Over the past week, Americans from across the country have uploaded videos onto YouTube and other sites asking the DNC's Rules & Bylaws Committee to uphold the principle of democracy and count every vote!
Below is a sampling of the videos submitted by Michiganders from across the state.
In a letter addressed to Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Hillary Clinton asks the Illinois Senator to join her in working towards a "fair and quick resolution" to the Michigan and Florida questions. Sen. Clinton writes that simply seating the delegaitons is enough enough, and that "[t]he people of these great states, like the people who have voted and are to vote in other states, must have a voice in selecting our party's nominee."
One of the foremost principles of our party is that citizens be allowed to vote and that those votes be counted. That principle is not currently being applied to the nearly 2.5 million people who voted in primaries in Florida and Michigan. Whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee will be hamstrung in the general election if a fair and quick resolution is not reached that ensures that the voices of these voters are heard. Our commitment now to this goal could be the difference between winning and losing in November.
The Obama campaign has not immediately responded to Sen. Clinton's letter.
I was in East Los Angeles on Super Tuesday when the non-partisan election reform organization Why Tuesday? interviewed Dolores Huerta, one of my personal heroes. Huerta, a human rights activist, community organizer, and co-founder (with Cesar E. Chavez) of the United Farm Workers, talked about the need for serious voter reform to ensure that every voice is heard in our democracy.
Dolores Huerta has spent her life fighting the good fight, empowering people of color and other marginalized groups to organize and push for change.
It was in that spirit that today hundreds of Latinos--organized by the United Latin American Citizens—protested outside of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, DC.
Latinos came from Orlando, Tampa, Miami, Jacksonville, and beyond to express their outrage at their disenfranchisement
“This is a civil liberties issue – not a campaign or candidate issue,” said Jose Fernandez, president of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida, speaking to the crowd… Another speaker was Anita de Palma, 66, of Clearwater, Fla. She is a past Florida director of the League of United Latin American Citizens… “This is our heritage!” said de Palma, referring to the right to vote and have that vote count. “Our forefathers fought for it, our father’s fought for it, and I’ll be damned if we are going to let it get away from us now!”
And she’s right.
Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP, has said that this selective disenfranchisement could remind voters of America’s “sordid history of racially discriminatory primaries."
And it does.
The overriding consensus on MichiganLiberal is to tell the 2 million voters who voted in Michigan and Florida "tough luck," and to blame the MI and FL party leadership.
"Tough luck" is what African-Americans were told when they failed literacy tests.
"Tough luck" is what African-Americans were told when they weren't able to pass the "grandfather tests" in the days before the Voting Rights Act.
"Tough luck" is what my grandparents were told when they tried to buy a house, only to discover there was a "whites only" clause in the deed.
"Tough luck" is what my mother and her black neighbors were told when they wanted to swim in the Los Angeles city pool on "whites only" days.
And "tough luck" is what people of color hear time and time again when whites overlook us for the job, promition, or recognition we've earned.
So excuse me if I think we've had enough of "tough luck."
A few weeks back, I posted about a rally a grasroots "activist" organized in Lansing to raise awareness about the disenfranchisement of Michigan's voters. I also posted about some Michigan and Florida union workers who protested at DNC headquarters.
And although proud of both efforts, the question that lingers in the back of my mind (and in the minds of many of the other people of color I talk to) is why are the rest of our brothers and sisters in the Michigan Democratic Party remaining silent when the votes of hundreds of thousands of are hanging in the balance? We ask ourselves, "Where is their outrage?"
I thought this was a pretty entertaining part of this afternoon's Associated Press story on this Saturday's congressional district meetings:
The 15 congressional district meetings could get raucous. Obama, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and two other candidates pulled their names from the ballot, forcing their supporters to vote for Uncommitted.
About 450 people have registered to run for the 36 delegate and 2 alternate spots set aside for those who backed Uncommitted. Brewer says the vast majority are Obama supporters, but he expects the competition to win a spot will be intense.
"People feel very passionately about their candidates, and I expect we're going to see a lot of passionate campaigns on Saturday," he said.
About 450 people also applied to run for 47 delegate and 13 alternate spots that will go to Clinton supporters, but the Clinton campaign has reduced the list to around 150 people, Brewer said.
About 21,000 party members are eligible to vote at Saturday's district conventions.
Its especially encouraging for me, a Hillary Clinton supporter, to see that, despite not having any formal organization in the state (like Michiganders for Obama), there was a fairly equal number of applicants for spots for "Uncommitted" and Hillary Clinton.
I can't help but to assume that the Obama campaign will benefit from its geographical closeness this Saturday. From what I hear from my Obama-supporting friends in Grand Rapids, the competition could be described as "intense."
