Tag Archives: Superdelegates.

Contested Convention? — February 2020 Edition

The eleven days between New Hampshire and Nevada is the third longest “break” of the primary process.  So with a little time to spare before the pace picks up (and March is the busiest month in the primary cycle), time to turn to one of the perennial topics of discussion in the primary process.  (Whether there is a second edition this year will depend on how things look at the next major break — the three weeks between Wisconsin and the Mid-Atlantic states.   Every four years, there is speculation about the possibility that the race will not be decided until the convention.  And every four years, by mid-April, it’s pretty clear that the race is over.  So why has this speculation been wrong in the past and why might it be true this year (or why will the speculation go bust again this year).

Before getting to the issue of a contested convention, there is a question of terminology.  Many people talk about the possibility of a “brokered” convention.  Prior to 1968, state party leaders had solid control over the delegate selection process.  Most states used a caucus system with little if any role for presidential preference in the election of delegates.  The delegates elected tended to be loyal to state party leaders not to any particular presidential candidate.  And even if an individual delegate might want to go rogue, there were tools like the unit rule mandating that a state vote as a block (i.e. as the majority of the delegation decided) to prevent it.   So, even if the convention only went one ballot, most conventions for 130 years were brokered conventions in the sense that the party leaders talked with each other and reached an agreement as to who should be the nominee (sometimes on the first ballot and sometimes after many, many ballots).

Since 1968, the two parties have enacted mechanisms in which presidential preference in the primary/caucus controls the vote on the first ballot.  The Republican rules give a little less power to the presidential candidate, but the typical Democratic delegate is more loyal to the candidate than to the state party leadership.  Even that loyalty is loyalty to a movement and, not necessarily, to the personal success of the candidate.  In other words, it is unclear that — in the case of a contested convention — presidential candidates could deliver their delegates. Continue Reading...

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Delegate Selection Rules for 2020

This weekend, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) held its “Summer” Meeting.  One of the items on the agenda was the RBC’s draft of the various documents that together comprise the rules for the 2020 nomination process.  For first time readers of this site, the Democrats have a multi-step process for drawing up the rules for delegate selection.   Typically, step one is a Festivus-type Commission in which the party head appoints a Commission drawing from all parts of the party for an airing of the grievances from the last cycle.  (Sometimes, this step is skipped when a Democrat wins the White House, particularly when a Democratic incumbent is re-elected.)  That Commission then drafts suggestions.  Step Two is the Rules and By-laws Committee (RBC) of the DNC actually takes those suggestions (and other suggestions by RBC members) and amends the rules from the last cycle to incorporate those suggestions that have the support of the RBC.  Step Three is that the full DNC then reviews and approves the new set of rules and issues them to the state parties.  Step Four is that the state parties then (taking into account both legislative changes in their state and the new national rules) draft the state rules.  Typically, the state rules need to be completed by the late spring/early summer of the year after the mid-term.  Step Five is that the state rules are then submitted to the RBC for review for compliance with the national rules and approval (or directions to make changes to comply with the national rules).

The reports out of the Summer Meeting suggests that the RBC drafts were adopted essentially intact; so what follows is based on the draft plans that were approved by the RBC:  the Call for the 2020 Convention and the Delegate Selection Rules for the 2020 Convention.   (Both linked documents show the changes to the old rules.)   There are several important details/changes in the draft documents from the RBC.  (If you want to skip the technicalities of the rules, what these may mean in practical terms is at the end of this post.)

First, the 2020 Convention will take place in mid-July.  (Call, Preamble).  The DNC will select the site later this year or early next year.  The delegate selection process will end by June 20, 2020.  (Call, Part III). Continue Reading...

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Preparing for 2020

While there is still plenty of time left in the 2016 election, discussion has already started about the rules for the 2020 election.  Changes to the delegate selection process tends to be driven by “fixing” what the party sees as the problem in the last election cycle.  For example, a lot of the changes on the Republican side (e.g., the binding rules, penalties for states violating the rules) were driven by what the party leadership thought went wrong in 2012 — Ron Paul doing better at state conventions than he did on caucus nights, states violating the timing and proportionality rules.

The two parties are at different stages of the process for modifying the procedures for 2020.  For the Republicans, the process for convening the next convention is part of the party rules .  Normally, the rules can only be amended at the convention.  In 2012, the convention granted limited “one time only” authority to the Republican National Committee to change the process.  Given the difficulty of making changes on the fly during a convention, it is likely that the Republicans might give the RNC this power again.  For the Democrats, the actual drafting of the rules for the next convention is done by the Democratic National Committee after the convention.  Typically, the most that has happened during the nomination process is an agreement to have a study commission to look at revisions to the rules.

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Super Delegates 2016 — The Arguments

The two parties take very different approaches to the election of pledged delegates.  In the Republican Party, the influence of winner-take-all states and winner-take-most states allows a front runner to win the nomination while only getting a plurality of the vote.  In the Democratic Party, the fact that 14% of the delegates (officially unpledged party leader and elected officials, unofficially superdelegates) go to the convention as unpledged delegates and the pledged delegates are allocated proportionately, make it hard for even a clear front-runner with a majority of the votes to win enough pledged delegates unless the other candidates suspend their campaigns.   As a result, for the second competitive cycle in a row, both candidates need the support of at least some of the super delegates to win the nomination.

There are a lot of different arguments for what superdelegates should consider in making their decision.  The problem for Bernie Sanders and his supporters is that almost every argument favors Hillary Clinton.

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