, about 20 percent of delegates are still "super" or ex-officio delegates, interest group representatives, and union officials, the latter two appointed by party officials."
So, although the McGovern-Fraser commission recognized that giving extra voting power to party elites could (and did) overturn the will of Democratic voters, Stricherz notes that we still had about 20% of delegates that were ex-officio. Why is that? As it turns out, many party leaders disagreed with this idea of taking the power of delegation away from leaders (and giving that power to the Democratic voters). As a result of their discontent with the decision, a new commission was created in 1982: The Hunt Commission. The Hunt Commission created superdelegates, putting some of the power back into the hands of party leaders. I believe the idea behind this decision was that superdelegates could provide added weight to the votes by party leaders, but still allow adequate room for the voters to provide input; a sort of compromise system.
However, such a system was not perfect as it contains at least two potential paths by which to minimize the importance of the recommendations put in place by the McGovern-Fraser commission. First, the superdelegate system leaves room to minimize the importance of underrepresented groups (e.g., women, minorities, young voters, etc.), because the proportionality of those groups were not reflected in the upper echelon of the party, which was (is) vastly a group of older, white men. Second, the superdelegate system left room to, again, overturn the will of the voters if the popular vote was very close. The latter of these paths was tested in its infancy during the 1984 Democratic Convention when Walter Mondale was chosen as the Presidential nominee for the Democratic Party over rival Gary Hart. The vast superdelegate support for Mondale is what secured his nomination in 1984. At that time however, Mondale also maintained a very small lead in the popular and pledged delegate count, narrowly escaping another contested convention at the hands of the party elite.
Based on the historical series of events leading to the creation of superdelegates, it seems that the original intent of the system was, indeed, to take power away from the voters and put more power into the hands of party leaders.
Of course, this is exactly what Hillary Clinton wants. She wants more power in the hands of party leaders than with the voters. As such, Senator Clinton presents nothing less than absolute hypocrisy when she states that "we are all equal in the voting booth."
Pluralism in the Primary Process
After the McGovern-Fraser commission changed the delegation process, the Democratic Party began its transformation toward a liberal, progressive ideology. One of the goals of the commission was to address the under-representation of some groups in party decisions (e.g., women, minorities, young voters, low income voters, etc.). Throughout the last 40 years, the representation of minority groups has seemingly grown at an exponential rate. Yet, there still exist some political institutions that preclude full representation. In 2006, the Democratic National Committee decided that it might be possible to give a further boost to at least some of these under-represented groups by including two new states, Nevada and South Carolina, to the early caucus/primary schedule.
"By adding Nevada and South Carolina, the Democratic Party is significantly increasing the early participation of African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, Native Americans and labor members, as well as increasing geographic diversity by including states in all regions of the country. Also, by requiring states to adopt new Inclusion Plans for LGBT Americans, Americans with disabilities and other groups traditionally under-represented, the DNC is promoting full participation in the political process by all Americans."
-from Democrats.org
I recall listening to Howard Dean being interviewed on a cable news show. In that interview, Governor Dean explained that the primary calendar was set up in a precise way that attempts to equalize the input from a diverse population. In 2006, the official Democratic Primary calendar was adopted to reflect the new early states. However, not everyone was happy. State legislatures from Michigan and Florida announced that they would be moving their primary dates up on the calendar, so that they could have earlier influence in the primary decision-making process.
The states of Michigan and Florida were warned that moving their primary dates ahead of the DNC sanctioned primary schedules, would result in losing their delegation to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. In fact, just four years prior, then DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe had threatened Michigan with 50% of their pledged delegates should they move their primary ahead of schedule. Last year, however, legislatures of both states chose to ignore the potential consequences, and went ahead with moving their primaries to earlier dates in January 2008. As a result, and as promised, the DNC took away the states’ delegations.
Do the Means Justify the End?
While I am sure the decision to penalize Michigan and Florida for their decisions was not taken lightly, it is a decision that accounts for the importance of rule-based governance. As a matter of fundamental liberal doctrine, the end does not justify the means. In this case, our immediate end, as a party, is to build a selection process for the Democratic presidential nominee that most broadly and fairly represents the entire constituency of the party; a more pluralistic approach to party politics a la the McGovern –Fraser recommendations.
From the view of the Michigan and Florida legislatures, their immediate end was to have more influence in that nominating process. But, quite clearly, the members of these two legislative bodies were willing to sacrifice the voices of their constituencies in a power play to have more influence over the party’s nominating process, despite the party’s goals of spreading that influence out to boost representation of under-represented demographics.
In 2007, candidates for the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee each signed a Four State Pledge, agreeing that candidates not participate in any primary scheduled to take place before those of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. In February of 2008, Hillary Clinton was interviewed for "Texas Monthly Talks", and said of her agreement,
"That’s not the case at all. I signed an agreement not to campaign in Michigan and Florida. Now, the DNC made the determination that they would not seat the delegates, but I was not party to that."
In that interview, Senator Clinton attempts to separate the distinction between signing the pledge, and supporting the DNC rules that took away delegates. One could even argue an implicit inference in her statement that the decision to disallow delegates occurred after her signing the pledge. Such is not the case, however, as we know that candidates signed this pledge on August 31st and September 1st in 2007; in recognition of supporting the DNC rules. The official statement of the Clinton campaign was,
"We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process.
