Tag Archives: superdelegates

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What it’s like to vote for DNC members

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It’s an exercise that nobody likely cared very much about four years ago.  And I would imagine that people aren’t likely to care about it four years from now, because it seems that the Democratic primary process will have undergone some modification by then.  But right now, who California’s at-large DNC members–i.e., superdelegates–are, has captured the popular imagination.

An election like this doesn’t happen every day.  In fact, only about 300 people get to vote  for these voters (who do DNC business besides, but that’s not nearly as sexy) every four years.  This year, I happened to be one of them, as I was proxying for Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti.

Brian gave you the election results earlier.  But what’s the voting process like?  We all believe in election integrity, after all.

For more, go below the fold.  With photos.

I got to the voting room right at about 9:05am, before there was a huge line.  But even at that, the process reminded me of a Presidential caucus: you have to pass through a gauntlet of sign-waving campaigners to get to your voting room:

Once there, the process is exceedingly efficient: you sign in to get your ballot.  Doesn’t matter who you are, you still have to stand in line.  Here’s our own Matt Lockshin checking in voting Executive Board members, with Congresswoman Barbara Lee next in line:

Once you’ve signed for your ballot, you sit at a table and fill in a scantron sheet as if you were taking the SAT.  Complete with proctors to make sure no funny business is going on!

Once you’ve filled out your ballot, you take your ballot over to the scanton-box combination.  The machine scans your ballot.  If there’s a problem–like an overvote or a spoiled ballot–it will spit it back out at you.  If it’s valid, it will spit it into the awaiting box.

And that’s how the people who help elect the next President of the United States are themselves elected.  You always knew you were curious.

California

Open Forum For California DNC Candidates

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You wouldn’t know this unless you follow these things closely, but this coming Sunday, June 15, is very significant in the future of Democratic politics.  On that day at the California Democratic Party executive board meeting in Burlingame, 19 men and women from throughout the state will be voted in as DNC members.  Those elected will take their positions after the Democratic National Convention in August, and will serve through the DNC in 2012.  Here’s the list (it’s a PDF) of names who will appear on the ballot – 9 men, 9 women and the 19th-highest vote-getter regardless of gender will win the election.

Now, why is this important?  These 19 DNC members will be part of the organization that will need to decide how to reform our completely broken primary process that almost turned a historic nomination season into utter chaos.  There is no other issue – not the war, not poverty, not the economy, not health care, nothing – where DNC members will make any kind of a difference compared to primary reform.  I know a lot of party members read this site, so let this be a jumping off point for discussion.  No California e-board member should vote to elect any of these candidates without knowing their plans for primary reform.  And on the flip, here are a few ideas.

Here’s a brief sketch of some of the necessary reforms, IMO, that I wrote at The Washington Monthly last week:

Now the next challenge, in my view, is reforming this disastrous primary system entirely, reviewing it from top to bottom and ditching the most undemocratic elements. I would move to a rotating regional set of primaries (decided by lottery on January 1 of the primary year so nobody can park in any one place prior to that), superdelegates with no vote until after the first ballot, which is reserved for delegates picked directly by the voters (so they get to go to the party but not have an undue influence on the process), and all delegates selected proportionately based on their state’s popular vote. I would remind those who think caucuses should be thrown out that they are tremendous party-building tools, and many of the states with caucuses this year are swing states (Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, even Texas perhaps), and those state parties captured priceless voter contact information on hundreds of thousands of voters who could be turned into volunteers.

Let’s go a bit more in depth.

Primary schedule – the reason that we ended up with such a chaotic system for delegate selection is that Michigan and Florida jumped the line set by the DNC, and instead of past years where sanctions would be granted on those states only to be lifted after the winner was chosen and the delegate counts no longer mattered, this was a close race.  So that sanction hung over the entire primary season.  Yet the DNC must be able to manage their own nominating process.  So it seems to me that they shouldn’t allow one delegate to be chosen before their set date for the beginning of the primaries, and that states should be grouped by region and chosen by lot.  This breaks the Iowa/New Hampshire stranglehold (and if they don’t like it, really, let them secede), eliminates the penchant for 30 visits to the early states on the calendar, and continues to allow for retail politics through the various regions.  It’s somewhat similar to the American Plan.

Real proportional representation – the current system is kind of a joke, in that congressional districts which allocate even-numbered amounts of delegates have quite a bit less influence on the overall result as districts which allocate odd-numbered amounts.  Simply put, it’s easier to gain an advantage in an odd-numbered district, needing only 50% plus one, as it is in an even-numbered district, needing as much as 63% of the vote.  There is absolutely no reason why the delegate allocation can’t be proportional based on statewide popular vote, with the congressional allocations included later.  Furthermore, the states need to be proportionally represented relative to one another – the system of add-on delegates and rewarding states that kept their primaries later in the process and giving Puerto Rico more delegates than 27 states simply has to end.

