I’m with them 50 percent on this.
The Democratic Members of the Congressional Black Caucus recently voted unanimously to oppose any suggestion or idea to eliminate the category of Unpledged Delegate to the Democratic National Convention (aka Super Delegates) and the creation of uniform open primaries in all states.
Close all primaries, certainly. If you want to participate in a primary, pick a party. If you are too good or pure or perfect or iconoclastic to be a member of a party, then you don’t get a primary choice. Simple enough. Don’t worry! You still get to vote in November. And everyone will ooh and ahh at your rugged individualism and give you ponies and blue ribbons. But party members should get to choose their party leadership. (And eventually, I hope the party takes over the entire process for itself, which would simplify pretty much everything.)
On the other hand, the superdelegates must go. So on what grounds does the CBC defend them?
The Democratic Party benefits from the current system of unpledged delegates to the National Convention by virtue of rules that allow members of the House and Senate to be seated as a delegate without the burdensome necessity of competing against constituents for the honor of representing the state during the nominating process.
To begin with, who cares if a process “burdens” officeholders? Obviously they care. We don’t have to. The better argument is implied in their statement above, however—that seating elected officials would take away slots from grassroots activists, and that would genuinely be a problem.
But the solution isn’t to keep a system that allows a party elite to overturn the will of the primary electorate. The solution is to make elected officials “delegates emeritus” or “special delegates” or somesuch thing, and allow them to attend the conventions to party to their heart’s content! They can sit on party committees and help shape the structure of the party. They’ve worked hard to get where they are. They’ve earned the right to determine the party’s direction.
However, there’d be one big distinction between them and elected delegates: They wouldn’t have a say in the nomination. They could cheer or boo the choice of the pledged delegates, but they’d be powerless to affect their choice.
This would end an undemocratic system that obviously corrupts everyone. It led Hillary Clinton in 2008 to call for the overthrow of the people’s choice, and it led Bernie Sanders in 2016 to call for the overthrow of the the people’s choice. The existence of those supers is a siren’s song of autocratic depotism that seemingly no one can resist. It’s so weird! It’s so corrupting, in fact, that Sanders sought to influence superdelegates after spending almost the entire first year of his candidacy bashing them.
(Warning, nerd reference coming up...) Our superdelegate system is the One Ring of the Democratic Party.
Furthermore, it creates uncertainty and drags out primaries long past their sell by date. Both Clinton in 2008 and Sanders in 2016 would’ve lost the impetus for their campaigns far earlier if they couldn’t pretend there was a supposed path to the nomination, a path that would only serve to undermine the choice of the people.
Which brings up the one final argument for superdelegates (and one that the CBC didn’t make, but some of you in the comments will): That we need the superdelegates to protect us from our own version of Donald Trump.
So here’s the thing—if we nominate Democratic Donald Trump, then we fucked up and we suffer the consequences. Sundering the party in two as one half tries to wrestle the nomination from the half who voted for Crazy Dem wouldn’t spare us a disaster election, it would simply guarantee it. In such a scenario, there would be no “saving” us from ourselves. We would’ve fucked up royally, and no white knight could bail us out.
So no, we don’t need a safety valve. We don’t need grownups to sign off on our work. If we commit to a democratic process to chose our nominee, then we take the good with the bad. Otherwise, you might as well ditch primaries and let our nominees get chosen the old-fashioned way, in a smoke-filled backroom packed with a handful of party elders. And yeah, I’m not keen to go back to that.
The letter from the CBC ends with this:
Finally, the members of the Congressional Black Caucus respectfully request that we be included in any discussion that will change the system of unpledged delegates. In addition, we should be included in any discussion that would seek to change the nominating rules to open primaries. These are significant issues that directly affects our ability to effectively participate in the political process.
That should go without saying, and that goes doubly so when it comes to representatives of underrepresented and disadvantaged groups. This is obviously a shot at a Sanders camp which has exhibited a “my way or the highway” stance on primary reform. It’s a signal that there are bigger issues at play here than any sour grapes or score settling, and must be properly considered in any reform process.
This isn’t about agreeing or disagreeing (look at me, constructively disagreeing with half of this CBC letter!). It’s about realizing that we are a big diverse party, and we must work with all the relevant stakeholders when making decisions. And when all is said and done, no one will get everything they wanted.
Again, that should go without saying. But it had to be said.