And we believe the DNC’s rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role.
Thus, we will be signing the pledge to adhere to the DNC approved nominating calendar."
Earlier that same day, Senator Obama’s campaign released the following statement,
"Because states that violate DNC rules will not be allowed to contribute to the delegate tally, we urge all states to ensure their compliance with DNC rules so they can participate in our Democratic nominating process. Our campaign will work within the rules established by the DNC to earn the support of Democrats across America and run a grassroots campaign to unite Americans around Senator Obama’s commitment to challenging the conventional thinking in Washington."
On the previous day, Senator Biden’s office made the statement that this pledge was to support a system of rules, and inferring that Michigan and Florida breaking the rules was an explicit display of political gamesmanship:
"They played by the rules of the DNC. We respect those rules. The public despises this kind of maneuvering for political advantage."
In other words, the Four State Pledge was an agreement to abide by the DNC primary rules. Included in those rules were that any state holding their primary prior to those in the states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina would not have their delegates seated at the Democratic National Convention. I don’t believe that Senator Clinton or her campaign would be so naïve as to think that her signing the pledge had nothing to do with those rules. As such, I can only echo the sentiments of Governor Bill Richardson who, on August 31st 2007 stated,
"I hope no candidate tries to manipulate this situation for his or her own purposes. The DNC rules were established for a purpose -- to allow retail campaigning in a few early states and choose those states based on geographic and demographic diversity. Each candidate for President should do whatever possible to preserve the established rules. Anarchy in the nominating process does nothing to further the cause of changing America."
In addition to this agreement, all but four Democratic candidates, including Senator Clinton, removed their names from the Michigan ballot, but were unable to do so in Florida. Prior to the January primaries in Michigan and Florida, it was clear that delegates from those two states would not be participating in the nominating process at all. As Senator Clinton stated during an interview with a New Hampshire radio station,
"Well, you know... it’s clear. This election they’re having is not going to count for anything."
Indeed, it should be clear. However, the issue is murkier now than it was then. As Senator Clinton’s chances of becoming the Democratic Party’s nominee went slowly from improbable to impossible, her call for the seating of Michigan and Florida’s delegations became louder. On May 11, Terry McAuliffe appeared on Meet the Press and was asked about his stance on this issue as DNC chairman in 2004 versus his stance now as Senator Clinton’s campaign manager (McAuliffe wrote in his book, "What a Party", about his threat to penalize Michigan with half of their delegation in 2004). During that discussion, McAuliffe conceded that we should at least penalize Michigan and Florida by cutting their delegation to only 50%.
Where Do We Stand Today?
For the past seven years, we have been complaining about President Bush’s blatant disregard for the rule of law. It must follow then, that Democrats adhere to these very principles. We cannot, under any circumstances, compromise our underlying ideology of justice; and, as John Rawls so eloquently stated, justice is fairness. If we concede the boundaries of rule based governance in favor of political expediency, then we will have compromised our underlying values as Democrats.
Some Democrats have argued that not including Michigan and Florida violates Democratic Party principles, and disenfranchises voters of those states. However, this argument is a gross misinterpretation of the very definition of voter disenfranchisement. There is no inherent, Constitutional, or legal right for anyone to vote in a party’s nominating process. The only outcome that even comes close to disenfranchisement would be a situation that caused voters who made decisions based on the Party rules to be null if Michigan and Florida are given a free pass. For example, some Democrats in those states may not have voted knowing the rules and consequences. Some Democrats may have voted differently than they otherwise would have knowing that their votes would not count. Some Democrats may have even voted in the Republican primaries knowing that their vote in the Democratic race would not count. Those are the people who will be disenfranchised if Michigan and Florida are not adequately punished for their selfish decisions. Unless these issues are addressed by those who want to count Michigan and Florida, then we cannot have any further serious discussions regarding this issue.
On a personal note, I believe the punishment given to Michigan and Florida was not the correct decision by the DNC. In this case, there is the appearance that the DNC has punished the voters of Michigan and Florida for decisions that their local leadership made. I believe the more appropriate punishment would have been to strip the Decmocratic leaders from Michigan and Florida of any and all duties and voting rights that they had within the Party for a period of no less than eight years. With direct consequences for their own actions, Democratic leaders in Michigan and Florida might have done more to prevent the current situation.
To exhibit such blatant disregard of Party rules is nothing short of hypocritical in light of our rightful complaints against the current administration. But, does the end justify the means? I would argue that, no, they do not. And as such, we cannot compromise that value.
I would welcome any deal that seats the delegations of Michigan and Florida provided that 1) seating these delegates does not alter the outcome of the nominating process by the 48 states and by territories adhering to Party rules, 2) adequate punishment is handed out to the Party leaders of Michigan and Florida that pushed through this decision, and 3) the issue of voters who made voting decisions based on the rules is adequately addressed. To do otherwise would be unfair to all others adhering to the rules, and thus, would compromise the Progressive values of the Democratic Party.