I know in California, the Obama campaign slashed over half of his delegates to the congressional district conventions, until public pressure (and a fierce reaction from the netroots) caused Axelrod & Plouffe to reverse their decision at the last minute. There was a lot of speculation about whether the Obama campaign made a coordinated effort to eliminate anti-war activists and members of the netroots as a way of controlling the tone of the meetings. But others have contended that it was less of an effort to cut bloggers and hardcore activists, and more of a way for the Obama campaign to ensure that its big donors were rewarded with a spot at the convention.
We'll see how this Saturday turns out, any predictions?
I know that I plan to be watching this all unfold at Creston High School in Grand Rapids.
Earlier this week I was contacted by a woman who introduced herself by saying she had never done anything "activist" before, but after hearing about a protest of the DNC in Florida, had decided to organize one here in Michigan. I'm pasting the flyer for the event below:
On January 15, 2008, nearly 600,000 Michigan Democrats went to the polls to make their voices heard in the Democratic Presidential primary. The popular vote in Florida and Michigan has been counted, certified by election officials in each state, and officially tallied by the secretary of state in each state.
Our votes cannot be ignored. We will not be disenfranchised. The DNC’s refusal to count our votes and seat our delegates according to the ballots cast on January 15 compromises our civil liberties and our voting rights. This decision affects the rights of ALL Michigan residents regardless of political affiliation.
Michigan, let your voice be heard.
Join together in a grassroots effort to ensure voting privileges and protect the right to vote for future generations.
Demand that our votes be counted and delegates seated based on the Jan. 15 poll results or that a new Michigan primary take place.
Demand that the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee take the necessary steps to ensure the voices of the people of Michigan are heard and its delegates are seated at the Democratic convention this summer.
Where: Michigan State Capitol Building, Lansing, Mi.
According to The Politico's Ben Smith, there are 50-60 Michigan and Florida union members picketing at the DNC headquarters.
They're complaining that the DNC's refusal to seat Florida and Michigan delagates will prevent dozens of union members who are delegates from attending the convention, and they want DNC Chairman Howard Dean to resolve the dispute.
Mike Williams, a Florida union member, compared the DNC's refusal to seat the delegates from those two states as similar to when a comoany locks outs striking union employees.
"We're getting locked out," said Williams as he and the other union members pickteted the DNC. Williams estimated that as many as a dozen building trade union members, and 30 union members overall, would be part of the Florida contingent to the Democratic convention
Update: The pickets are members are of the Building and Construction Trades Council, which, to my knowledge, has not yet endorsed a presidential candidate.
Hillary just sent out the following message encouraging Americans to join her in calling for the voices of Michigan and Florida Democrats to be heard.
Dear Friend,
It is a bedrock American principle: we are all equal in the voting booth. No matter where you were born or how much money you were born into, no matter the color of your skin or where you worship, your vote deserves to count.
But millions of people in Florida and Michigan who went to the polls aren't being heard. The delegates they elected won't be seated at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August -- and that's just not fair to those voters.
The people of Michigan and Florida must have a voice in selecting our nominee for president. I have repeatedly called for seating their delegates.
Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams has released the following statement, urging Sen. Barack Obama to join the Clinton campaign in calling for a party-run primary to ensure that Michigan voters are not disenfranchised.
Michigan will be a key battleground state in November. Disenfranchising Michigan voters today will, in the heat of a general election, provide Senator McCain with a powerful argument to use against the Democratic nominee. We cannot allow this to happen.
The people of Michigan must be counted and their voices finally heard. What the people of Michigan need now is just action, not just words.
The Clinton campaign is calling for a new primary, because as Marc Ambinder notes, the judge's ruling does not necessarily require one.
Judge Nancy Edmonds's ruling DOES NOT order a new primary. She writes that the "the court agrees the issue of severability is beyond the scope of the claims." In other words: the parties themselves ought to figure out whether they need new primaries or not.
Full statement from Maggie Williams below the fold.
Hillary Clinton, speaking before the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, where she expanded on her Hispanic Agenda -- Una Vida Mejor Para Todos -- spoke about her campaign's efforts to have the voices of voters in Michigan and Florida heard, calling the exclusion of the nearly 2.5 million Americans from the democratic process "wrong."
She outlined two options moving forward, which echo the "Dear David" letter written by Clinton Campaign Manager Maggie Williams to David Plouffe earlier in the morning.
In my view there are two options: Honor the results or hold new primary elections. I don’t see any other solutions that are fair and honor the commitment that two and a half million voters made in the Democratic primaries in those two states.
Regardless of the outcome, Sen. Clinton said we have a "basic obligation to make sure that every vote in America counts."
Sen. Clinton called on Sen. Obama and his campaign to join her to make sure that there ia "non-partisan solution" to the problem.
This comes on the heels of the Obama campaign expressing deep reservations about using the mail-in option in both Michigan and Florida (Florida's Congressional Democrats have issued a statement opposing a re-do of any kind). Despite Sen. Obama's position on mail-in votes in Florida and Michigan, he co-sponsored a bill last June that would establish a vote by mail grant program.
