Category Archives: Uncategorized

2016 Delegate Selection-Part IV: The Republican Rules

By tmess2 | Published April 11, 2015

In this, the final part of the series, we take a look at how the other side will be doing things for 2016.  The Republicans do things differently in several ways.  First, where the Democratic rules are several separate documents, the Republican rules are actually part of the basic rules of the Republican National Committee (with the rules for the convention being Rules 13-20.  Second, with limited exceptions (which happened in this cycle), the Republican rules are actually adopted at the last national convention.  (The Democrats draft the rules in the two years after the last convention).  Third, as noted, in the first post in the series, the Republicans actually have very few national rules (essentially eight basic rules) and mostly leave it to the state parties to make the important decisions that structure the selection process.

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2016 Delegate Selection-Part III: Democratic Delegate Allocation and Selection

By tmess2 | Published April 5, 2015

the first two parts of this series, we looked at the some background information that applies to both parties (namely the roles of the national parties, the state parties) and state legislatures and some of the basic rules that the Democratic National Committee requires all state parties to follow.   As noted in the previous post, the Democratic National Delegate Selection rules recognize four separate categories of delegates — district level delegates, at-large delegates, pledged PLEOs (party leaders and elected officials, and unpledged PLEOs (a/k/a super delegates).  This post will look at how those delegates are allocated to the states (and then to the individual categories within the states).

The Democratic Party begins delegate allocation with a base of 3,200 district level and at-large delegates for the fifty states and the District of Columbia.  Each state’s initial share is determined by a two-part formula.  The first part averages each state’s share of the national Democratic vote over the last three Presidential elections.  The second part looks at each state’s share of the total electoral vote (e.g. California has 55 electoral votes out of the national total of 538, or slightly over 10%).  Those two numbers are averaged together to get a final ratio.  (The effect of this formula is that the more Democratic states do slightly better than a pure allocation based on electoral votes and the Republican states do slightly worse.  For California, rather than the 10.2% that California would get from electoral votes, this formula gives California 11%.)  When this formula leaves a state with a factional delegate,  .5 or higher gets rounded up, anything less than .5 gets rounded down.

After the base allocation, the Democratic Party gives a bonus for holding primaries or the first stage of a caucus (for those states using caucuses to award delegates) later in the process.  For states holding a regional primary (at least three adjoining states) on or after March 28, the states get a 15% bonus.  If a state begins in April, the state gets a 10% bonus.  If a state begins in May or June, the state gets a 20% bonus.  The bonuses for going after April 1 or on top of any regional primary bonus. Continue Reading...

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2016 Delegate Selection-Part II-Democratic Rules Basics

By tmess2 | Published April 3, 2015

As noted in the first part of this series,  the Democratic Party has adopted a set of rules designed to make the delegate selection process more uniform from state to state.  As a consequence, the Democratic Party’s rules are somewhat complex covering a lot of details of what states must do and what is optional.  In fact, the first rule requires the state parties to submit their state delegate selection plans to the Democratic National Committee’s Rule and By-laws Committee (a familiar body for those who followed the 2008 campaign closely) for approval.  Additionally, the rules require that the state parties have a period of public comment on the proposed plan before the state party adopts the plan and submit it to the DNC.  As a result, most, if not all, of the draft plans will be posted on-line.  (A good source for finding the draft plans is here.)  In theory, all of the draft plans should be available within the next week or two (as they are supposed to be adopted by May 4 with a minimum of a thirty-day period for public comment).

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2016 Delegate Selection-Part I:Overview

By tmess2 | Published March 29, 2015

Earlier this week, Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas became the first candidate to officially announce for President.  For the next 11 to 14 months, Senator Cruz and others will be campaigning to win their parties nomination for president.  One of the basic principles of political science is that one of the factors that determines who wins an election is the rules for determining who wins.  The 2008 Democratic primary is a key example of this principle when then-Senator Obama managed to obtain a slight margin in the delegate count despite narrowly trailing then-Senator Clinton in the popular vote and then convinced party leaders that it was the slight lead in the delegate count that mattered.

