DNC member balks at delegate plan
LANSING, Mich. (AP) - May 29, 2008 Democratic National Committee member Joel Ferguson sent a letter
Thursday to the co-chairs of the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee
seeking to seat all of Michigan's delegates based on the results of
the disputed Jan. 15 election. Failing that, he says the pledged
delegates should get a half-vote each and superdelegates should get
a full vote, a plan Florida also is proposing.
Clinton, who won Michigan's primary, wants to have the full
delegation seated. Obama, who is close to having enough delegates
to lock up the nomination, has opposed that, noting he took his
name off the Michigan ballot after the DNC said it would strip the
state of its delegates as punishment for moving up its primary date
in violation of party rules.
The rules committee is to meet Saturday to hear plans for
seating delegates from Michigan and Florida, which was also
stripped of its delegates for holding a January primary.
His letter puts him at odds with the Michigan Democratic Party's
chairman and executive committee, which support a proposed 69-59
split.
State Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer disagreed with Ferguson.
Under Ferguson's plan, Clinton would get 73 pledged delegates
for winning the Michigan presidential primary, while
"uncommitted" would get 55. The Clinton campaign has maintained
that Obama should not get any Michigan delegates even though many
of his supporters voted for "uncommitted."
"I am convinced that neither the RBC nor the DNC have the
authority to take pledged delegates allocated to Hillary Clinton by
virtue of the popular vote and assign them to either Uncommitted or
to Barack Obama as the challenge seeks," Ferguson wrote in his
letter.
The plan to split the delegates 69-59 was drawn up by a
four-member team of prominent Michigan Democrats.
"We spent a lot of time working with both campaigns trying to
figure out a solution," DNC member Debbie Dingell, who helped draw
up the plan, said Thursday. "This is a consensus that was agreed
to and the entire executive committee supported. At this point,
we're fighting for a principle that's important."
