Effort To Abolish Superdelegates Fails At DNC Rules Meeting

[Purveyor]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- An effort to fully eliminate superdelegates in future elections failed at a meeting of the Democratic National Convention rules committee Saturday.

At the gathering in a Philadelphia conference room, a delegate for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders offered an amendment to get rid of superdelegates - party insiders who can vote for the candidate of their choice at the convention. The amendment was defeated, though it earned enough support to force a floor vote at the convention. More amendments on superdelegates were expected at the meeting.

Aaron Regunberg, a Sanders delegate and a Rhode Island lawmaker, argued the current system does not "reflect our core values." But Clinton supporters argued the superdelegate system brings more people into the political process and instead called for a more extensive review of the nominating process.

Sanders has been critical of superdelegates during his contentious primary fight with presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. His supporters argue that Clinton's substantial superdelegate lead may have influenced the outcome of the race, although Clinton also led Sanders with pledged delegates. Late in the race, Sanders sought to flip superdelegates with little success.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DEM_2016_CONVENTION_RULES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-07-23-16-57-15

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Dems Pledge Floor Fight In Philly Over Superdelegates

A group of Democratic delegates are pledging to take a fight over election reforms all the way to the floor of the party's convention in Philadelphia next week.

The push to eliminate superdelegates — the party officials who can cast their vote for any candidate — comes as the Rules Committee is expected to meet Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia.


"We're going to go in and we're going to call on the Rules Committee to do the right thing," Diane Russell, a state representative from Maine, said during a press conference ahead of the meeting. "Then we're going to take our fight to the convention floor."

Aaron Regunberg, a Rhode Island state representative and a member of the Rules Committee, said he'll offer an amendment during Saturday's meeting to eliminate superdelegates.

MORE...

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/288972-democrats-pledge-floor-fight-in-philadelphia

[SunSeeker]

1. Superdelegates give people of color more of a voice in our party.

And they are a firewall against a Trump-like demagogue from assuming the nomination.

[Purveyor]

2. Lord just hold my words... eom

[oberliner]

3. Congressional Black Caucus was strongly opposed to getting rid of super delegates

Just FYI.

[Jopin Klobe]

18. Congressional Black Caucus PAC endorses Hillary Clinton

Just FYI.

“We need her leadership, her vision, her dedication than ever before,” said Rep. John Lewis, the iconic civil rights leader from Georgia who backed President Obama in 2008. “We must get out our vote like we never, ever voted before.” ...
LINK:www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/02/11/congressional-black-caucus-endorses-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders/80230142/

[oberliner]

23. Exactly

Makes sense.

[MichMan]

57. Of course they are

I am pretty certain that nearly all elected officials like the concept of having superdelegates.............because they are one

[Jopin Klobe]

19. Please ...

... hold mine, too ...

[stopbush]

5. Yep. Glad we're keeping them. The floor vote will fail.

[BlueCaliDem]

52. Me, too. eom

[Craig234]

7. People of color get and deserve one vote, no more, no less

They don't deserve 'more of a voice' than that. That's not free - if one group gets more, another group gets less, in democracy.

For a firewall against a trump-like demagogue: try trusting the voters not to vote for one.

There's another side to preventing a trump-like demagogue.

Imagine a corrupt party, and the voters wanting to vote change - it allows the party to take away the power of the voters to choose.

THAT is the relevant issue.

Super-delegates are anti-democracy - period. They put party above voters - period.

Let's work on some better reforms than 'super-delegates'

Get money out of elections, make the party run primaries fairly, public financing, fair media coverage (I don't mean forcing what media outlets show, I mean providing a core amount for any qualified candidate, such as PBS/NPR providing coverage).

[SunSeeker]

12. The regular delegate process, because of time and cost involved, weighs against POC.

The Superdelegates, which include POC in Congress, help make up for that. That is why the Congressional Black Caucus supports the existence of Superdelegates.

It is vote-supressing caucuses that should be abolished.

[Craig234]

41. Solve it in a way that makes things better not worse

Have concern people of color have a hard time participating because of cost? Create funding for them. Done.

DON'T 'fix' the problem by saying 'every Congressman is a super-delegate, to give POC justice!'

[paparush]

27. You perfectly summed up where my head is today.

Well put.

[Sand Rat Expat]

30. ^ THIS.

[Surya Gayatri]

15. Yes, after witnessing the debacle that was the Repub. nominating process,

I can only conclude that a firewall of proven party stalwarts seems to be a wise and judicious rule.

"The Wisdom of the Elders" has been respected throughout the ages. The number of supers and the manner of their selection could perhaps be modified, however.

Demogoguery is alive and well, as we have so recently observed, and grabbing the levers of power of a major political party is one hell of a way to put it into practice.

[reACTIONary]

29. +100 nt

[XemaSab]

32. This is why Trump's pandering to the racists

"Black people's votes should count MORE than the votes of white people."