As a first principle, in the U.S., the only truly national election is when the chosen electors meet in December of the presidential election year to cast their votes for President.  Outside of that one vote, every other election is run by the states, with the states setting the rules for the election.  For the most part, the individual states have opted to give “established” political parties an automatic ballot line on the general election ballot (with a party becoming established by receiving a certain percent of the vote in the last election).  In all of the states, state parties affiliated with the national Democratic and Republican parties have automatic ballot lines for the presidential election.   Additionally, state law (or state and national party rules) dictate that the candidates chosen for President and Vice-President by the national conventions of the two major parties will be the candidates for that party in a given state (along with the associated slate of electors chosen by state party).

Because the conventions choose the candidates, the rules for awarding convention delegates to the candidates (and then selecting individual candidates) determine who gets the nomination.  As a general matter, national law has very little to do with this process.  The main national law impacting the process is the campaign finance law which has more holes in it than swiss cheese, and it is likely that most spending in the 2016 race (even more so than in 2012) will be by “Super PACs” supporting individual candidates and operating outside of any limits (other than being prohibited from directly coordinating with their preferred candidate). Continue Reading...

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Supreme Court and Equality

By tmess2 | Published March 25, 2015

Today, the United States Supreme Court issued two opinions, both 5-4 decisions with the majority opinion authored by Justice Breyer, in cases involving equality issues.

The first case, Young vs. United Parcel Service, involved Title VII (precluding discrimination in employment based on race or gender).  Specifically, it involved the interpretation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act — an amendment to Title VII passed in the 1970s after the Supreme Court had originally ruled that discriminating based on the fact that an employee was pregnant or might get pregnant was not discrimination based on gender.  The generally understood intent of Congress was that an employer could not discriminate against an employee simply because the employee was pregnant or might get pregnant.  The particular provision at issue in the case was the requirement that employers had to treat pregnant workers the same as other workers who are similar in their ability to work or not work.  The employee in this case had a medical restriction due to her pregnancy that limited the weight that she could lift.  This weight limit was less than what UPS expected its drivers to be able to lift; so the employee asked for the company to accommodate her condition, but UPS refused.  The employee claimed that the decision violated Title VII because UPS was willing to make that accommodation for other drivers who had a medical restriction.

The majority (by one vote) decided in favor of the employee.  But rather than following the spirit of the law — requiring an accommodation unless it was unreasonable if the employer granted a similar accommodation to other workers — the majority crafted a balancing test to determine what workers are similar.  Under this balancing test, the fact that an employer was willing to accept a medical restriction for other workers (for example, one who got injured on the job) would merely be one factor in determining whether the distinction that the employer makes between pregnancy and other conditions that require accommodation is based on a  legitimate reasons or whether the reason given seems to be a pretext for discriminating against pregnant women. Continue Reading...

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Democratic Convention Watch: Department of Agriculture Confirmation List

By Oreo | Published January 1, 2009

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Department of Agriculture Confirmation List

WE’VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

DemConWatch will be keeping track of all of the major staff announcements in the Obama Administration. We’ll list the Position, Nominee, Committee and Hearing and Vote Information.

The following table lists all positions in the Department of Agriculture that require Senate Confirmation. You can see the rest of the confirmation lists here. Continue Reading...

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Democratic Convention Watch: Superdelegate Ups and Downs

By Oreo | Published August 22, 2008

Friday, August 22, 2008

Superdelegate Ups and Downs

WE’VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

As we’ve all learned this election season, the number of superdelegates, and therefore the total number of delegates and the number of delegates needed to win, is not a constant, but changes for various reasons. Here’s the history since December, 2007.

