Murphy said men would choose the women.

Eleanor insisted women would choose.

She politely asked Murphy to acquiesce. When he refused, she went to the press, rallying female support by saying:

"We will be enormously strengthened if we can show that we will fight to the very last ditch for what we believe in."

Hillary Clinton has become our Eleanor.

Florida and Michigan are our trenches.

Murphy lost.

And I am getting very tired of seeing MY VOTE BEING USED A GAME in blogsphere.

There is no consensus in Florida as to what to do next.  The Florida Congressional delegation does not support a re-vote.  There is no single remedy that commands a majority of Florida voters (as polling on the subject makes clear).

The current circumstance is PRIMARILY the result:

1.  Of a Florida Democratic Party that played a game of chicken
   
2.  Of a Party Leader who did not uderstand how dangerous the game was that he was playing
   
3.  Of a Republican Governor who would not change the date after it was clear the DNC was going to stick to their guns
   
4.  Of the 20 plus states who moved to Feb 2nd only after the decision on Florida and Michigan were made, and made clear on the Rules and Bylaws Committee that they would move earlier unless Florida and Michigan were punished
   
5.  Of the Clinton campaign who supported punishing Florida and Michigan when it counted.

Many Democrats voted in the Republican primary under the belief that they did not have a way to register their preference in the Democratic primary and they should at least do something with their right to vote. There is now no fair way to untangle those previous votes.

If you restrict the revote to folks who voted in the Democratic primary the last time, then you are excluding a large number of Edwards and Obama supporters who voted in the Republican primary, biasing the election towards Clinton, which was a reasonable strategy at the time, given that no potential revote was even under discussion.

Most of the estimates I read on this said you need at least 6 weeks for Michigan, and by law, at least 90 days for Florida.  Ergo, a re-vote in Michigan would technically be feasible, but of course there is that recent court ruling to consider.  Florida doesn't seem like it could be re-done.

Voting: A member of the Credentials Committee elected by a state delegation shall not vote on a challenge arising in that state.

So certainly MI delegates cannot vote on MI.  It's not clear to me whether the MI component of the Credentials Committee can vote on FL (and vice versa).  The main problem is how the committee members are even selected if there are no recognized state delegates (VII.1):

The members of the standing committees allocated to the states and territories shall be elected by each state's National Convention delegates...

Naked Politics

That's right. It will be Maddox, who was chairman when the party got hit with an IRS lien for failing to pay its taxes, who will sit on the committee that will decide whether or not Florida gets back its 210 delegates that the DNC stripped away after Florida moved up its primary to Jan. 29th. Dean nominated Maddox, the former mayor of Tallahassee and a candidate for governor, for the credentials committee and his selection was ratified by the DNC executive committee over the weekend.

Dean, who met behind closed doors with Florida's Democratic congressional delegation, offered the confirmation of hotel rooms as assurances that Florida's votes will be counted."

i think i'm confused: if the MI & FL delegates won't be seated, because those states broke the rules on their primary dates, why would they then be on the credentials committe?

every time i think the party leadership couldn't possibly be any stupider, they rise to the challenge, and prove me wrong!

Dean says Florida delegates will be seated at convention

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Democratic Chairman Howard Dean said this morning that Florida's convention delegation will be seated this summer.

"It is our intention to do everything that we can and we believe we'll absolutely seat a delegation from Florida at the convention. That is absolutely in the best interest of all of us," he said.

Help!

The Howard Dean chaired, Democratic National Committee, via it's disqualifi-cation of the Democratic Primaries in Michigan & Florida is currently violat-ing Constitutional Law. This is Direct Disenfranchisement. What our country now requires is an attorney who can effectively argue constitutional facts to the U.S. Supreme Court.

FYI...Article 25; the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights:

Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any... distinctions...and without unreasonable restrictions:
  (a) To take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through
      freely chosen representatives;
  (b) To vote...by universal and equal suffrage...guaranteeing the free
      expression of the will of the electors...