That's what you're saying, and that's not a defensible perspective.

Go ahead, try to defend it.

Meanwhile, playing on the *perception* that white people are being disenfranchised is going to make this a waaaaaay tighter race than it should be.

[SunSeeker]

46. No, that's not what I'm saying. Superdelegates don't make black votes count more.

Black voters are woefully underrepresented in the nominating process, especially in caucus states, because of the various barriers to voting, both intentional and unintentional, that disproportionately affect people of color. Making members of Congress superdelegates does not even come close to making up for that, but it does help. And it acts as a firewall to any demagogue hijacking our nominating process.

[Midnight Writer]

47. Nobody was disenfranchised. Remove all super delegates, Clinton still wins decisively.

[Grey Lemercier]

37. this ^^^^^^^^^^

[MichMan]

56. I thought POC voting participation was higher than their share of the population?

Don't POC turn out to vote in higher numbers than their percentage of the population?

If so, that means that Superdelegates cause their votes to to be underrepresented.

[SunSeeker]

58. No. Primaries, particularly caucuses, suppress votes. nt

[HR_Pufnstuf]

4. Undemocratic.

HCR popular votes: 15,805,136 votes

HRC pledged delegates: 2,205

Therefore, EACH super delegate vote is worth the same as 15,805,136/2,205 = 7,168 votes

No one is THAT super!

This system is undemocratic.

[DURHAM D]

6. Really??? Nothing compared to caucuses. nt

[Craig234]

8. False argument

A popular false response to an issue is to dodge it by saying 'hey there's this other issue'.

It's like Mao saying 'forget the millions I killed, have you seen what Stalin did?'

Caucuses are a different issue. Maybe they're a problem or not, maybe they're worse or not.

It has nothing to do with the fact you responded to: super-delegates are anti-democracy.

[DURHAM D]

10. Please see response # 9

[msongs]

9. yes but a candidate we know did great in caucuses so they are automatically democratic lol nt

[cstanleytech]

11. From what I read its largely meant to prevent spoiler candidates like say

the Republicans try to run a spoiler candidate to try and claim the Democratic nomination in which case thats ok by me because the truth is that is something they would try to do in a heartbeat if the superdelegates were not there as a firewall.

[LiberalFighter]

26. Except each state is different with election turnout.

Iowa delegates would be 2,700 each while in Florida it is 7,000 each. California it is 9,358 votes per delegate.

When using primary results delegates are not all the same.

Allocation of delegates to each state are not based on primary results. They are based on general election results from the past 3 presidential elections. States that have nearly the same population do not necessarily have the same number of delegates.

Florida and New York have only a population difference of only 252,693 residents. Yet New York has 45 more delegates than Florida. Because states receive bonus delegates based on election turnout, when they schedule their primary/caucus, whether it is in conjunction with neighboring states, and if they have elected Democratic officials. It encourages states to increase voter turnout and elect more Democrats. It places more emphases on states that are likely to vote Democratic. It has worked for over 30 years.

Taking away the automatic delegates reduces the participation by grassroots activists and also the needed support of those automatic delegates that is critical to win the election.

[The Green Manalishi]

13. If I recall correctly, the idea behind SD's

Was to prevent deadlocked conventions that went 20-30 rounds of voting. The underlying belief is that a deadlocked convention causes disunity and strife. The Superdelagates are there to ensure there is a choice on the first or second ballot to avoid a rehash on 1972.

[Jopin Klobe]

21. Thank you ...

[paparush]

33. Man, with all due respect, that's still no reason

Where does it say Democracy needs to be speedy? This smells like it's driven more by the television networks than it is driven by ensuring the will of the people is put forth. We need this wrapped up by the 11:00 news cycle. Ugh. If the College of Cardinals can lock themselves in a room for days on end to select a new Pope, party delegates can invest similar time and energy into fairly selecting a candidate.

[The Green Manalishi]

54. I feel ya...

The problem - as it was perceived, not necessarily MY opinion - is that when you get deadlocked it makes the appearance of the party not having its shit together, lets the most disruptive factions get air time, things that can cause elections to be lost. Endless rounds of voting are going to be public, not like the Cardinals, and it can create the perception that none of the candidates is really that popular even in their own party, which is not what you want heading into the general. In the age of TV the convention (again, the reasoning behind this, not my view of how things should be) needs to be a four day 'free' infomercial...

[paparush]

55. That's a solid, well stated response.

Thanks.

[The Green Manalishi]

59. You're welcome

1972 was a mess from the standpoint of winning the general (however it was the first time that some previously excluded groups actually got to participate).

It is probably that McGovern would have lost anyway, but the optics made it look like this was not a group of people you would want running the country. Of course it was much easier for the powers that be to control the perception back then and Nixon had a hell of an effective campaign staff (1968 was arguably the greatest comeback in American history) and was taking no chances...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Democratic_National_Convention

[mainstreetonce]

14. If the Republicans had Super delegates

Trump might not have won.

