On Saturday, the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee will meet in Washington, D.C., to discuss whether to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida. Clinton supporters and Florida Democrats plan on staging a day-long protest of the committee's meeting, casting the conflict as a replay of the 2000 Florida recount and representative of the struggle for women everywhere to make their voices heard. How in the world did it come to this?
The story begins in 2002 when the DNC unanimously voted against a rule change pushed by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan that would have ended New Hampshire's long-held status as the first state to hold a Democratic presidential primary each election cycle. In 2003, Levin and other Michigan Democrats once again tried to get an earlier primary date and were threatened with the loss of half of their state's delegates by Terry McAuliffe, then-DNC chairman and now chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign.
"They told me they were going to hold the Michigan primary before New Hampshire's, which would have led to complete chaos since New Hampshire has a law stating that it must hold the first primary and the DNC had already voted on this issue and settled it," McAuliffe recalls in his memoir, What A Party!: My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators and Other Wild Animals. The threat worked and Levin backed down. "I was holding all the cards and Levin knew it," McAuliffe writes.
This behind-the-scenes bluffing and threat-making may not have helped Michigan, but it did result in the establishment of the Commission on Presidential Nominating Timing and Scheduling (CPNTS), via a resolution sponsored by Levin and adopted at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. The commission was charged with studying the effects of timing on the primaries and caucuses and offering recommendations about how to fix any problems. to the DNC no later than Dec. 31, 2005.
That December, the commission presented a new proposed schedule to the full DNC, which unanimously approved it. The plan preserved Iowa and New Hampshire's early status but recommended adding a "pre-window" of "1 or 2 new first-tier caucuses between Iowa and New Hampshire, and 1 or 2 new primaries between New Hampshire and the opening of the window for all other states." (The "pre-window" is a reference to the 1976 "window rule," which creates a buffer between Iowa and New Hampshire on the one hand and other state primaries on the other. By the time the CPNTS met in 2005, the window rule stated that other states must vote at least 15 days after Iowa and seven after New Hampshire.)
The commission left the decision about which particular states would get to move up into the pre-window to the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee which was instructed to decide based on "racial and ethnic diversity; geographic diversity; and economic diversity including union density." Nevada and South Carolina applied to be part of the pre-window and ultimately were selected as the new early caucus and primary, respectively. Michigan's application was rejected and Florida never applied. In August of 2006, the DNC approved the new primary calendar with Iowa voting first on Jan. 14, Nevada on Jan. 19, New Hampshire on Jan. 22, and South Carolina on Jan 29. New Hampshire was the only state to vote against it. The window rule, therefore, made Feb. 5 the earliest date any other state could hold a primary or caucus.
"If I truly thought this plan would win us the White House in '08, I would support it and face the wrath of friends back in New Hampshire. But it won't. The continued compressing of this calendar is going to rob candidates of the process they need to put together a winning campaign," said New Hampshire state party chair Kathy Sullivan in response to the new calendar she had just voted against.
In late January 2007, the Florida state legislature introduced a bill to move Florida's primary to Jan. 29, which would put it in violation of the window rule. In response, the Rules and Bylaws Committee fired a warning shot, threatening to strip Florida of its delegates if it proceeded with the legislation. The Florida legislature sailed on, passing the bill on May 21 with support from both parties and Gov. Charlie Christ, a Republican. The DNC and Florida Democratic Party argued over various compromises such as a state party-run caucus system to take place at the district level after Super Tuesday, but no resolution could be reached, and the state was threatened with the same punishment that had been proposed for Michigan in 2003 -- the loss of at least 50 and perhaps 100 percent of its delegates.
Meanwhile, the Michigan Legislature introduced a similar bill in June to move its state's primary to Jan. 29, 2008, also violating the window rule. The vote in the state Senate split along party lines, with all 21 Republicans voting to pass the bill and all 17 Democrats opposing it. (The bill passed the state house, and Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, signed it into law that September.) Meanwhile, the Rules Committee gave Florida 30 days to reschedule or face a loss of all of its delegates. The four early states also began applying pressure, joining DNC Chairman Howard Dean in asking all declared Democratic candidates for president to pledge not to campaign in any state that violated the DNC rules. Every candidate signed the pledge.
In response, Michigan moved its primary up to Jan. 15, and Carl Levin and Debbie Dingell, a member of the DNC (and wife of Rep. John Dingell), wrote to Howard Dean that "New Hampshire's gun remains at our candidates' heads and they fear the repercussions to their campaigns in New Hampshire if they don't sign the New Hampshire pledge -- dramatic proof, if any more were needed, of the disproportionate impact of the New Hampshire primary."
By October, the 30-day window granted to Florida had expired, but it remained in noncompliance, and so the DNC stripped it of all its delegates. In Michigan, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Bill Richardson removed their names from the ballot, leaving Hillary Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, Chris Dodd, Mike Gravel, and "uncommitted." Explaining her decision, Clinton observed, "It's clear, this election they're having is not going to count for anything, but I just personally did not want to set up a situation where the Republicans are going to be campaigning between now and whenever. And then, after the nomination, we have to go in and repair the damage to be ready to win Michigan in 2008."
By December, the Rules Committee had considered and approved requests by both Iowa and New Hampshire to move their primaries to Jan. 3 and Jan. 9, respectively, while formally charging Michigan with noncompliance and giving it a 30-day window to make the proper changes. On Jan. 9, the 30-day window expired, and the Rules Committee penalized Michigan by stripping it of all its delegates.
Since then, numerous plans have been floated to resolve the Florida/Michigan fiasco: Seat the delegation in full, seat it partially, hold a new primary, and so on. Each of these fell by the wayside, but as the delegate math got worse for Clinton, she adopted a final, Hail Mary strategy: argue the DNC was depriving the people of Michigan and Florida of their democratic right to vote for the candidate of their choice.
This is the argument protesters will be making on Saturday while the Rules Committee makes its decision. It could be that the decision has already been made for them. The DNC legal team concluded on May 27 that the Rules Committee is required by party rules to strip at least half of both Florida's and Michigan's delegates. Less clear is what will happen in Michigan, since Barack Obama's name did not even appear on the ballot, but over 200,000 people voted for "uncommitted." This in turn could trigger a rule that would allow the four candidates whose names did not appear on the ballot to decide among themselves how to divvy up the share of uncommitted votes. Since Edwards and Richardson have both endorsed Obama, that means it's between the undeclared Joe Biden and Obama. And while Clinton can appeal the Rules Committee's decision at the party convention in Denver, her campaign's final argument appears to be doomed even while it's being made.
