Democrat heavyweights cut deal on the future of ‘superdelegates’ in presidential campaigns

After a deal was struck between the Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders camps, the Rules Committee voted overwhelming to make major changes to the use of superdelegates in the Democratic presidential nomination process.

The newly proposed rule would bind those superdelegates who are neither governors nor members of Congress to presidential primary and caucus results, The Hill reported.

Those who are also U.S. lawmakers and state governors — who account for approximately one-third of the total — would retain their existing superdelegate role.

McClatchy.com reported:

The superdelegate system was created in the early 1980s as a way to give the party insiders more say about the nominee. There were fears among more centrist Democrats that the party’s nominating process was too tilted towards liberals who can’t get elected.

The bid to overhaul the system has strong support from liberal groups still lukewarm about Clinton.

 

“The super delegate system undermines the promise of one person one vote that is bedrock of democracy,” Deborah Burger, a Rules Committee member argued, according to McClatchy.”

Without the 602 superdelegates Clinton will have going into the convention Monday, she would have fallen short of the 2,343 she required to lock in her nomination. Sanders has 48.

But the Rules Committee’s approval doesn’t make a done deal.

From there the proposal goes to a vote before the convention delegates, and if approved there, won’t go into effect until the 2020 convention — after that convention’s “Unity Commission” considers the proposed reforms, The Hill reported.

“The Commission shall make specific recommendations providing that Members of Congress, Governors, and distinguished party leaders remain unpledged and free to support their nominee of choice,” reads the amendment, “but that remaining unpledged delegates be required to cast their vote at the Convention for candidates in proportion to the vote received for each candidate in their state.”

Although the proposed rules change can’t possibly benefit Sanders in this election, his team was nonetheless pleased.

“This is a tremendous victory for Sen. Sanders’ fight to democratize the Democratic Party and reform the Democratic nominating process,” Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver said, according to McClatchy.

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