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May

31

Watch, listen to DNC bylaws and rules committee meeting, 5/31/08


At the Democratic National Committee’s website, you can watch the meeting live (I just started at 2:45pm – been out all morning and early afternoon).

You can read some live-blogs of it here at Talk Left. Tags are Elections 2008 and Michigan ‘08

They are recessing for lunch and will reconvene at 4:15pm. Figures – as soon as I find my earbuds.

Start looking for commentary on what’s gone up through now.

C-Span has some good resources on the event here. Here’s more from C-Span including articles and a live webcast.

CNN is also live-streaming, even during the recess.

Washington Post’s The Fix coverage isn’t bad and NPR has photos and a moment by moment review.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:56 pm May 31st, 2008 in Barack Obama, Campaigning, Democrats, Elections, Government, Hillary Clinton, Politics, Primary, WH2008, leadership 

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2 Responses to “Watch, listen to DNC bylaws and rules committee meeting, 5/31/08”

  1. 1 Chuck Butcher on June 1st, 2008 3:00 am

    Once FL understood that having any seats meant taking the primary 50% penalty that was a foregone conclusion. If there was any question it was how the penalty would be applied, 50% delegates or 50% vote, the vote favored Hillary in vote numbers.

    Michigan was in a much tougher position, which is why they went back and researched voters. They faced a 100% disqualification due to candidate representation on the ballot. Once the State Party brought forward a delegate plan with some sort of demographic basis that THEY would apply DNC was going to go along. People have called this vote theft – it was their best effort vote analysis in the face of suppressed vote and candidate representation. FL vote was almost certainly suppressed but representation could be made that it was across the board, not so in MI.

    Both State Parties should have and could have used the caucus remedy, they chose not to and clearly both Party’s heads and Supers tended toward Hillary who did poorly in caucuses. They should have begun the planning process immediately after the Govs signed the bills and scheduled them in accordance with DNC rules. They deliberately chose not to, their Party members were poorly served by their State Parties and they really ought to go after their heads.

    I happen to know all this because our OR State Leg was considering a move to Feb 5 which DNC disallowed because of our vote my mail ballots going out 2 weeks ahead. If the Leg had gone along we were prepared to decline State financing and go Caucus to keep control of our election and stay within DNC rules. I know the controling law and the status of State Parties. This is neither an opinion nor a candidate backing statement. It is Federal Law and Party Policy. DNC is not required to even look at votes held outside its rules and State Parties have only to answer to DNC, not State Legislators. State Party leaders and Democratic State & Federal Legislators all know this whether they were honest with the voters or not.

    There is an entire body of false information floating around placing blame where it does not belong. The State Parties of FL/MI hold the primary blame followed by those who stopped the caucuses and finally that again is the State Parties’s responsibility as no candidate had any legal say.

    Whether anyone likes caucuses or not, they were both the legal and the affordable recourse available. Placing blame on DNC or the RBC of DNC is nonsense, they had no hand in making the mess and no ability to do otherwise.

    The news media made a very half-hearted effort to explaing this and did so poorly.

  2. 2 Jill Miller Zimon on June 2nd, 2008 9:48 am

    Chuck – what role do the state legislatures play in this?

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