My thinking is that the Obama campaign is in favor of a limited-window caucus (as the Edwards campaign was when it derailed the inclusion of all candidates on the Michigan primary ballot). I haven't seen any studies of it, but would a vote-by-mail operation increase the number of senior citizens (a population that trends HRC) that participate? I would think that the limited-window would function to exclude working-class and blue-collar workers (who also trend to HRC, especially in rust belt states).
Here's a good video explaining the lead-up to Obama's choice to remove his name from the ballot.
I thought I'd post this article in case any of you missed it. It was posted at Real Clear Politics. It basically makes the case that Obama is better off NOT agreeing to any sort of re-do.
Democrats, faced with two candidates nearly three-quarters of the way to the magic number required to secure their party's presidential nomination, face what can be described as a nightmare scenario. Better positioned for victory in November than any party since 1984, Democrats are close to throwing that advantage away, and options for salvaging a unified party by the late August convention are dwindling.
Florida and Michigan, both states who jumped ahead of the party's pre-approved window in which they were allowed to hold nominating contests, are now casting about for a way to have their delegates seated in Denver this summer. That's not the way their gambit was supposed to go.
When both states' legislators moved their contests to January 15, in Michigan, and January 29, in Florida, they thought they knew exactly what they were doing: While the DNC might strip them of delegates, the eventual nominee would instruct credentials committee members to allow the two states' slates to sit n the convention floor. But that plan did not factor in the possibility of a contested convention.
Now, based on delegate allocation, it looks almost certain that votes to seat the delegations in their current iterations - both overwhelmingly favoring Hillary Clinton - will not exist. Examining the 186 members of the DNC's Credentials Committee, which would decide any contested delegations, the deck is heavily stacked against both states.
Of the twenty eight members DNC chair Howard Dean appointed, five have already voted to strip the states' delegates. Committee chairs Alexis Herman and Jim Roosevelt, along with members Ralph Dawson, Tina Flournoy and Janice Griffin, all served on the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee, which decided the punishments for non-compliant states. The remaining twenty three members will likely follow suit and vote to uphold the rules.
Based on results so far, it appears that Barack Obama's team will control at least 68 seats on the credentials committee, after an estimate that is, if anything, generous to Clinton. Clinton's wins have netted her 55 seats, while states that have yet to hold contests -- Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennyslvania, South Dakota, West Virginia and Puerto Rico - have yet to allocate their combined 22 seats. With Dean's selections voting to uphold the rules and Obama's delegates voting in their candidate's interest, 96 delegates would vote to keep Michigan and Florida out.
While the committee is slated to have 186 members casting 183 votes (delegates from the territories are given a quarter of a vote, though all four voted for Obama, suggesting they will cast their combined one committee vote for him), Florida's and Michigan's combined 14 delegates are still allowed at the convention, but they cannot vote on matters involving their own states.
Even assuming Florida votes to seat Michigan's delegates and vice versa, the coalition voting against Clinton's delegations from both states will likely add up to more than half of the remaining 180 votes (with Florida delegates voting) and 178 votes (with Michigan delegates included). Obama can't use that majority to seat a friendlier delegate slate, though, as Clinton would benefit from Dean's contingent, again voting to uphold the rules rather than in her favor, and could block new delegate slates.
In short, the only ways for Florida and Michigan to find their seats on the convention floor would be for the Clinton and Obama camps to reach a deal and together outvote Dean's credentials committee faction; or for the two states to hold some kind of revote, either a primary or a caucus.
A caucus in either state is unlikely to fly. Clinton, who has found herself at a disadvantage in those contests, has already declared she will not accept caucuses. The New York Senator also has an advantage on the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee, through which any new Florida and Michigan plans would have to be approved. Twelve of the 28 committee members are publicly backing Clinton, while seven have said they support Obama. Clinton would need just three additional votes to block a caucus plan, and several committee members are said to back Clinton but are withholding public endorsements.
Too, Clinton and Obama are unlikely to come to an agreement on how to split the delegations fairly. Any agreement that advantages Clinton, she will argue, is only fair, since she won both states. But Obama is still free to walk away from that agreement, and he has no reason to accept a plan that puts him at anything resembling a disadvantage. Clinton would probably veto a plan splitting the delegations evenly, which would only make the magic number climb higher, from 2,025 to slightly north of 2,200, making her overall quest more difficult.
That leaves both states contemplating a primary, something that would cost each tens of millions of dollars. The trouble is that neither state has the resources to pay for the primaries, and barring a massive infusion of soft money from wealthy donors, the DNC or the candidates themselves, they won't be able to afford do-over contests.
