AP: Michigan State Senate Adjourns w/o Passing Revote

Via TPM:

The state Senate has adjourned without taking up a presidential primary bill, essentially ending Michigan's chances of holding a June 3 do-over Democratic election.

While there still is a possibility a last-minute deal can be reached, lawmakers' lack of enthusiasm for a second election paid for by private donors means that's unlikely.

I think many of you know my opinion about a possible revote -- that it would be a travesty to reward two jurisdictions who violated party rules when 53 others did not.  Why should Michigan and Florida have more say than Pennsylvania and the other jurisdictions that actually followed the rules?

So what's my solution to the problem?  Please see syndicated columnist Mark Shields's solution:  have a 50% penalty for both Florida and Michigan, and seat both the pledged and superdelegates (with the 50% penalty), which favor Sen. Clinton in those two states.  Anybody here have a better idea?

•  I'm suprised this hasn't been posted. n/t

  by jim bow on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 02:53:24 PM PDT

  •  because those of us in the state

    knew it was never gonna happen. It never made it to the floor and if it did, it was waiting certain death by the majority republicans. It was never a serious option. The only revote that might have happened was a caucus, but that was opposed by both camps for different reasons. A primary wasn't a realistic option.

    Dead. On. Arrival.

    by dougymi on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 04:58:40 PM PDT

•  So, how do you think

  Hillary will spin this as Obama's fault when it seems pretty clear this is the MI Senate?

  Has he bought all of them off?

  by Particle Noun on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 02:54:03 PM PDT

  •  Last night on KO

    I was hearing that the MI dems were griping about hillary showing up to try and push this thing and they were reluctant to vote for it because it would look like it was pushed in a manner to only benefit Hillary Clinton. They want to keep their jobs.

    by Dreggas on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 02:56:49 PM PDT

  •  Here's one idea that's been mentioned.

    If you believe voters are being disenfranchised, then why do you oppose a caucus, which is certainly much more democratic than having no vote, is much cheaper, and privately funded?

    by jim bow on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 02:57:29 PM PDT

    •  It's simple: because she'd lose a caucus

      Hillary is so transparent that it's ridiculous.

      by scimitar on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 02:58:24 PM PDT

      •  too bad it's not

        the kind of transparency in government we're really looking for...

        by RidleyGriff on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:05:23 PM PDT

      •  A link to what Hillary said about MI

        some time ago

        http://youtube.com/...

        by mobiusein on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:36:43 PM PDT

    •  the devil is in the details

      would the redo be a caucus or primary?  who will pay for it (hillary donors?)  what about obama & edwards supporters that voted in the republican primary, will they be allowed to vote (because I've heard they wont be, thats a big problem.)    

      the last point is the big one because everybody is looking for a fair solution but if a redo excludes all sorts of democratic voters than how can that be called fair?  

      by soros on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:45:32 PM PDT

      •  Note that with a Michigan caucus...

        ...at the moment, they wouldn't be able to limit it to who voted in the primary, owing to a pending ACLU lawsuit.  There's a DNC rule that prohibits voters voting in a Republican primary from voting in a Democratic one, but the DNC was calling for caucuses and suggested that rule could be waived owing to the unique circumstances here.

        by other72384 on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:59:50 PM PDT

  •  She's saying he blocked it.

    That the DNC approved a re-vote plan and Obama, by not enthusiastically suppoorting it, blocked its adoption.
    And Obama's spokesman has handed her a talking point that she'll keep hammering on right up to the convention.

    by tbetz on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:22:54 PM PDT

    •  It's a true talking point

      Hillary swooping in and coming across like she was  BUYING the election seriously turned off neutral Democratic state senators involved in the process.

      In fact, that's where Team Obama probably GOT the talking point from!

      by other72384 on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:33:36 PM PDT

    •  she's wrong and somewhat disingenuous, then

      It was the MI senate's fault. Both parties but mostly the pubs, since they would have blocked anything that might have benefited Democrats.

      disclaimer: I blame republicans for almost everything bad that happens.

      by dougymi on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 05:02:58 PM PDT

•  I disagree with you on your oppinon of a revote

  A revote is allowed by way of the DNC rules, so I don't see a problem with it if they did it.