  • In December, 2007, there were 797 superdelegates
  • December 11, 2007: Steve Beshear is sworn in as Governor of Kentucky. Up 1 to 798.
  • December 15, 2007: Rep. Julia Carson died. Her seat will be filled by Special Election on Tuesday, March 11. Down 1 to 797 superdelegates.
  • January 15, 2008: Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco leaves office. Down 1 to 796.
  • February 11, 2008: Rep. Tom Lantos died. His seat will be filled by Special Election on April 8. Down 1 to 795 superdelegates.
  • February 28, 2008: Former DNC Chairman Ken Curtis’s legal residence changed from Maine to Florida, and therefore he lost his superdelegate voting status. Down 1 to 794 superdelegates.
  • March 8, 2008: Bill Foster wins the Special Election for Denny Hastert’s old seat. Up 1 to 795 superdelegates.
  • March 11, 2008: Andre Carson wins the Special Election in his grandmother’s old seat. Up 1 to 796 superdelegates.
  • March 12, 2008: NY Governor Eliot Spitzer resigns. Down 1 to 795. Note that the DNC has now confirmed that David Paterson is not resigning his DNC seat.
  • March 17, 2008: The DNC vacancy from the National Conference of Democratic Mayors has been filled by Mayor Brenda Lawrence of Southfield, Michigan. Michigan has no delegates at this time. Down 1 to 794.
  • March 27, 2008: Maryland Congressman Al Wynn announced his resignation bringing the total number of superdelegate votes down to 793. His resignation became official on June 2.
  • April 8, 2008. Jackie Speier wins Tom Lantos’ old seat in Congress. Up 1 to 794.
  • May 3, 3008. Don Cazayoux wins the Special Election in LA-6. Up 1 to 795. Overall number of delegates is 4,048, and it takes 2,024.5 to win.
  • May 13, 2008: Travis Childers wins a huge special election runoff in MS-01 and becomes the 796th superdelegate vote. Total delegate number now 4049 with 2025 to win.
  • May 31, 2008. Florida and Michgan pledged and superdelegates are restored at 1/2 vote per delegate. There are now 823.5 superdelegate votes, and 3409.5 pledged delegate votes for a total of 4,233 delegates, and it takes 2117 to win.
  • June 17, 2008: Donna Edwards wins the special election in MD-4. She becomes the 824.5th superdelegate vote, making the total number of delegate votes 4,234, so 2117.5 are needed to win.
  • August 22, 2008. The final list of superdelegates has been received. The following changes have been made:
    • Two new DNC at-large members have been chosen, to fill the two unfilled DNC at-large positions: Todd Stroger (IL) and Laphonza Butler (MD). This did not change the delegate count.
    • Gov. David Patterson gave up his at-large DNC position, but is still a superdelegate by being Governor. Former NY state chair Dave Pollack is now an DNC at-large member. This increases the total number of delegate votes to 4,235, so 2118 votes are needed to win.
    • Rebecca Gwatney has replaced her husband, the late Arkansas State Chair Bill Gwatney, as a superdelegate. This did not change the delegate count.
    • Moses Mercado moved from TX to the NY delegation.
    Note: The current list was prepared before the passing of Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Rep. Tubbs Jones is still shown on the official list of certified delegates. Note: The current list assumes 1/2 votes for the FL and MI delegations. That may be changed to full votes at the convention.

    Note: Joe Lieberman hasn’t been a superdelegate since he was sworn into the Senate as an “Independent Democrat” in January, 2007. (Before any of us even knew what a superdelegate was). His endorsement of McCain in December was just the icing on a cake that has already crumbled. Continue Reading...

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Democratic Convention Watch: Media Walk-Through… Take 2

By Oreo | Published July 8, 2008

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Media Walk-Through… Take 2

WE’VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com


We may never know if the Media Walk-Through originally scheduled in June was delayed because of the Invesco Field switch or a money issue. Today, a day after officially announcing that Barack Obama will make his acceptance speech at Invesco Field, the DNCC finally met with press at the Pepsi Center.

We’re seeing reports of what happened around the Internets and will fill you in with some interesting things we’ve found out. Continue Reading...

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Democratic Convention Watch: Chuck Todd: Hillary to decide whether Bill will speak at convention

By Oreo | Published June 30, 2008

Monday, June 30, 2008

Chuck Todd: Hillary to decide whether Bill will speak at convention

WE’VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

Hillary Clinton, will, of course, get to give a major speech at the Democratic Convention. It will almost surely be on the first night, Monday, so that the “Clinton story” can be put to rest and the rest of the convention focused on Obama.

But will Bill Clinton speak? I had always assumed he would speak by introducing Senator Clinton. NBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press isn’t so sure: Continue Reading...

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Democratic Convention Watch: ACLU and protest groups still not happy

By Oreo | Published June 30, 2008

Monday, June 30, 2008

ACLU and protest groups still not happy

WE’VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

The ACLU was in court again over conditions for protesters at the 2008 Democratic Convention:

The American Civil Liberties Union and several advocacy groups have filed an amended complaint to their lawsuit against the U.S. Secret Service and the city and county of Denver that says protesters and demonstrators may have their First Amendment rights violated by security restrictions. Continue Reading...

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