The DNC option is off the table: Dean offered to pay for alternate primaries last year, but was refused. In a phone call last week with Senator Bill Nelson, of Florida, Dean told Nelson the party could not afford it now; through January 31, the DNC had just over $3 million in the bank, less than one-tenth what contests in both states would cost.
In short, neither Michigan nor Florida will benefit from taking their cases to the credentials committee. Both states will have difficult times financing new primaries, relying on wealthy donors pouring in millions of dollars of soft money, which state parties can accept under campaign finance laws, or on Clinton and Obama donating toward a do-over.
Democrats already caught bad luck when John McCain won the Republican nomination, as the rival party chose the candidate who would be strongest in November. Now, faced with the option of holding new contests in Florida and Michigan or nominating a presidential nominee without input from two key swing states, Democrats are seemingly losing the choice they would clearly prefer, the revotes.
A party whose fortunes looked so brilliant just months ago could be on the brink of the most public collapse since 1968. After riots in Chicago that year, Democrats rewrote their rules to resemble those they operate under today. The rules are clear, and everyone knows what they are. The trouble is that neither candidate seemed to imagine that the rules would actually have to be enforced.
Arcane political party rules are not what voters looking for change want from their candidates. Thanks to two strong, and stubborn, candidates, the Democratic Party is seriously in danger of taking what was once an embarrassment of riches and turning it into a plain old embarrassment.
Thank You Chris Dodd! It appears the cacophony of voices is moving for a heavily modified version of Mark Grebner's plan for a do over primary through mail-in ballots. Levin, Granholm, and even Bill Nelson of Florida are expected to push this plan to the state Democratic Party pretty soon. However, another voice has joined in with a different view.
In reference to my previous post, http://www.michiganliberal.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=11614, I spoke about a Professor at Wayne State who had a great idea: send the delegates, but split them 50/50 for Clinton and Obama. This is possible because delegates are in no way compelled to actually vote as they are originally apportioned, meaning that if we send 100 delegates for “Clinton” and 56 for “Obama”, they may get to Denver, and 100 will vote for Obama while only 56 vote for Clinton.
Today, Chris Dodd endorsed this plan at the International Association of Fire Fighters. He brought up all the key points: it is wrong to put this all on taxpayers’ bill again, it still would ‘punish’ us without totally disenfranchising us, and he is opposed to having any election be funded solely through, “a bunch of fat cats”.
I like Grebner’s plan for its simplicity of funding and the inclusion of a few physical polling stations. The talk I’ve heard about special fundraisers for the do-over and whatnot makes me concerned, let alone the fact that we would have to get the state House and Senate to pass a new law to make any do-over a possibility. This plan is simple, cost effective, and would force people to take a closer look at who they send to the convention, rather than take it for granted.
The article on Chris Dodd’s remarks can be found here: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080311/POLITICS01/803110417/1361/rss41
Hillary Clinton has issued a statement regarding the seating of delegates at the Convention in Denver, saying that Michigan and Florida are an important part of a Democratic victory in November and that she will ask that her Democratic convention seat the delegations from Florida and Michigan.
"I hear all the time from people in Florida and Michigan that they want their voices heard in selecting the Democratic nominee.
"I believe our nominee will need the enthusiastic support of Democrats in these states to win the general election, and so I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan. I know not all of my delegates will do so and I fully respect that decision. But I hope to be President of all 50 states and U.S. territories, and that we have all 50 states represented and counted at the Democratic convention.
Sen. Clinton will continue abiding by the four-state pledge and not campaign in states with violating elections.
The Obama campaign is on recording as having said the following:
Our position and the position of the DNC is clear -- neither the Florida nor Michigan primaries are playing any role in deciding the Democratic nominee and we are not campaigning in either state.
And yet, they are airing ads in Florida on cable networks such as CNN and MSNBC, which both illustrates the national scope of the race and the Obama campaign's acknowledgement that Florida is an important race. But the national scope of the race hasn't stopped early state Democratic leaders from protesting Obama's move.
"Words matter, promises matter and pledges matter," said [former Iowa Governor Tom] Vilsack, who ended his own presidential campaign in February 2007 and endorsed Clinton. "It calls into question the promises and pledges he's made on the campaign trail."
The Obama camps decision to air national ads (which include Florida) right before the Primary there is especially interesting because it was the Obama campaign which organized the other campaigns to withdraw their names from Michigan's ballot.
Five individuals connected to five different campaigns have confirmed -- but only under condition of anonymity -- that the situation that developed in connection with the Michigan ballot is not at all as it appears on the surface. The campaign for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, arguably fearing a poor showing in Michigan, reached out to the others with a desire of leaving New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as the only candidate on the ballot. The hope was that such a move would provide one more political obstacle for the Clinton campaign to overcome in Iowa.
According to Grebner's analysis, Hillary Clinton won 73 delegates from Michigan, which she carried with over 55% of the vote.
Sen. Hillary Clinton's full statement below the jump.