  With that being said, hopefully this puts an end to the whole Michigan/Florida sideshow, and we can go back to focusing on the campaign.

  by smash artist on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 02:55:48 PM PDT

•  I'm happy

  Because now the candidates may actually come visit us primary voters in South Dakota on June 3rd. I was rooting for this Michigan vote to fail - and I got my wish.

  by scimitar on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 02:56:35 PM PDT

  •  Evil, evil, evil, mate.

    by The British Observer on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:03:46 PM PDT

    •  Definitely evil

      But entirely rational. I'll be the first to admit my Schadenfreude!

      by scimitar on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:07:02 PM PDT

•  If the Michigan and Florida primaries

  didn't count for anything -- as the DNC and most fair people can agree -- why use them as a yardstick when determining delegate splits? Hillary herself said the Michigan primary was meaningless. So how can she now justify splitting delegates according to the results of a bogus election? Makes no sense to me.

  The delegates should be split 50-50 at this point.

  by jeepdad on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 02:57:28 PM PDT

  •  I agree.

    The DNC rules have to be enforced.  Otherwise, Democrats go into the fall looking like a party that can't enforce its rules.

    Also, if FL and MI are allowed to revote, what affect does that have in 2012?  If there is a close election, will other states just move their party's primary to July or August for more influence?

    by jim bow on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:01:40 PM PDT

    •  Consider this from The Field today:

      James Roosevelt Jr. of Massachusetts, cochairman of the Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee, said in an interview with the Globe that he doubts there will be a resolution of the standoff without the states devising do-over contests to be held before June 10...

      Roosevelt, asked whether the party might yield to a compromise to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations that did not include another contest approved by the Democratic National Committee, said: "As long as it could affect the outcome, [there’s] no chance of that."

      by jeepdad on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:08:08 PM PDT

•  Can this be laid squarely in the Repubs' lap?

  The state senate is Repub-controlled ... and since the Florida legislature is Repub-controlled ...

  by Christian Dem in NC on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 02:57:52 PM PDT

  •  I think the House vote was unanimous.

    by jeepdad on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 02:58:55 PM PDT

  •  I DO blame it on the publicans.

    It never made it to the floor of the state senate because of haggling between Democrats, but the pubs were waiting in the wings to block anything that was introduced. They were all smiles today at the capitol building.

    The MI republican party would prefer to gnaw their own foot off than to help Democrats in any way. As I've said before, they're like overgrown college republicans. They love playing games.

    by dougymi on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 05:06:14 PM PDT

•  Even seating 50% is unfair

  Because there was no real campaign in Michigan or Florida, so those contests are illegitimate.

  by NewAmerican on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:00:05 PM PDT

•  Great news!

  Michigan and Florida shouldn't be granted the honor (and power) of going last.

  I agree with Shields' solution with one amendment: don't seat any Super Delegates from these states. They are the very people who caused this mess, and they should be held responsible for it.

  by The Bagof Health and Politics on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:01:06 PM PDT

  •  Oh that'll really make things better. (eom)

    by Larry Bailey on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:37:05 PM PDT

•  obama was against it

  Because Michigan was promoting a closed Democratic primary that precluded any votes by Democrats who participated by voting Republican in the first primary which was supposed to not count, and so it disenfranchised those who used their Democratic vote to tilt the race to Romney, and would not allow Independents to vote.  Even though Michigan has open primaries that do not require proof of Democratic party registration.  Which essentially changes long-standing rules for Michigan's political primaries and would require any independent voter to give up their independent status and register as Democrat in order to participate.  The results would be profoundly skewed.

