Seat them but strip them of ANY vote on the nominee.

Any lawyers on TPM that can go through the document and determine if there are any loopholes?

They really should be seated 50/50. Again its changing the rules in the middle of the game. If Michigan and Florida were going to count in any meaningful way, then the candidates should have been allowed to campaign there. If that was the case the clintons would have lost michigan and Florida would have been very close and maybe a loss. This really is disgusting how the clintons are making up new rules and breaking rules in the middle of the game. They should not be permitted to steal the nomination by these outrageous games.

That would appear to settle it. If Hillary cares at all about the good of the party, she will agree to this compromise and seat half the delegations. Obama already said he would agree to that.

Told ya they would screw it up.

Take it to the convention floor and vote to fire Dean.

Hillary's electoral hopes ("such as they are" - thank you for that one Greg!) aside, it's in her financial interest to drag this out longer. She can't retire that campaign debt unless she can continue to convince supporters that she is still fighting for the nomination. So fight she must, and fight she will. Ergo:

This is excellent news! For Hillary!

:-(

It is okay to seat half the delegates with their proportional pledged delegates for Florida . . . but only just okay. It is not okay to seat half of the Michigan delegates unless they are awarded 50-50 because Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan. In both cases, many people didn't vote because they knew the rules.

Question: When does Clinton EVER know/obey the rules?

Another question: Why are so many women continuing to do battle for her in the face of all her lies and the "white candidate" flavor of her campaign. As a feminist before most of them were born, I just do not understand.

Lawyers you say? Are these the same ones that drafted the ambiguous pledges the candidates signed? Are these the ones that arbitrarily changed the rules to prevent states from deciding how they wanted to conduct their selection process?

Lawyers. This is going all the way to the convention and likely up the jurisprudence ladder to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Dean and his ilk are responsible for this mess, not the States, and not the candidates and not the voters.

Yes, there must be a price to be paid. Dean must be banished from the party.

What do the Hillary forces have to say about this, and what will they do?

We say take it to the convention:)

All votes from Michigan and Florida must be counted and all delegates must be seated. "IF" not then all caucus results should not count and all contest in American Somoa,Democrats Abroad,Guam,U.S. Virgin Islands should not count either....

go hillary!!!!!

The will do exactly what the rules call for: The delegates from both states will be counted at 50% since that's what the rules have always called for.

No more. No less.

Stripping them completely was a starting point for the DNC/Dean to negotiate from all along.

I know this is a pained memory for us, but I have to say this because of Shrillary's ridiculous argument of obtaining the popular vote...

Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, but it doesn't mean jack - look how 2000 turned out!

Need I say more about her argument on this??

The first question addressed is what jurisdiction the RBC committee has, and the staff memo takes a fairly formalistic position on this. The staff memo says, the rules say that they must lose half the delegates, so half the delegates must be lost. There are other positions, though. One is based on the idea that the rules and bylaws committee can change the rules (note, though, that the original rules were approved by the whole DNC, not just the RBC). Another is based on the idea that the Rules and Bylaws Committee has to have jurisdiction over the penalty if they are charged with interpreting the rule. A third is based on the idea that the RBC can determine whether a breach of the rules actually occurred or not (e.g., Michigan might argue that any breach shouldn't matter because it was involuntary - the state made the call, not the party - or was in some way "justified"). Each of these arguments, though, has some pretty obvious flaws.

I know in state parties, there have been situations where local caucus results have been permitted to stand, often in some modified form or with some penalty, even where the rules were technically broken, in the interests of justice and fair representation. Rules Committee have been given fairly broad jurisdiction to determine an appropriate penalty, if any, for a breach, and been given very plenary power. BUT, the general rule of thumb has also been to enforce rules strictly where it affects the outcome of an election. And, it is often not the Rules Committee but another committee, like a Judicial Committee (or, in this case, the Credentials Committee) that gets the plenary power to bend the rules.

Any way you look at it, though, I think some penalty should apply here. The Republicans aren't seating their whole Michigan delegation, either. I certainly would be disappointed to see the Michigan party leadership, the people individually responsibile for this travesty, going to the Convention ex-officio.

Given this story, can anyone who's keeping score tell me how many delegates Barack would need to make the seating of the MI and FL delegates irrelevant? Can someone elucidate what the magic number would look like if half the delegations from those states were seated?

As it stands without them, Obama has 1,977 out of 2,026 needed to win... I'd love to see enough SDs come out after the 31st to make MI and FL irrelevant. I think that's the only way to put a stake through the heart of The Campaign That Would Not Die.

If Obama puts Sebelius as his running mate, it's virtually guaranteed Hillary will have been long forgotten by November.

Shrillary's supporters, at least a majority of them, support her because of her gender, not for the person herself. Every Clinton supporter I know is a supporter because she's a woman. OK, fine.

So, do you honestly think her supporters will still shun an Obama ticket shared with a strong female candidate who's someone other than Hillary??

HELL NO!!!

