Democrats Approve Deal on Michigan and Florida
WASHINGTON — To jeers and boos that showcased deep party divisions, Democratic party officials approved a deal Saturday to seat delegates from the disputed Florida and Michigan primaries with half a vote each, dealing a blow to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The deal, reached behind closed doors and voted on publicly in a raucous meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s rules panel, would give Mrs. Clinton a net gain of 24 delegates over Senator Barack Obama — but fell far short of her hopes of winning the full votes of both delegations.
The decision left Mrs. Clinton lagging behind Mr. Obama in delegates in the final weekend of campaigning before the last of the nominating contests — Puerto Rico on Sunday and Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday — are held.
Under the compromise, Mrs. Clinton, who won the Michigan and Florida contests that were held in defiance of party rules, picked up 19 delegates in Florida and 5 delegates in Michigan.
The deep wounds among Democratic partisans — and the unification challenges awaiting the party — were laid bare when the committee voted on Saturday evening. Supporters of Mrs. Clinton jeered the decision, loudly booing and hissing the members of the group as their faces were shown on a large screen in the room.
One woman, wearing a blue “Team Hillary” shirt, shoved a man in a suit and tie wearing a small Obama button on his lapel. Another woman in a white Clinton shirt hung her head in her hands.
“That was a crime!” a man shouted. “McCain in ’08! McCain in ’08!” a woman yelled from the back of the room. “No-bama! No-bama!”
It remained an open question what Mrs. Clinton would do, with strong hints that she might take the fight to a committee that does not meet until the end of July.
“Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee,” said Harold Ickes, a senior adviser to Mrs. Clinton who serves on the rules committee. His words drew cheers from Clinton supporters, including many people who yelled, “Denver! Denver! Denver!” — a threat to take their cause all the way to the convention.
The deal was voted on after an intense five-hour debate on Saturday morning, during which the sharp philosophical differences between the two campaigns played out on live television. After the committee retreated for lunch late in the day, they continued to meet behind closed doors and aligned enough votes for resolutions on the two states.
The day started with the committee members wrestling publicly with some of the most vexing and divisive issues of the presidential primary process. Arcane arguments about party rules ricocheted around the committee’s open session here.
It nonetheless made for a surprising drama that riveted hundreds of spectators, reporters and party activists in the hotel ballroom as well as television audiences who could watch the session on three cable networks.
Hundreds of demonstrators chanted outside, until torrential rains drove them away. But all eyes were on 28 members of the party’s rules committee, who sat under the lights at a U-shaped conference table, driven by candidate loyalties that pitted them against erstwhile allies even as they tried to reach for compromise.
The meeting was prompted by the need to resolve the outcome of contests that had been held by two states that defied party rules by moving up their primaries before Feb. 5. Both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama agreed to the party’s decision to penalize Florida and Michigan by disallowing their delegates, but that was challenged in recent weeks, leading to Saturday’s meeting.
The party had hoped to resolve the matter, to satisfy the millions of Democrats from those states who would likely prove decisive in the general election, and to help smooth the party’s path to unity. But the Obama and Clinton campaigns differed on how the matter should be resolved.
At one point, David E. Bonior, a former congressman from Michigan who once backed John Edwards for president but is now with Mr. Obama, acknowledged in testimony that his own state’s primary was practically illegitimate.
“This event that happened on Jan. 15 was not anything close to a primary election and cannot allocate delegates in a normal fashion,” he said.
But Michigan should still have delegates at the convention, he said. And although Mr. Obama was not on the state’s ballot, Mr. Bonior delivered an Obama proposal for splitting the delegates evenly between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton.
This drew gasps of surprise and boos from Clinton supporters while Obama backers cheered.
At that point, Tina Flournoy, a Clinton adviser and member of the rules committee, said Mr. Obama’s proposal essentially called for overriding the will of the voters.
“What is being proposed here is that you go into a voting booth and at some point later down the road, someone decides that your vote is for someone else,” she said. “If we’re going to do that, let’s cancel 2012, and let’s divide all the delegates in all the states.”
The references to the will of the voters were a deliberate echo of the Florida recount in 2000. For weeks, Mrs. Clinton has been crusading for “every vote to count.” She even traveled to the epicenter of the recount debacle in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade Counties, where she likened her call for counting all votes to the abolitionist movement, the current election turmoil in Zimbabwe and various civil rights struggles.
Mrs. Clinton had hoped that the rules committee would uphold the elections in Florida and Michigan so as to confer legitimacy on their popular vote; if they were added to her national tally, she would lead Mr. Obama in the popular vote.
Before the rules panel voted, Obama supporters declared their Florida proposal a generous “concession.” Clinton backers scoffed at it, saying it reflected only half of what Mrs. Clinton actually won in Florida, which would have given her 38 delegates.
Obama supporters proposed splitting the Michigan delegation in half. The Clinton campaign had its own proposal, based on Mrs. Clinton’s having won 55 percent of the vote. Her plan would have given her 73 delegates compared with 55 for uncommitted.
There was a third Michigan proposal, offered by Mark Brewer, the chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party. He asked the committee to award Mrs. Clinton 69 delegates and Mr. Obama 59 — a rough estimate of the results, assigning the “uncommitted” tally to Mr. Obama.
Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, opened the meeting by saying, “We are strong enough to struggle and disagree and to even be angry and disappointed and still come together at the end of the day and be united.”
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and JEFF ZELENY
The deal, reached behind closed doors and voted on publicly in a raucous meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s rules panel, would give Mrs. Clinton a net gain of 24 delegates over Senator Barack Obama — but fell far short of her hopes of winning the full votes of both delegations.
The decision left Mrs. Clinton lagging behind Mr. Obama in delegates in the final weekend of campaigning before the last of the nominating contests — Puerto Rico on Sunday and Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday — are held.
Under the compromise, Mrs. Clinton, who won the Michigan and Florida contests that were held in defiance of party rules, picked up 19 delegates in Florida and 5 delegates in Michigan.
The deep wounds among Democratic partisans — and the unification challenges awaiting the party — were laid bare when the committee voted on Saturday evening. Supporters of Mrs. Clinton jeered the decision, loudly booing and hissing the members of the group as their faces were shown on a large screen in the room.
One woman, wearing a blue “Team Hillary” shirt, shoved a man in a suit and tie wearing a small Obama button on his lapel. Another woman in a white Clinton shirt hung her head in her hands.
“That was a crime!” a man shouted. “McCain in ’08! McCain in ’08!” a woman yelled from the back of the room. “No-bama! No-bama!”
It remained an open question what Mrs. Clinton would do, with strong hints that she might take the fight to a committee that does not meet until the end of July.
“Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee,” said Harold Ickes, a senior adviser to Mrs. Clinton who serves on the rules committee. His words drew cheers from Clinton supporters, including many people who yelled, “Denver! Denver! Denver!” — a threat to take their cause all the way to the convention.
The deal was voted on after an intense five-hour debate on Saturday morning, during which the sharp philosophical differences between the two campaigns played out on live television. After the committee retreated for lunch late in the day, they continued to meet behind closed doors and aligned enough votes for resolutions on the two states.
The day started with the committee members wrestling publicly with some of the most vexing and divisive issues of the presidential primary process. Arcane arguments about party rules ricocheted around the committee’s open session here.
It nonetheless made for a surprising drama that riveted hundreds of spectators, reporters and party activists in the hotel ballroom as well as television audiences who could watch the session on three cable networks.
Hundreds of demonstrators chanted outside, until torrential rains drove them away. But all eyes were on 28 members of the party’s rules committee, who sat under the lights at a U-shaped conference table, driven by candidate loyalties that pitted them against erstwhile allies even as they tried to reach for compromise.
The meeting was prompted by the need to resolve the outcome of contests that had been held by two states that defied party rules by moving up their primaries before Feb. 5. Both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama agreed to the party’s decision to penalize Florida and Michigan by disallowing their delegates, but that was challenged in recent weeks, leading to Saturday’s meeting.
The party had hoped to resolve the matter, to satisfy the millions of Democrats from those states who would likely prove decisive in the general election, and to help smooth the party’s path to unity. But the Obama and Clinton campaigns differed on how the matter should be resolved.
At one point, David E. Bonior, a former congressman from Michigan who once backed John Edwards for president but is now with Mr. Obama, acknowledged in testimony that his own state’s primary was practically illegitimate.
“This event that happened on Jan. 15 was not anything close to a primary election and cannot allocate delegates in a normal fashion,” he said.
But Michigan should still have delegates at the convention, he said. And although Mr. Obama was not on the state’s ballot, Mr. Bonior delivered an Obama proposal for splitting the delegates evenly between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton.
This drew gasps of surprise and boos from Clinton supporters while Obama backers cheered.
At that point, Tina Flournoy, a Clinton adviser and member of the rules committee, said Mr. Obama’s proposal essentially called for overriding the will of the voters.
“What is being proposed here is that you go into a voting booth and at some point later down the road, someone decides that your vote is for someone else,” she said. “If we’re going to do that, let’s cancel 2012, and let’s divide all the delegates in all the states.”
The references to the will of the voters were a deliberate echo of the Florida recount in 2000. For weeks, Mrs. Clinton has been crusading for “every vote to count.” She even traveled to the epicenter of the recount debacle in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade Counties, where she likened her call for counting all votes to the abolitionist movement, the current election turmoil in Zimbabwe and various civil rights struggles.
Mrs. Clinton had hoped that the rules committee would uphold the elections in Florida and Michigan so as to confer legitimacy on their popular vote; if they were added to her national tally, she would lead Mr. Obama in the popular vote.
Before the rules panel voted, Obama supporters declared their Florida proposal a generous “concession.” Clinton backers scoffed at it, saying it reflected only half of what Mrs. Clinton actually won in Florida, which would have given her 38 delegates.
Obama supporters proposed splitting the Michigan delegation in half. The Clinton campaign had its own proposal, based on Mrs. Clinton’s having won 55 percent of the vote. Her plan would have given her 73 delegates compared with 55 for uncommitted.
There was a third Michigan proposal, offered by Mark Brewer, the chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party. He asked the committee to award Mrs. Clinton 69 delegates and Mr. Obama 59 — a rough estimate of the results, assigning the “uncommitted” tally to Mr. Obama.
Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, opened the meeting by saying, “We are strong enough to struggle and disagree and to even be angry and disappointed and still come together at the end of the day and be united.”
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and JEFF ZELENY
Comments