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Superdelegates: Establishment Politics Going From
Bad To Worse Or You Are Too Stupid To Make The Right Decision…Ours!
Superdelegates are the creation of a bunch of old White Men known as
the establishment who don’t like to share power and think you are too stupid
to make the right decision…their decision.
In this election cycle the Democratic Party establishment has been
prepared for the coronation of the 1st Woman President, Hillary
Clinton, despite the fact that she and her husband have the most well-earned
negatives and dubious reputations in today’s “political elite”.
The establishment’s corporate
whore has run into a real problem and all her whining about being victimized
by questions and scrutiny just isn’t washing of the political corruption and
corrosion that is sticking to her, in a campaign built on lies,
distortions, deceit, innuendo, rudeness, entitlement and unbridled attempts
to suggest that the opposition has no right to its opinions, nor to expose
the truth, a campaign devoid of details except the vow to continue the past
offering no hope of change or the improvement of the quality of life for our
citizenry.
It is a campaign that lacks enthusiasm and each day
becomes more unraveled as it sinks into the good old politics of demonize and
destroy.
These delegates make a mockery of any democratic process and reduce the
regular delegates to the status of a bunch of rubber stamps to fill up the
convention floor for the TV cameras.
Let’s look at enough of the History of those Superdelegates so we can
understand why they should be abolished.
Elaine
Kamarck
(The following is
adapted from "Structure as Strategy: Presidential Nominating Politics
Since Reform," a doctoral dissertation submitted to the political science
department of the University of California, Berkeley in 1986.)
Lessons of the 1980 Democratic convention and nomination race were not lost
on the member of the Hunt Commission (named for its Chair Governor Jim Hunt
of North Carolina) as they met to write delegate selection rules for the 1984
nomination season.
The 1980 race had concluded in an especially bitter and
contentious convention fight between President Jimmy Carter and Senator
Edward Kennedy. The convention fight had centered upon Rule 11 (H) that bound
delegates to support the candidate in whose name they were elected.
Senator Kennedy’s campaign, in an effort to convince Carter
delegates that they should abandon Carter and support him, waged a series of
platform and rules challenges culminating in the fight over Rule 11 (H).
In short order the Commission agreed to get rid of the
controversial Rule 11(H) and replace it with a less intrusive rule, but one
that, nevertheless, urged delegates to vote for the presidential candidate
they had been elected to support. The new 11 (H) read:
“Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential
candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who
elected them.”
(This rule exists today, in 2008, as Rule 12 (J) of the delegate selection
rules and has not changed since.)
Yet the exorcism of Rule 11 (H) was not sufficient to solve the deep doubts
about the nominating system that had arisen as the result of the bitter rules
and platform fights at the 1980 Convention.
Congressmen, stung by the
lack of impact they had been able to have on the 1980 process, and fearing
that 1984 would be a repeat, banded together to ask that 2/3 of the
Democratic Members of the House be elected by the House Caucus as uncommitted
voting delegates to the 1984 Convention.
Led by Congressman Gillis
Long, Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Members asserted that they had
a special role to play in the nomination process and in the platform process.
In his testimony before the Hunt Commission, Long put the views of the
Democratic Caucus as follows:
“We in the House, as the last vestige of Democratic Control at the national
level, believe we have a special responsibility to develop new innovative
approaches that respond to our Party’s constituencies." (Testimony
before the Hunt Commission, November 6, 1981)
Governor Hunt, Chair of the Commission, also made the inclusion of more
elected officials a top priority. In a statement that reflects the sense of
helplessness with which many elected officials had watched the events of the
1980 nomination season, Hunt said,
“We must also give our convention more
flexibility to respond to changing circumstances and, in cases where the
voters’ mandate is less than clear, to make a reasoned choice. One step in
this direction would be to loosen the much-disputed “binding” Rule 11 (H) as
it applies to all delegates. An equally important step would be to permit a
substantial number of party leader and elected official delegates to be
selected without requiring a prior declaration of preference.
