• ‹ previous
• 45 of 821
• next ›

The Democratic National Committee released a statement today about a 17 page memo they sent to members of the Rules and Bylaws Committee that laid out the challenges to the sanctions imposed on Michigan and Florida for violating the agreed upon 2008 primary schedule.

"The staff analysis is intentionally neutral; it does not make specific recommendations. The analysis lays out a rules framework for each challenge, and the issues raised within each challenge. The analysis maintains that the RBC did have proper authority and jurisdiction in imposing the 100% sanction. The RBC had wide latitude in that decision,” the statement said.

The document also examined how to implement a 50% sanction, “The document also examines the 50% automatic sanction and how to implement such a sanction: Under this scenario, one option would be to reduce the total number of delegates by half; the second option for consideration by the RBC would be to reduce the delegation's votes by half, so that each delegate gets a half vote.”

I think that the 50% sanction is the likely solution that will come out of Saturday’s meeting. Even though Hillary Clinton wants all of the delegates seated in proportion to the results of the unrecognized primaries, the DNC is supporting the sanction. What is likely to happen is that each delegate will be seated, but be given a half of a vote. I could see Michigan’s delegates being split in half, and Florida’s being awarded with an advantage to Clinton.

Either way, this isn’t what the Clinton campaign wants or needs. They need all of the delegates awarded based on the percentage of her wins in the two states. Without this, they have no argument to make to the superdelegates. For all practical purposes the nominee has been decided, so the Obama campaign can afford to be a bit more generous and not fight this out. The task for the RBC this weekend will be to come up with a plan to seat the Michigan and Florida delegate, other than this I doubt there will be few surprises.

DNC Press Release:

http://media.prnewswire.com/en/jsp/latest.jsp?beat=BEAT_GOVERNMENT&view=...

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama Democratic Party Hillary Clinton News politics 2008 election DNC rules and Bylaws Committee Michigan Primary Florida Primary Hillary Clinton Obama