  And any solution that gives validity to any aspect of the decertified primary election will open the door to more primary madness in future elections.  The revote plans should have failed and did.

  by louisev on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:02:05 PM PDT

  •  james carville was on

    cnn shouting everybody down like a one-man noise machine. what a tiresome man he is. he kep saying 'i can put up 50 million, you do the same' as though a bought election didn't stink to high heaven. i'm interested in the math; if the majority of votes went to hillary, and those voters were not allowed to revote, wouldn't that mean that hillary loses a lot of votes? maybe the numbers were small, but i like obama's insisting that 'every vote counts'. i'd enlarge on that - every vote counts or none do.

    by carlyle4 on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:08:21 PM PDT

    •  Carville's from Louisiana

      Bought elections may be all he knows. :)

      (Of course, being from Michigan, I shouldn't talk about Louisiana politics when my state's politics are so screwed up at the moment.)

      by other72384 on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:19:02 PM PDT

    •  The only votes that weren't going to count

      were the Indy and Dems that voted in the Repub Primary....at least that's the way I understood it.

      by hollywood politcaljunkie on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:19:13 PM PDT

      •  yes, but it was more complicated

        they don't have a record of who voted in which, so they were going to require people to certify that they didn't vote for a repub in the first primary.  If that isn't a recipe for both fraud and lawsuits, I don't know what is

        by eparrot on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:59:57 PM PDT

    •  And don't forget his other reasons too.

      Obama had a memo listings lots of other reasons why the proposed revote wouldn't be fair.  For example, the exclusion of the Michigan overseas voters and the assertions by the local clerks that the revote was logistically impossible.

      by SheLawyer on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:28:02 PM PDT

•  What will the Arkansas Mafia do now?

  They are down to 1 argument and 1 argument only: Rev. Wright. If the party elders deny Obama the nomination over a race matter, the party is done forever. Goodbye millions of young voters. Goodbye black loyalty. Goodbye Obama coattails. Hello, President McCain.

  by MJJLWolf on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:02:32 PM PDT

  •  I think the way this Wright thing is going

    it's becoming patently about race, so the Clintons need to be careful how they push it. The Democratic establishment needs to be sensible as to how they tilt the race, if not the Democratic Party is literally fucked for a generation. Here's what my friend said tonight, he said: "The Clintons will probably vote for McCain if they don't get the nomination. It's personal to them."

    by The British Observer on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:07:04 PM PDT

    •  LOL! So true.

      People simply do not realize how important this thing is to Hillary. This is 'it' for her. No one in the history of these United States has wanted the Presidency more than this woman.

      by MJJLWolf on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:29:57 PM PDT

•  Seat the two delegations as they are or...

  ...face tough times in each state in November.  Both states are barely winnable in the best of times.  Give the GOP the additional hammer of "the Democrats value their party rules over your vote" and November is looking bleaker and bleaker.  

  by Larry Bailey on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:06:13 PM PDT

•  Hillary is getting crispy

  Not quite toast yet, but getting closer.  It will be interesting to see what her next ploy is.  Maybe she'll throw the sink hole she's in at him.

  by accumbens on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:06:54 PM PDT

  •  More like the fat lady is approaching the mic,

    the Master of Ceremonies is testing the mic -- on some mic check 1,2 thing. In short, my good sir, the fat lady is getting ready to sing.

    by The British Observer on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:11:16 PM PDT

•  I want to be able to vote for Obama :(

  by aerojad on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:07:11 PM PDT

  •  after the nomination is decided in Obama's favor

    he can be gracious and seat them.

    by ronnied on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:09:16 PM PDT

•  I'm very happy I got "disenfranchised"

  I live in Michigan and we knew it was a fiasco BEFORE the election. Most of my politically-engaged friends and I DID NOT VOTE and none were too worried about not getting a chance for a re-vote. The "drama" was only that our Governor is hated, term-limited and angling for a job in the Hillary administration and kept feeding the media every time the so-called controversy would die down exactly the same way GOP Governor Crist was doing in Florida. Obama was right to go by the rules. It's too bad Hillary is out there trying to score points by saying she supported our votes when she never said ONE WORD BEFORE the election! I do think Dean mucked this up pretty bad and it may have hurt Obama's chances to win both Florida and Michigan in November. I hope he makes a few campaign stops here and gets Hillary to campaign here for him.

  by Joe Willy on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:08:33 PM PDT

•  Hillary Clinton has the nerve to blame Barack

  Obama for that. What is not being said that much is that they will count the votes that Clinton has already gotten and the votes that she will get if there was a new primary. How is that fair? James Carville is trying to suggest that everyone watching CNN can see that Obama is afraid. I couldn't stop laughing at that.

  by Highwind on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:09:42 PM PDT

•  50 penalty, no supers (otherwise

  they would count as a full vote to an elected delegate's half) because they caused the mess, and finally,  because Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan, that state's delegates should be split 50-50.

  by True Independent on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:10:32 PM PDT

•  Following the rules.

