Different Rules
Mar 18th, 2008 at 9:58 am by Susie
MB points out something interesting:
The first Tuesday in February was the 5th, so that 22 days prior would be January 14th. Thus, the Nevada caucuses could be held no earlier than the 19th, the New Hampshire primary could be held no earlier than January 22nd, and so on. Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina all moved their caucuses in violation of DNC rules, and yet suffered no penalty, not even the standard 1/2 reduction in delegates. So why were Michigan and Florida afforded such draconian treatment?
if i remember correctly, new hampshire moved its primary to january 8th because michigan moved its primary to january 15th. in other words, NH’s earlier primary date was in response to MI’s effort to leapfrog them in the primary process. thus the party viewed MI as being “at fault” for causing NH to move up its primary date. that’s why MI and not NH was penalized for it.
i don’t know about the other states, but it probably was something like that for them too.
it’s just an explanation, i’m not defending the decision. why the party works so hard to preserve the IA and NH privilege of being first is completely beyond me.
oh. and here’s a news article that somewhat backs up my recollection in the above comment. i could still be wrong about some of the other details, but that’s how i remember it.
why that’s easy, michigan and florida were penalized because hillary is a woman!
steve, you’re only saying that because obama is black
Because Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada were given special dispensation to do so in August 2006. Florida changed its date, without getting dispensation, in the spring of 2007. Michigan, likewise, changed their date in the fall of 2007. It’s not even close. Florida and Michigan waited more than a year after they would have needed to ask the DNC for permission.
Most of the details are in this article:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21130
Sorry, but they violated the special dates they were given in the rules as quoted by MB, and thus, did, in fact violate the same rule as Florida and Michigan, and were not punished. The special dispensations they received are those stated in the rule 11A.
Further, the Republicans who control the Florida legislature and the governorship are not in the habit of asking Democrats anything. With 65% majorities in both houses they set the date of the primary.
The Florida Democratic party has no power to change anything about elections in the state of Florida, and the DNC knows it, but they violated their own rules and eliminated all of Florida’s delegates, which will probably cost the Democrats the election. However, if the Florida delegation isn’t seated at the Democratic convention, the Republican leaders of the Florida legislature have already said the Democratic nominee won’t even be on the Florida ballot. Welcome to the real center of power politics.
There are lots of parts of the DNC delegate rules that aren’t controllable by state parties. Several parts of Section 20, for example, appear on their face to be in conflict with Pennsylvania election law, as it has been writ since 1937. It’s an imperfect document. And several of the problems with the NH/NV/SC/IA dates happened because of automatic date-setting laws that got triggered by Michigan’s move, as Snuzy stated above. But Florida had more than a year to prepare– the state party could well have held a caucus on a legal date.
Honestly, speaking as someone who’d be perfectly happy with either candidate as the nominee, Florida doesn’t strike me as unfair a situation as Michigan. Delegate-wise, assuming that most of the Edwards delegates break for Obama, they’re pretty even– Clinton would get about 10-12 more. What bugs me is that Clinton’s people are now arguing that even if Florida is counted, Obama should be stripped of his delegates because some of his ads in a big multistate buy aired in Florida despite the Obama campaign’s express instructions that they not.
There’s a term in law called estoppel, which basically means you can’t change sides of arguments in mid argument. Both campaigns have been guilty of this to some degree, but Clinton’s has been a little more obnoxious about it. (Did you know that they didn’t even file a full slate of delegates in Pennsylvania, but are expecting to be able to name delegates they would have been entitled to if they had filed them? Sloppy.) It is rather reminiscent of Hubert Humphrey’s 1972 bickering over the winner-take-all California delegates, which he was perfectly happy about, even publicly supportive of, until he lost the primary. Hillary is an excellent lawyer– I can’t believe she doesn’t realize how petty and silly this looks.
What looks to me like the next potential fight is the fact that in PA, you vote for delegates, and the candidates themselves are just a beauty contest. Most of the delegates are familiar names– local pols and celebrities, and it’s possible, indeed quite likely that even if Clinton wins PA 60-40, she’ll only walk away with half the delegates.