[Jopin Klobe]

22. If The People had a true vote each for their individual voices ...

... we might have an actual free vote in an actual democratic republic ...

... if we could have kept it ... (h/t Ben Franklin) ...

[Hortensis]

24. That's why we have them. But HRC had the

popular vote and so won without needing the massive number of extra votes they gave her -- because they believed she was the better candidate.

Note that it is NOT undemocratic unless superdelegate votes overset the popular vote, which they never have. Not in prior years and notably not in this one.

That said, I'd be fine with tweaking or even removing IF we had other safeguards to keep outsiders from sweeping in and stealing the primary from registered Democrats.

Caucuses and closing open primaries are where we need to put our effort. The first are profoundly undemocratic and both are vulnerable to electoral manipulations by non-Democrats.

[LongtimeAZDem]

31. +1 (nt)

[ToxMarz]

25. How'd that work out for her in 2008

Superdelegates have never overruled the results of the primary voters, and they are not the reason someone other than Hillary is not the nominee. She received the most votes, period. I don't really care whether they have them or not, but the inference that they are the only reason Clinton is the nominee is REALLY annoying and untrue.

[Renew Deal]

17. I wonder which way the 800 or so super delegates will vote?

[Grey Lemercier]

36. most will vote for the next President of the United States of America aka Hillary Clinton

[Renew Deal]

39. I mean on getting rid of super-delegates

[Grey Lemercier]

40. they will vote "keep"

[liberal N proud]

20. Good news!

[LongtimeAZDem]

28. Superdelegates are a safeguard against hysterical populism (nt)

[MohRokTah]

34. OUTSTANDING!!!

That's the best news I've heard all day.

[Grey Lemercier]

35. Close the primaries and ffs get rid of the caucuses, the SD's are fine with me

As a person of colour, and an strong supporter of the CBC, I stand completely with them on this. The SD's are needed to stop a Trump type, and were there (they were not needed luckily as Hillary cruised to a large victory)) to stop a Sanders type as well, who for all the hype and false reasoning based off laughable polls, was the WEAKER GE candidate than Sec. Clinton.

The Sanders tax plan would have killed him in the GE. Imagine trying to sell a person making 45,000 usd per year that they will have to pay 5000 usd more per year in tax. Thats a non-starter for tens of millions of voters. For small business owners you are talking even higher. Not to mention that Trump (or any Republican for that matter) and nefarious elements in the MSM (Fox fucks, I am looking at YOU) would have red baited the hell out of him. Bernie never faced anything like a full fury blasting from anyone.

Just an FYI btw, 45K usd is less than the US per capita GDP, so it cannot be said I am picking a "high" figure.

[riversedge]

38. Good

[sofa king]

42. You know why Trump is the Republican nominee?

Because Republicans don't have superdelegates. Our system was specifically designed to keep the Wallaces, Dukes and Trumps out.

I'm sorry if it hurt Bernie Sanders, but he knew how the deck was stacked, and he still sought to retain his usurper status, which our system is designed to prevent. A noble gesture, but a gesture nonetheless.

[Purveyor]

44. Sounds as though the will of the people be damned then. Exactly why Trump could very

well be our next President.

People are sick of the establishment bullshit.

[LarryNM]

45. +1,000 n/t

[Astraea]

48. Exactly

If this means that people of color will be underserved, then we'll really understand the state of our nation, won't we? If people of color aren't represented by the system, then the system needs to be changed. It doesn't mean that we need to keep in place an undemocratic process.

[JI7]

49. so we should get rid of Caucuses ?

[sofa king]

50. Sadly, yes.

You may not like it, but democracy is at constant risk of falling to the will of uninformed people taken under the spell of aspiring despots.

That's why we have an electoral system instead of direct election; that's why Democrats have superdelegates; and taking that safety-lock out of the equation is how you get your Mussolinis, Hitlers, Marcoses, Mugabes, Putins and Trumps.

[Gothmog]

43. I am looking forward to the floor vote

[Dkc05]

51. Release all delegates and have a floor vote- fairness for both sides.

DNC need to release all delegates and allow a fair election from the floor. The system was rigged against Bernie. Let's show true democratic spirt and do the right thing.
DWS should be immediately fired.

[RegexReader]

53. We vote but the Super Delegates decide the outcome

to keep their grasp on power. What happened to 'Power to the People'?

Do we need to scrub these from the record?
"Since when has it been part of American patriotism to keep our mouths shut?" - Hillary Clinton 2006
"Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism" - Hillary Clinton 2006
"Blind faith in bad leadership is not patriotism" - Hillary Clinton 2006

Now, the Sanders supporters and delegates are being told to shut up and go along with the decided outcome.