Dealing with the superdelegates – all of these DNC members elected will then become so-called “superdelegates,” so I recognize that asking them to renounce their own power and influence is kind of dicey.  But nothing had a more damaging impact on the party than the perception that the process was controlled by party insiders who could subvert the will of the people.  That it “worked out” in the end is of no consequence.  Superdelegates really shouldn’t have such an outsized impact on the nominating process.  I suggest that their votes for President and Vice President at the DNC don’t count on the first ballot, ensuring that they get a ticket to the event but the voters have the first crack at choosing the nominee.  A standard of 50 or even 55% could be set as the necessary threshold to get the nominee over the top, if superdelegates want to hold out the option of having their wise counsel be determinative.

There are probably dozens of other ideas, but I want to open this up to discussion.  How would you reform the primary process, and what can potential DNC candidates do to assure you that they will adequately represent the interests of California voters to see the process reformed?

San Diego

My letter to superdelegate Susan Davis

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I have been holding off writing to Susan Davis, my local superdelegate, but after what Hillary Clinton said yesterday, I finally had to let it out.  Here is the text of my letter to Rep. Davis:

May 24, 2008

Susan Davis for Congress

PO Box 84049

San Diego, CA 92138 Via Facsimile

Re: Superdelagate Endorsement

Dear Congresswoman Davis:

I write to you as my member of Congress and as a superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention.  I strongly suggest that you endorse a candidate for President of the United States now.

It is my understanding that there are three positions that you and the other superdelegates have taken in this election: those who have endorsed a candidate; those who have declared their intention to vote for the winner of the most pledged delegates; and those who have made no endorsement.  It appears you fall into the third group.

Recent developments in the presidential campaign have, in my view, made it absolutely necessary that you and the other superdelegates declare your intention as soon as possible.  Specifically, Senator Clinton’s remarks about her staying in the race, juxtaposed with a reference to the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968, are simply beyond the level of decency I expect from a Democratic candidate.  Further, any attempt on her part to explain them as a mistake are unconvincing to say the least; as she has made such a comment on at least one other occasion in March to a Time magazine editor.

I want to say that I will respect your decision as to whom you will support; the party rules have reposed such discretion in you and your conscience, and I will leave it to you to exercise such discretion whether or not I agree with you.  However, the Democratic Party can no longer wait and watch as this internecine battle winds down.  In order for Senator Clinton to win the pledged delegates, she would have to win well over 100% of those delegates to be awarded in the remaining primary contests and caucuses.

I have supported you in Congress since you got there, but I feel that I am witness to a disturbing lack of alacrity on your part for both your Congressional and political duties.  I have been rather unimpressed with your legislative accomplishments with regard to the core duties and powers of Congress as set forth in Article I of the U.S. Constitution.  Let me point out, for example, that you were on the Veterans’ Subcommittee for years while conditions deteriorated at Walter Reed and other VA hospitals, yet I am unaware of any statement from you regarding those conditions until they became public in late 2006.  Walter Reed Hospital is only a short distance from Capitol Hill.  Based on the conditions I saw in the news, they should have been obvious to anyone who had visited the place.  I would think that you even more than others, being that your husband was a military physician, would have made an effort to visit that hospital.

Further, I note that going into the second primary election this year, you do not have a functioning campaign website.  The page asks viewers to “bear with you” while it is being updated.  I must ask: what is the holdup?

This is a disturbing trend.  Now, as the Democratic Party needs unity, and Senator Clinton seems bent on destroying it, you again “sit on the sidelines.”

It is time for the party to begin to move on to the general election.  John McCain is being given a “free ride” to do as he pleases, in spite of his daily gaffes, flip-flops, and shockingly bad positions, such as his cowardly abdication of any leadership on the new G.I. Bill.  He says he opposes the Webb bill, but would rather be fundraising rather than vote either for or against it.  The Democrats simply cannot let him get away with it any longer.

I urge you to do the simplest of things, even though it will take courage.  Please publically endorse a presidential candidate now.

Very Truly Yours,

greggp

California

Barack Obama: The Democratic Nominee for President (But You Knew that Already)

Cross-posted on the California Majority Report and the Daily Kos.