  These were illegitimate contests and no one should be seated. We can deal with the consequences.

  by nomes on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:10:48 PM PDT

•  It was never gojng to pass as a primary

  It required a supermajority of state legislature and there was nothing in it for Republicans, and lots of county clerks opposed on legal and overwork grounds (they effectively have another election wedged in between May and August, contrary to what a prominent newspaper had reported initially).  They also tied changing of school elections to it gratuitously.  Reasonable legislators without bias for any of our candidates were opposed.

  Team Hillary folks control legislature and are trying to pin this on Obama, but most of what he's done is raise the same legal liability issues that the (admittedly Republican) Secretary of State would reasonably raise.  The Democratic head of Michigan Association of County Clerks referred to this as "the impossible dream".  

  by other72384 on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:16:19 PM PDT

•  GOP state senate leader Mike Bishop

  is already peddling the idea that the GOP just sat back and waited for the two rival camps to agree on something that his caucus could get behind (in Michigan, for a law to take immediate effect it has to pass by a 2/3 majority, so significant GOP support would be needed in any case).  Of course, he blames the rancor that exists between the Clinton and Obama factions, but it is clear that Clinton's proposal that she's been touting as DNC-approved was never going to get by Bishop as it did not guarantee that the State of Michigan would not have to foot the bill for the primary.

  There were three parties involved in this process: Obama's people, Clinton's and the GOP.  None of them were in any agreement at any point.  So don't buy that this fell apart only because Obama was being disagreeable.

  by GOTV on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:16:51 PM PDT

  •  Michigan State Senate GOP always sits back

    That's a core competency with them.

    They do have a point about the bill.  No one really knew the true costs of another primary, especially when you factor in the costs of handling lawsuits down the road.  For all we know, $12 million or whatever it was may not have been enough, and we may not know the true costs until months later.  There's still an ACLU lawsuit pending from the LAST primary which hasn't really started yet.

    by other72384 on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:23:38 PM PDT

    •  Yeah, but the larger point is

      that Clinton is going to spin this as Obama's fault, and that she was prepared to proceed to a re-vote, when, in fact, her plan would never have been approved, even had Obama's people in the legislature (such as Buzz Thomas) signed off on it.

      by GOTV on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:53:02 PM PDT

•  No revote, no delegates

  How can Hillary possibly claim an advantage, even a 50% reduced advantage, WHEN THERE WERE NO LEGITIMATE CONTESTS.  Sorry about the utterly obnoxious caps, but fuck, people are dense.  Here's a better idea: 50-50 split-end of story, lets move on.

  by nwgates on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:22:40 PM PDT

  •  If those deles are "not legitimate", then why...

    ...would you even seat those delegations split 50/50?  Still "not legitimate", no?

    by Larry Bailey on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:36:09 PM PDT

    •  Sure

      I don't really care at all, so long as neither cand. is advantaged.  

      by nwgates on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:45:10 PM PDT

•  Solution:

  MI and FL dont count for the first round on the convention. Give the delegates their VIP Party passes.
  If it goes to 2nd (or more) round, let them weigh in.

  by Jef Cole on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:25:14 PM PDT

  •  No way. Delegates from a state

    where Obama was not even on the ballot should not be determining the nominee.  No way.

    The gutless party "leaders" should just resolve this now.  A huge number of superdelegates should just band together and formally announce that they are going to vote for whoever has the majority of delegates elected under the rules.  IMO, by the end of this, valid Florida and Michigan primaries would not have made a material difference in the delegates anyway and Clinton is making these states a red herring anyway.

    by NomDeKos on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:30:25 PM PDT

    •  My solution

      Was made on the assumption that the clinton-train will crash and burn.

      Pipe dreams. But hey. :)

      by Jef Cole on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 04:25:14 PM PDT

•  Well, that's that

  Can we go forward now?

  by chicago minx on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:51:40 PM PDT