Under a vote taken moments ago by a powerful committee of the Democratic National Committee, if things don't change, Florida's primary on Jan. 29 will be a beauty context - the delegates won't count toward the party's presidential nomination.
Florida officials complained they were being "disenfranchised," but the DNC strongly pushes back against that contention, since it has rules that Florida decided not to follow.
This is the party's way of trying to stop the crazy domino effect of states moving their nominating contests earlier and earlier, which causes OTHER states to go earlier and earlier.
The DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee voted nearly unanimously that Florida's plan is non-compliant with party rules, and gave the state 30 days to fix it. Otherwise, the state will lose 100 percent of its delegates.(…)
What will happen at the national convention? Will Florida have a section with a "Sunshine State" sign and the funny hats?
Herman: "This would then come under the purview of the credentials committee of the convention. And the convention credentials committee would then have to make a determination as to how they would interpret whatever activities would have occurred in Florida - be it the 29th process, or any subsequent activities, if it were not party approved."
Read the fine print in the last paragraph, and allow me to translate for those not as close to the process. Florida will have a delegation seated at the 2008 Democratic convention. However, that delegation will not be determined by the January 29th Florida "primary," at least until the nominee is already decided. Only be when the nominee becomes a foregone conclusion, without the assistance of anyone from Florida included in their ongoing delegate counts, will the delegates from Florida be reinstated through the credentials committee in some manner.
Even though they have been given thirty days to do so, the Florida Democratic Party can't actually change the date of the Florida primary on its own, because the January 29th primary date is now state law. However, rather than to actually force Florida to change, this move from the DNC is being undertaken primarily to prevent any other states, such as Arizona and Ohio, from moving to January 29th or earlier. Whether or not the DNC will succeed in preventing any more states from moving earlier than February 5th, and whether or not the political repercussions will be worth it, remains in the realm of pure speculation at this point. The disaster situation for the DNC now is if the nominee is not a foregone conclusion after Super Tuesday on February 5th. Otherwise, this incident will become little more than an annoying footnote to the nomination campaign.
I except New Hampshire and Iowa to announce their final dates shortly after the 30-day window for Florida handed down by the DNC rules committee expires in late September.