We would then return a
measure of decision-making power and discretion to the organized party and
increase the incentive it has to offer elected officials for serious
involvement.” (Remarks of Governor Jim Hunt, Institute of Politics, JFK
School of Government, December 15, 1981)
Hunt was joined by the AFL-CIO and the Democratic State Chairs’ Association
in calling for a plan whereby 30% of the 1984 convention would be composed of
uncommitted delegates drawn from the ranks of party leaders and elected
officials.
Ironically, this number is close to the number of delegates
(38%) who had gone into conventions “unaffiliated” in the pre-reform years.
Only a large number of unbound delegates – who had not been required, by
virtue of filing deadlines and fair reflection rules, to declare a
presidential preference early – could return a modicum of flexibility or
deliberativeness to the post-reform conventions.
Opposition to this proposal came from supporters of Senator Edward Kennedy
(who, at the time was expected to make another run for the presidency) and
from organized feminists.
Kennedy supporters on the Commission feared that a large
number of Senators and Congressmen at the convention could stop him. On the
other hand, former Vice President Walter Mondale, felt certain that a large
number of these delegates would favor him and his operatives, therefore,
embraced the 30% number.
Organized feminists, on and off the Commission, however, make a new argument.
Speaking on their behalf, Technical Advisory Committee Member Susan Estrich
of Massachusetts argued that creating a new category of delegates who were
not subject to the fair reflection and candidate right of approval rules
would create a new status of delegate which she referred to as
“super-delegates.
” These delegates, argued Estrich, would be overwhelmingly
white and male. Even were they balanced by an equal number of women in the
total delegation – there would still be the problem of “equal power.” The
“super-delegates” because of their greater flexibility in the choice of a
nominee, would have greater power than the female delegates committed to
presidential candidates. (“Unintended Consequences,” by Susan Estrich,
Memorandum to the Hunt Commission, September 9, 1981.)
The issue was finally resolved through a compromise created by Congresswoman
Geraldine Ferraro. The Ferraro Proposal reduced the total number of
un-pledged delegates to 566 or 14% of the Convention, but it left selection
of the Congressional delegates in the hands of the House and Senate
Democratic Caucuses. (See, Bringing Back the Parties, by David Price,
Congressional Quarterly Press, 1984).
The 14% number was
far short of the original proposal that 30% of the convention be unpledged.
However, if the number had been much larger, it would have been practically
impossible to meet the equal division between men and women requirements in
the rules.
Super-delegates today, in 2008, are no longer elected by congressional
caucus. There have been some additions over the years and thus the total
number of super delegates as a proportion of the convention has increased by
about 5%.
For Democrats, Superdelegates fall into two categories:
Delegates seated based on other positions they hold, who are
formally described (in Rule 9.A) as "unpledged party leader and elected
official delegates"[2] (unpledged
PLEO delegates); and
Additional unpledged delegates selected by each state party
(in a fixed predetermined number), who are formally described (in Rule 9.B)
as "unpledged add-on delegates" and who need not hold any party or
elected position before their selection as delegates.
Democratic Party rules distinguish pledged and unpledged
delegates. Pledged delegates are selected based on their announced
preferences in the contest for the presidential nomination. In the party primary
elections and caucuses in each U.S. state, voters express
their preference among the contenders for the party's nomination for President of the United States.
Pledged delegates supporting each candidate are chosen in
approximate ratio to their candidate’s share of the vote. They fall into
three categories: district-level pledged delegates (usually by congressional districts); at-large pledged delegates; and
pledged PLEO (Party Leaders and Elected Officials) delegates.
In a minority of the states, delegates are legally required to
support the candidate to whom they are pledged. In addition to the states'
requirements, the party rules state (Rule 12.J): "Delegates elected to
the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good
conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them."
By contrast, the unpledged PLEO delegates (Rule 9.A) are
seated without regard to their presidential preferences, solely by virtue of
being current or former elected officeholders and party officials.
Many of them have chosen to announce endorsements, but they
are not bound in any way. They may support any candidate they wish, including
one who has dropped out of the presidential race.