Under the collective denial mentality that has hijacked media-types and political observers since the February 5th contests, Senator Barack Obama’s decisive 56-42 win in North Carolina juxtaposed with Senator Hillary Clinton’s narrow 51-49 win in Indiana shows Senator Obama has successfully rebounded from the Rev. Wright controversy and whatever other manufactured non-policy outrages that he’s been forced to address. After all, Obama increased his popular vote lead by over 200,000 votes, and more importantly, his 95 new pledged delegates put him 12 delegates further ahead of Clinton. To borrow a catchphrase from former Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, Obama’s got O-mentum. However, while O-mentum plays a role at the margins, a few points here or there, the reality is this contest is already over, and these outcomes were largely predetermined.

The Democratic presidential primary is over. Senator Barack Obama is our nominee. It didn’t end last night, although many of the pundits that dragged us along for this performance will try and tell us differently. This race has been over for weeks. Obama successfully cemented an impossible to overcome coalition at some point along his 11-state sweep. By the time of the Ohio primary, it was clear that no amount of delegates in Clinton’s remaining geographical strongholds would come close to overcoming Obama’s delegate lead. Today, you will see the superdelegates continue to publicly and privately align with Obama. Any scenario for victory left in the Clinton playbook would have to, by definition, shred party unity through divisive procedural maneuvers that would alienate voters we’ll need in elections for decades to come. I’m not the least bit concerned, because the party elders see the same polls, the same election returns, and the same voter registration numbers I see, and they aren’t going to permit civil war, not this election year.  

The voters in the remaining states and Puerto Rico, even if they could somehow change the outcome of this race (and they can’t), probably have already made up their minds. Exit polls in Indiana showed that 75 percent of primary voters made up their minds sometime before the week of the primary. That number was 79 percent in North Carolina and 76 percent in Pennsylvania. Enough voters feel sufficiently informed in their voting decisions that there just aren’t many late deciders left in this fight. After 21 debates, thousands of campaign stops, and endless 24-hour coverage, apparently enough voters are confident in their decisions that they don’t need to see the gas tax holiday gimmick mocked endlessly on television, and maybe, just maybe, they don’t need to be convinced that senators Obama and Clinton really do at the bottoms of their hearts love cans of really awful beer.

I will say this: Senator Clinton’s “victory” speech last night was gracious and largely respectful to our nominee. If that is how she conducts herself for the duration of this campaign, she’s more than welcome to stay in the race through June 3rd. The state-to-territory-to-state campaigning has done wonders for Democratic registration everywhere. This will pay dividends for presidential candidate Obama and all the Democrats facing competitive down ballot races. In California, the enthusiasm generated by this presidential race will bring new loyal Democrats into an election that could enable us to achieve a two-thirds majority in the state legislature so we can sanely craft budgets, throw us up to three more Congressional seats, and decide the fate of marriage equality and the more humane treatment of millions of farm animals. These are big deals for our state, and senators Obama and Clinton deserve credit for helping plant the seeds that make these efforts possible.

A positive Democratic primary, largely free of negativity between the candidates, would be good for our party in the remaining states. If Clinton retains the tone from last night’s speech, I say stick around, Senator, and thank you. But forgive me if I use my crystal ball for a moment. It doesn’t matter how much “momentum” Obama generates from his impressive 14-point win in North Carolina; he will lose West Virginia. And it doesn’t matter how much “momentum” Clinton will generate from her impressive win in West Virginia; she will lose Oregon. While Obama basks in the glow of victory in Oregon, Clinton will stake camp in victorious Kentucky, priming Puerto Ricans into thinking they can still swing this race for her. They can’t. She’s not our nominee. But so long as Clinton plays nice and wants to keep this theatre production acceptable for all audiences, with dulled blades, she’s welcome to continue playing the part of a viable presidential candidate. When done right, this road show is good for the party.

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San Jose – Superdelegate Ground Zero?

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Everybody should get out their Bob Mulholland novelty masks, just for the party access possibilities:

The road to the Democratic National Convention in Denver may go through San Jose.

The state Democratic Party is holding its annual meeting here the final weekend in March, and party officials are awaiting word on whether Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will accept invitations to appear.

Why would the dueling Democrats come when Pennsylvania holds the next crucial primary April 22?

One word: superdelegates. And perhaps a chance to throw in a megabuck fundraiser or two.

“There will more politicking going on at this convention than in decades,” predicted Bob Mulholland, adviser to the state party. Mulholland would know. He’s one of about 20 uncommitted superdelegates in California whom the campaigns are heavily wooing in their quest to secure their party’s nomination.

The convention is right in the sweet spot, a few weeks before Pennsylvania.  And the fundraising opportunities in the Bay Area are numerous.  I don’t think there’s any question that Obama and Clinton will be on hand.  But will there be chocolate fountain parties for uncommitted superdelegates only?