The U.S. has accepted Article 25 as binding at both state & federal levels.

Evidence of DNC direct disenfranchisement & its unconstitutionality:

1. Combined, the 9th, 14th & 15th Amendments endow the (un)inalien-able right of enfranchisement to both minorities & all citizens equally.
   
   • Previously excluded by standard practice, the 14th & 15th Amendments in-/directly enfranchise all races, colors, ex-felons & taxed-Indians; the definition, thereby, of 'the people' was expanded to include minorities.
     
   • If taxed-Indians & citizen ex-felons are eligible for minority protection, then so too are citizen Democrat voters.
     
   • Because the people's right to U.S. government participation was assumed, commonly practiced & not under threat, the 14th & 15th Amendments do not specify enfranchisement as a right of 'the people'.
     
   • However, the 9th protects civil rights not specified in the Constitution: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
     
   • Additionally, when the 14th & 15th specified enfranchisement as a right of minorities, voting became a de jure 9th Amendment natural Constitutional right `retained by the people', i.e., the U.S. citizenry.
     
   • Thus disqualification of Mich. & Fla. primaries is unconstitutional.
     
   
   
2. The 14th Amendment grants citizens equal constitutional protection of our natural rights to `life, liberty & property' via `due process'.
   
   • One of our natural liberties is the freedom to democratic participation in our self-governance; the exemplar of this (un)inalienable liberty is our right to enfranchised vote, election & representative delegation.
     
   • Thus Howard Dean & the DNC's unilateral disqualification of Mich. & Fla. primary votes & delegation, sans it's day in court, is unconstitutional.
     
   • Also, the DNC cannot infringe upon the Mich. & Fla. state Republicans, who are enfranchised...ipso facto then, disqualification of the Dems' vote violates the 14th's enfranchised equal rights protection.
     
   • DNC disqualification is also de facto 15th Amendment discrimination.
     
   
   
3. The 15th Amendment expressly forbids minority discrimination via the denial or abridgement, by any State, of enfranchisement rights.
   
   • It is impossible then for the deeds of either Mich. or Fla.'s governors or legislature to have committed any action which could carry DNC consequences disenfranchising their citizens' rights to election.
     
   • Denying Mich. & Fla. state Democrat voters their right of enfranchise-ment constitutes discrimination in contrast to: Republican voters, the Democrat voters in other states & their delegated representatives.
     
   
   
4. As per the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982, neither the DNC nor Gov. Dean need have a `discriminatory purpose' for disenfranchisement as sanctions for breaking party rules; `a discriminatory result is sufficient to invalidate' disenfranchisement as the form of punitive action.
   
   
5. Our Constitution's `Comity Clause' states: The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges...of Citizens in the several States.
   
   • This 2nd sect. of Article IV thus guarantees that citizens of one state may exercise those same rights exercised by citizens of other states.
     
   • This includes the (un)inalienable right to enfranchised voting & election.
     
   
   
6. In Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944), the Supreme Court ruled: `that primary elections were so pervasively regulated by the state that, in doing their part to run primaries, political parties were state actors & thus subject to the 14th & 15th Amendments'. Howard Dean's action then:
   • defined himself as a `state actor' subject to Constitutional law;
     
   • defined his action as unconstitutional re: the 9th, 14th & 15th Amends.
     
   
   
7. In U.S. v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, the Supreme Court ruled that: `primary elections were such an integral part' of selecting executive officeholders, `that federal laws guaranteeing the right to vote applied'.
   
   • Thus all Articles, Amendments, Acts & Supreme Court rulings apply to any DNC representative or actions; this protects the enfranchised from arbitrary punitive abridgement or denial of that state's federal right to self-determined primary participation in our representative democracy.
     
   • No incumbent Governor holding an additional federal position or role, may act--regarding primary elections--within other states, without being subject to the Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v. Classic.