The other Superdelegates, the unpledged add-on delegates (Rule
9.B), who need not be PLEOs, are selected by the state parties after some of
the pledged delegates are chosen, but
they resemble the unpledged PLEO delegates in being free to vote as they
wish.
Unpledged PLEO delegates should not be confused with pledged
PLEOs. Under Rule 9.C, the pledged PLEO slots are allocated to candidates
based on the results of the primaries and caucuses. Another difference between pledged PLEOs and
unpledged PLEOs is that there are a fixed number of pledged PLEO slots for
each state, while the number of unpledged PLEOs can change during the
campaign. Pledged PLEO delegates are not generally considered Superdelegates.
(The events at and around the
Democratic national convention of 1968 left the party in disarray, unable to
support its nominee and divided over matters of both substance and procedure.
The 1968 convention was disastrous for the Democrats, as much because of the
demonstrations and violent police responses outside the convention hall as
because of the convention itself. What took place in Chicago went well beyond
party leaders’ ignoring one candidate, Eugene, who could claim to have demonstrated his appeal to voters
in the primaries and nominating another, Hubert
Humphrey, who had not entered a single primary. Disgust with the nominating process led
Democrats to create a commission that would improve the conditions of how
nominees were selected. The
convention approved the establishment of a party committee to examine current
rules and make recommendations designed to broaden participation and enable
better representation for minorities and others who were underrepresented.)
Some
Democrats believed that these changes had unduly diminished the role of party
leaders and elected officials, weakening the Democratic tickets of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter.
In 1982, the Hunt Commission recommended and the Democratic National Committee adopted a rule that set aside some
delegate slots for Democratic members of Congress and for state party chairs
and vice chairs. Under the original Hunt plan, Superdelegates
were 30% of all delegates, but when it was finally implemented for the 1984
election, they were 14%. The number has steadily increased, and today they
are approximately 20%.
In 1984 only state parties chairs and vice chairs were
guaranteed Superdelegates status. The remaining spots were divided two ways.
The Democrats in Congress were allowed to select up to 60% of their members
to fill some of these spots.
The remaining positions were left to the state parties to fill
with priority given to governors and big-city mayors. In 1988, this process
was simplified.
Democrats in Congress
were now allowed to select up to 80% of their members. All Democratic
National Committee members and all Democratic governors were given Superdelegates
status.
This year also saw the addition of the distinguished
party leader category
(although former DNC chairs were not added to this category until 1996, and
former House and Senate minority leaders were not added until 2000).
In 1992 was the addition of a category of unpledged
"add-ons", a fixed number of spots allocated to the states,
intended for other party leaders and elected officials not already covered by
the previous categories. Finally, beginning in 1996, all Democratic members
of Congress were given Superdelegates status.
In the 1984 election, the major
contenders for the presidential nomination were Gary Hart and Walter Mondale.
Each won some primaries and caucuses. Mondale
was only slightly ahead of Hart in the total number of votes cast but won the
support of almost all Superdelegates and became the nominee.
The Superdelegates have not always prevailed, however. In the
Democratic primary phase of the 2004 election, Howard Dean acquired an early lead in delegate
counts by obtaining the support of a number of Superdelegates before even the
first primaries were held.
Nevertheless, John Kerry defeated Dean in a succession of
primaries and caucuses and won the nomination.
In 1988, a study found that Superdelegates and delegates
selected through the primary and caucus process are not substantively
different in terms of viewpoints on issues from each other. However, Superdelegates are more likely to prefer
candidates with Washington experience than outsider candidates.
At the 2008 Democratic National Convention,
the Superdelegates made up approximately one-fifth of the total number of
delegates. The closeness of the race between the leading contenders, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama,
led to speculation that the Superdelegates would play a decisive role in
selecting the nominee, a prospect that caused unease among some Democratic
Party leaders. Obama, however,
won a majority of the pledged delegates and
of the Superdelegates, and won the Democratic presidential nomination.