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About Those Superdelegates

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Here and across my series of 872 blogs, I’ve been pretty vocal about the superdelegate situation, about how it’s a media creation designed to set Democrats against themselves and damage the party’s credibility as we move into the fall.  I’m not the only one, either.  Today comes a thinly sourced story about how the Clinton campaign is vowing to go after pledged delegates who represent the distribution in the various state primaries and caucuses, a charge that the campaign summarily denied.  The truth is that the Democratic Party’s somewhat convoluted system practically demands that some pledged delegates will be up for grabs, but this Politico/Drudge effort doesn’t pass any kind of smell test.  Essentially, my feeling is that the Democratic Party put together a system they never thought they would have to use.  For decades now both parties have created a calendar designed to nominate a candidate as early as humanly possible.  They never considered the implications of having two equally strong candidates and a campaign that would grind on (although let’s get some perspective on that; it’s only February 19 here, and the scenarios being games out may be inoperative in a matter of weeks).  Now that the system is being trotted out, pretty much for the first time ever (arguably, 1984 brought these rules into play), it’s showing a little rust.  OK, a lot of rust.  They’re trying to patch it up and have a bunch of elder statesmen manage this situation.  I think this is a freak-out that is far too premature.

over..

However, I have to continue to call B.S. on this idea that superdelegates will somehow subvert the popular will and act to destroy the Democratic Party from within.  I understand there’s not a lot of belief from those who have seen the party screw over their base time and time again in recent years.  While I agree that the concept of superdelegates should come as a surprise to many, and they almost certainly should be fixed so this doesn’t happen again, there’s a ton of misinformation out there about who these superdelegates actually are.

I talked with Garry Shay, a superdelegate from here in California, a DNC member and the Chair of the Rules Committee for the California Democratic Party.  He is a party activist who has a day job and was concerned by all the media attention taking him away from his work.  He was an antiwar activist who worked hard for George McGovern.  He was elected by the executive board of the CDP to his DNC post and essentially is a representative of the state party rank and file.  That includes someone like me, who ran and won a seat on the Democratic State Central Committee in this state.  The barriers to entry, then, are very low, and the likelihood that these superdelegates are not “party bosses,” whatever that means, but committed activists, is very high.  Shay surmised it was about 1/2 of all superdelegates.  These are in large part, the people who elected Howard Dean to the chairmanship of the party, against the will of much of the elected leadership.  A good summary of who these delegates are is here.

Why are there superdelegates at all?  Basically, before 1972 the process for choosing a nominee was far less small-d democratic.  The McGovern reforms regarding primaries, and the 1974 charter added some structure to the process.  Shay didn’t agree with me totally that this created rules that were essentially designed to not come into play, but he did say that superdelegates were created to “give members more of a connection to the nominee,” almost a psychological basis, rather than a concerted effort to impose their will on the party.  In fact, superdelegates have never sought to choose the nominee in a way that didn’t reflect the popular will.  Even in 1984, when Walter Mondale had a plurality but not a majority of delegates, the superdelegates did not step in and anoint Gary Hart.  

The either/or of whether a political figure has a responsibility to his own conscience or a responsibility to his own constituents is an age-old argument, and I don’t think any side of this debate, with their own partisan reasoning, is going to advance it in any meaningful way.  But clearly, there are outside pressures that would have come to bear on them with or without the overwatch by progressive organizations like MoveOn and DFA.  The candidate with the most votes is going to get the majority of the superdelegates (probably by a similar proportion), and all of these machinations are going to amount to nothing.

Of far more concern to Shay, and myself, is what to do with these delegates in Michigan and Florida.  It’s an issue with few or no winning moves.  Shay suggested a couple possibilities, like seating Florida with delegates halved, or holding new elections.  But there are pitfalls with every scenario and clearly the rules were enforced with an eye to a clear winner emerging.  This was a mistake, but the bigger mistake is exacerbating this by assuming all kinds of bad motives on the superdelegates and the party itself.  The party gave out a bunch of votes to make everybody feel like they were participating and happy about the process.  They never expected it to be decisive.  And it still might not be.  This is a failure of forward thinking, perhaps even incompetence, but not an attempt to hijack the democratic process.

