Legal Commentary

Fairness, Rules and Self-Interest

By Big Tent Democrat

When discussing the Florida and Michigan situations, I believe the Clinton campaign had viable arguments based on fairness, self interest and the rules for fully seating the Florida and Michigan delegations based on the results of their respective primaries. Today, I believe the Clinton camp damages the viability of its rules-based argument for Florida. I also believe they damaged the fairness-based argument for Michigan. They are now left solely with a self interest argument for the Democratic Party.

As I explained earlier, by conceding that Florida and Michigan Democrats broke the DNC rules, I believe that the Clinton camp has lost its rules argument for full seating of the delegates based on the existing primary results. The Clinton camp's invocation of Rule20(c)(7) ignores the fact that that rule requires that Florida and Michigan Democrats had taken prompt positive steps to prevent the passage of legislation that would violate the DNC primary schedule. On August 25, 2007, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee ruled that neither Florida nor Michigan had done that. That was one of the bases for stripping of the Florida and Michigan delegations. By conceding that the August 25 RBC determination was correct, I believe the Clinton camp has already lost the argument that the RBC can reinstate the full Florida and Michigan delegations. MORE . .

The Clinton camp also rejected the argument forwarded by the Michigan Democratic Party that the DNC had selectively enforced its primary schedule rules by allowing New Hampshire and South Carolina to move their primary dates, including allowing New Hampshire to jump ahead of Nevada. Moving New Hampshire to the third position was considered a key point in this calendar and Michigan warned the DNC that it considered it essential that the DNC NOT allow New Hampshire to break the rules.

In essence, Michigan was making a fairness argument - how can you punish us when you let New Hampshire and South Carolina go scot free? I thought this was a very compelling argument. The Clinton camp expressly disagreed with this argument forwarded by Michigan. Given this, not only did the Clinton camp severely undercut Michigan's argument for full seating, it may have severely weakened its own argument for a delegation based on the January 15 Michigan vote.

What is left of the Clinton argument? A simple and compelling one - that it is in the best interest of the Democratic Party to fully seat the delegates in two key states. This is a good argument.

But I must disagree with the Clinton campaign's decision to undercut the arguments for Florida and Michigan being fully seated and in representation of the existing primary results. I cannot understand the thinking behind these decisions by the Clinton campaign.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 30, 2008 (boomark / email).