At the 2008 Democratic National Convention,
Superdelegates cast approximately 823.5 votes, with fractions arising because
Superdelegates from Michigan, Florida,
and Democrats
Abroad are entitled
to half a vote each. Of the Superdelegates' votes, 745 were from unpledged
PLEO delegates and 78.5 were from unpledged add-on delegates, although the
exact number in each category is subject to events.
There are no fixed number of unpledged PLEO delegates. The
number can change during the campaign as particular individuals gain or lose
qualification under a particular category.
The unpledged PLEO delegates are: all Democratic members of
the United States Congress, Democratic governors, members of the Democratic National Committee,
"[a]ll former Democratic Presidents, all former Democratic Vice
Presidents, all former Democratic Leaders of the U.S. Senate, all former
Democratic Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives and Democratic
Minority Leaders, as applicable, and all former Chairs of the Democratic
National Committee."
There is an exception, however, for otherwise qualified
individuals who endorse another party’s candidate for President; under Rule
9.A, they lose their Superdelegates status.
(In 2008, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut endorsed Republican John McCain,
which, according to the chairwoman of the Connecticut Democratic Party,
resulted in his disqualification as a Superdelegates. Lieberman's status had, however,
previously been questioned because, although he is a registered Democratic
voter and caucuses with the Democrats, he won re-election as the candidate of
the Connecticut for Lieberman Party and is listed as an "Independent
Democrat". The count for
Connecticut's delegates in the state party's delegate selection plan, issued
before his endorsement of McCain, appears to exclude Lieberman, and he was not included on at least
one list of PLEO delegates prepared before his endorsement.)
The unpledged add-on delegate slots for the various states
total 81, but the initial rule had been that the five unpledged add-on
delegates from Michigan and Florida would not be seated, leaving 76 unpledged
add-on delegates. Michigan and Florida
were being penalized for violating Democratic Party rules by holding their
primaries too early.
As of February 13, 2008 one analysis found that the 2008
Democratic National Convention would have 794 Superdelegates. The exact number has changed several
times because of events.
For example, the number decreased as a result of the death of
Representative Tom Lantos,
the move from Maine to Florida of former Maine Governor Kenneth M. Curtis, and the resignation of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.
(Because New York's new Governor, David Paterson,
is an at-large member of the Democratic National Committee, he was already a Superdelegates
before becoming Governor.)
The biggest change came on May 31 as a result of the meeting
of the national party's Rules and Bylaws Committee, which lessened the
penalty initially imposed on Michigan and Florida.
The party had excluded all delegates (including Superdelegates) from either state.
The Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to seat all these Superdelegates
(as well as the pledged delegates from those states) but with half a vote each.
That
action added 55 Superdelegates with 27.5 votes. The total number of Superdelegates can continue to change until the
beginning of the convention (Call to the Convention Section IV(C)(2)).
Pledged delegates from state caucuses and primaries numbered
3,566, casting 3,409.5 votes, resulting in a total number of delegate votes
of 4,233. A candidate needs a majority of that total, or (as of June 5)
2,117, to win the nomination.
Superdelegates accounted for approximately one fifth (19.6%)
of all votes at the convention. Delegates chosen in the Democratic caucuses
and primaries accounted for approximately four-fifths (80.4%) of the
Democratic convention delegates.
The Politico found that about half of the Superdelegates were
white men, compared to 28% of the Democratic primary electorate.
In the Republican Party, as in the Democratic Party, members
of the party’s national committee automatically become delegates without
being pledged to any candidate.
By Jim Hunt (The perfect example of establishment arrogance)
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
In presidential election years, Americans see the face of a
political party most clearly in the personality, views and character of its
presidential candidates. But a national political party is about more than
just the president. Its senators and House members pass the nation's laws and
budgets. Its governors lead the states. All must work together for progress
in America.
I chaired the 1982 Democratic Party Commission on Presidential
Nominations that created certain automatic delegates to the Democratic
convention -- the "Superdelegates." It was a good idea then, and it
is still a good idea. The Superdelegates will be crucial to Democrats winning
the presidency in November and governing successfully for the next four
years.
