Breaking news of the bloody obvious
CNN Breaking News: "A judge has ruled that the Democratic National Committee has the right to determine whether to seat Florida delegates."
Um, yes.
Meanwhile, DNC lawyers say the Rules & Bylaws Committee cannot seat more than half of the delegates. I'm skeptical of this, and so is DemConWatch, which muses, "I haven't seen the analysis, but I thought the RBC was free to come up with any solution they wanted. And I'm curious - if the RBC comes up with a solution that the DNC lawyers don't like - what is the DNC going to do? Sue its own RBC committee?"
That said, the lawyers' memo may provide crucial political cover for the RBC members to reject Hillary's proposal (which they almost certainly want to reject anyway, for reasons I explained before). Thanks to the memo, instead of actively choosing to "disenfranchise" Florida and Michigan, they can simply say, "Sorry, but the lawyers told us we have to!"
"Sorry, but the lawyers told us we have to!"
Which would be a complete and utter cop-out. The unfortunate thing is that this whole situation is a total lose-lose for the RBC and the DNC by defualt.
Posted by: Brent | May 28, 2008 11:34:17 AM
Yes?
More like, Duh.
Posted by: | May 28, 2008 3:27:25 PM
Well, technically DNC rules state that early states get the 50% penalty, but Dean decided they should have a harsher "no delegate" penalty this year and pushed the committee to put those restrictions in place for this year. So, going by the rules, the RBC is technically limited to seating no more than 50% of the FL & MI delegates based on the rules. That being said, the RBC can also just change the rules unless some limit on their power to do so in such a manner exists in the bylaws.
Posted by: Chris | May 28, 2008 5:08:17 PM