That is safe, but the reputation of the Party may not be.  Several developments over the last few days have given me pangs of concern about the Presidential race – the teflon coating being placed on McCain, the continued implementation in progressive political circles of right-wing smears on Obama and Clinton, and now this furor over superdelegates, which makes the process look very suspect.  This is a narrative that can easily be fed to swing voters across the country, that the Democratic Party is some sort of top-down monolith that will ignore your votes.  It’s actually not true; the superdelegate effort was designed to create inclusion instead of exclusion.  But exposing the underside of the primary process, between caucuses that are inherently disenfranchising and superdelegates that have a bigger say in the process than previously known and delegate distributions that don’t reflect the popular vote, is giving the electorate something of a foul taste.  Come the fall, much of that is likely to be forgotten.  But it could be effectively implemented to really harm efforts both in retaking the White House and downticket.  This is pretty bad news.

By the way, my perfect solution for the superdelegate problem in the future is to only have their votes count on the SECOND ballot, not the first.  That way, they don’t have a say in the initial process, and a percentage of the elected delegates can be established as a bar that can be scaled by a nominee on the first ballot.  This won’t piss off those party officials and will reassure the public, and most important won’t give the media an excuse to include superdelegates in their counts.

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Superdelegate straight talk

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Originally posted to the Progressive Caucus list serve of the California Democratic Party by Garry Shay.

I want to open up a debate here.

For the first time since they were conceived, the votes of so-called “super-delegates” may actually matter with regard to the nomination of the Democratic Party candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States.

As a matter of explanation and illumination, super-delegates are either members of Congress or of the DNC. They are un-pledged delegates to the National Convention in Denver. They are either elected by their districts, states, state parties, or other constituencies such as the Democratic State Treasurer’s Association, or the Democratic Municipal Officials Association, or similar organizations. 75 DNC members were appointed by Governor Dean in 2004.

The question I pose is not who super-delegates should vote for, but rather how they should come to their decision.

Edit by Brian: Continued over the flip

The question is not whether or not they should exist, because the fact is, they do. As my torts professor once said, in his thick German accent, if my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a Volkswagen, but she doesn’t. What ever you think of the system itself, it is the reality we work in at this time.

And the question is not whether or not the Super-Delegates should come to a decision, because sitting it out is essentially a vote against any candidate, since we are part of the majority needed to nominate. Not voting does not lower the number needed to nominate and also deprives our constituency (whatever that may be) of their representation under the current rules. I don’t think any of us would really advocate for that.

I know the people on this list are quite capable of carrying on a philosophic discussion and not allow it to devolve into a debate of personality, if they choose to do so.

I ask you to participate in this discussion at that level. Please do not refer to Clinton or Obama. Please keep the discussion a step above personality and specific candidates.

This discussion is about the nature of representative democracy. Is one elected to represent their constituency, or to vote their conscience, or some other formula? How does that apply to the present situation?

As pertains to myself, and 18 other elected DNC members, we were elected by the Executive Board of the California Democratic Party four (4) years ago. Our terms run from the day after one convention, to the day after the next. We are among the first elected delegates to a National Convention. Only Senators elected in 2002 were elected earlier. The CDP Executive Board will be electing some of the first delegates to the 2012 National Convention this June. That election has no effect on the current convention decision.

What are we elected to do? Who were we elected to represent?

Other formulations may apply to other super-delegates, but here are the various formulations I have come up with, at least as pertains to the 19 CDP DNC members elected in 2004:

1. I was elected because my electorate trusted my judgement and I should vote my conscience.

2. I was elected to represent those who elected me 4 years ago, who are not the same people who are on the CDP Executive Board at the present time. I should poll the former Executive Board of the CDP, after the last primary and before the convention.

3. I was elected to represent the CDP Executive Board, as an institutional body. I should poll the current Executive Board of the CDP, after the last primary and before the convention.

4. I was elected by the CDP Executive Board to represent the same people they represent, the Democrats of the State of California, and thus should vote however the majority of Democrats voted on February 5, 2008.

5. I should vote for the candidate most likely to win in November, in my opinion.

6. I should vote for the candidate who best exemplifies the Platform of the CDP.

7. I should vote for the candidate who best exemplifies the Platform of the National Convention.

8. I should vote for the candidate with the most pledged delegates, unless for some bizarre reason, I can honestly say that such a candidate is an anathema to the Democratic Party principles as I understand them.

9. I was elected to synthesize all of the above into a decision, which you recognize is an impossible task, but trusted I would do the right thing for the right reason.

10. Vote the way you personally want me to and if I don’t you will hold me personally responsible. (This is not really a choice, but I recognize it is perhaps a reality for some).

I would like your thoughts on this. Seriously. I will pass them on to all members of the CDP DNC delegation, and those of the Western States, as well.

Garry S. Shay

Member, Democratic National Committee (CA) and

Lead Chair Rules Committee, California Democratic Party

Titles for identification purposes only

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