In
creating Superdelegates, the Democratic Party recognized the expertise that
its top holders of public office have gained by running for office
themselves. They are experts at winning. They know the issues. They are in a
unique position to evaluate presidential candidates. They have a well-honed
instinct for how candidates will be received in their own states and
districts. In short, they can help the Democratic Party pick a winner.
But the Superdelegates' value extends beyond the convention. If
they play a role in picking the nominee, they will be more likely to campaign
actively for the nominee in the general election.
I vividly remember the presidential election of 1972. George McGovern,
a great senator and a war hero, had been nominated at a convention that
included few top Democratic elected officials or regular party leaders. The Democratic Party that America saw on
television that year and the platform it adopted seemed out of step with
mainstream Democratic leaders. We felt the backlash in the elections.
I was a 35-year-old candidate for lieutenant governor that year.
As a loyal Democrat, I attended every party rally I could in the fall. But it
was right lonesome; I was often the only top statewide candidate there. Leading Democrats were so upset by what
had happened in the nominating process and at the convention that they stayed
away from party activities in droves.
As a result, we got a
licking in November. I won my race, but we lost the governorship for the
first time in the 20th century. And Jesse Helms was elected that year to the
U.S. Senate.
The Democratic Party has done a lot to make itself more
democratic. We no longer have winner-take-all primaries and caucuses. We have
made a special place for young people, women and minorities in our party
organizations. The decision we made 26 years ago to include in the Democratic
convention and nominating process our top elected officials and party leaders
who get out the vote is consistent with that history.
I don't know how the Superdelegates will vote this year. None of
us will know until they actually vote in Denver, though I expect the Superdelegates
will split in a way not too different from the votes in the states and the
nation as a whole.
But I do
know that the Democratic Party needs these elected officials and party
leaders to be involved. They need to help choose our nominee, shape our
platform and return home from the convention invested in the nominee's
campaign -- on fire to help the Democratic Party win in November.
Yet it's not enough just to win. We have to lead America, and we
have to govern successfully. That is another reason our commission created
the Superdelegates. We saw what
happened in Jimmy Carter's administration. President Carter was a good man
with the best of intentions. But he came to Washington without a good working
relationship with Democratic members of Congress, which played a big part in
his administration's problems.
I am proud of both of the candidates who are headed toward our
convention, as I was of my original choice, John Edwards. But we Democrats
should not kid ourselves. This is going to be a close, tough election. John
McCain, the likely Republican nominee, will have broad support. To win the
general election, Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton will need every bit of
enthusiasm and hard work they can get from Democrats across the country.
Having the confidence and all-out efforts of governors, members of Congress
and effective state party leaders may well provide the margin of victory.
Too often,
the Democratic Party has been split between its grass-roots activists on one
side and its elected officials and party leaders on the other. It's important
to remember: We need both wings to fly.
Democrats established a commission in 1982 under Governor Jim Hunt
of North Carolina to look into the issue. Hunt's commission designed a
proposal that would authorize uncommitted Democrats to participate in the
convention. The number they proposed was 30% of the delegates. The commission
said they wanted to preserve the "traditional" role of the party
which was a "mediating institution between citizens and government, as a
guide to constituent and rational electoral choice, as a bond pulling the
elements of government together for the achievement of positive purposes."
The commission agreed that the party reforms of the 1970s had
been beneficial by eliminating "secret caucuses, unpublicized
procedures, closed slate-making, racial exclusions..." But they said, (the Democratic National
Committee agreed in March 1982 without almost any debate), party leaders also
should have some role in the selection of the presidential nominee.
Critics
warned that this new system would create a class of unaccountable elites --
thus the term Superdelegates which was introduced with derision.
The proposal seemed like a throwback to the older era of
smoke-filled convention halls that the 1970s reforms had intended to
eliminate. In the end, Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro brokered a deal that
lowered the number of uncommitted delegates to 14 percent.
The delegates included members of Congress as well as state
and local party officials. This group was expanded over the years to include
members of the Democratic National Committee, Governors, distinguished party
leaders and a few others. The percentage of uncommitted delegates has
increased to about twenty percent.
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