There really is some interesting stuff in this 38-page document. I don't know if TPM's got the whole thing, but it is available here:

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/pdf/5-31%20Meeting%20Materials.pdf

What I find very interesting is the chronology that begins on page 34. The argument that the Florida Democratic Party was the victim of a Republican legislature's scheduling of the primary is rendered so bogus here! The DNC proposed two alternatives to the Florida Democratic Executive Committee - a vote-by-mail process and a party caucus that would not be in violation of the timing rule. Further, the DNC offered $880,000 to help finance the caucus! But the pigheaded FDP would have none of it and voted to sanction the January primary.

Finally! Excoriating proof that Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a disingenuous bitch!

Michael said: The only thing that could potentially stop them is for the supers to move en masse to obama and shut them down and hopefully shut them up.

Which is exactly what is going to happen. Alot of the undeclared are folks like Donna Brazile and the Pelosi club who have made it pretty clear that they have no intention of overturning the process. At best Hillary gets 25% of the undeclared superdelagates. That is a net gain of 100 delegates for Obama. Then you have Hillary supers who have hinted that they will switch to Obama for the sake of the party.

Very soon we will have a scenario in which Hillary can't win no matter how you seat Florida and Michigan. What do we suppose Howard Dean has been planning for over the past few months? Heck, he is an undeclared superdelegate himself.

In what could potentially be a blow to Hillary's electoral hopes

What are you talking about Greg?

This is exactly what she wanted. As Rachel Maddow pointed out, she was going to fight this all the way to the convention anyway. Her ruse was to argue that the FL & MI dels be seated in full, knowing full well the RBC would not give it to her, therefore giving her a chance to appeal. This appeal would take it all the way to the convention, giving her a reprieve of 2-3 months. And as we all know ANYTHING can happen in 2-3 months.

Rachel's suggestion was that Obama concede to all of Hillary's demands on these states (if he had enough superdels in his pocket for it not to matter). Therefore, she would get what she demanded and cut off her option to appeal (which is what she really wants)

The DNC legal team has cut off the potential of full seating, and with it the Obama option of cutting off her appeal. She can now go unimpeded to a convention fight or at the very least a legal fight with DNC lawyers.

Hyper,

Could not agree with you more! The members of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, as well as the Credentials Committee, are elected officials.

To vote for personal preference is wrong, but if they went against the delegate lead, popular vote, candidate with the best chance to double the Democratic voter base in November AND be competitive in red state congressional districts (something that would help both him and the Dem candidates in those districts)...

All of that would be nothing short of political suicide.

Are they actually going to commit political suicide for Hillary Clinton?????? Uhhhh, I think not!

Back to Shrillary running as an Independent, I hate saying this, but anything is possible.

Think about it - her campaign debts will long have been paid off. Terry and Wolfie will be watching the polls like hawks and, God fobid, if Obama drops in any national polling, they'll deem that reason enough to revive the campaign as Independent.

Keep in mind that the Clintons have never lost anything. To have her drop out will be the first Clinton loss, something they cannot tolerate. By her jumping back into the race, this will be their attempt to erase that loss from record.

These are the Clintons we're talking about - of course they'll stoop to this!

lets break this down.....

Since Guam, Democrates Aboard, US Virgin Islands and American Samoa, puerto rico, since they can't vote in a general election.....maybe we shouldn't allow them to vote during this process.

Also Caucusing is not right for the fact that most people work when they are being held or some people don't have time to come stand in a room for several hours..... we don't have caucusing during the general election.... maybe we shouldn't all those to count during this process.

Why allow those areas to count when we are willing to dismiss the state of michigan and florida.......what made it right for other states to hold there primires early but they couldn't. Does not seem democratic to me:(

so lets not count these places, since we aren't going to count michigan & florida by full value.

Guam: obama 2 delegates, hillary 2 delegates
Democrates Abroad: Obama 4 delegates, Hillary 2 delegates
US Virgin Islands: Obama 3 delegates, Hillary 0 delegates
American Samoa: Obama 1 delegate, Hillary 2 delegates.

Washington State: obama 52 delegates, hillary 26 delegates
Nevada: obama 14 delegates, hillary 11 delegates
Idaho: Obama 15 delegates, hillary 3 delegates
wyoming: obama 7 delegates, hillary 5 delegates
Colorado: Obama 36 delegates, hillary 19 delegates
Main: Obama 15 delegates, Hillary 9 delegates
Texas: obama 38 delegates, hillary 29 delegates
new mexico: obama 12 delegates, hillary 14 delegates
North Dakota: obama 8 delegates, hillary 5 delegates
Nebraska: Obama 16 delegates, hillary 8 delegates
Kansas: Obama 23 delegates, Hillary 9 delegates
Minnestoa: Obama 48 delegates, hillary 24 delegates
Iowa: Obama 25 delegates, Hillary 14 delegates.

that gives obama: 319 delegates without including puerto rico since we don't now what is going to happen on June 1st.

that gives hillary: 182 delegates without including puerto rico since we don't now what is going to happen on June 1st.

so lets take the 319 delegates away from obama and the 182 delegates away from hillary.....

that would give obama 1340 in pledged delegates and hillary 1317 in pledged delegates.... so off to montana and south dakota, here we come.

I guess all eyes we have to be placed on the super delegates to make that final decision who the winner should be......

since we aren't going to count michigan and florida ( and SHOULD NOT count the above caucuses and non-states)

The Clinton camp is holding a spin session on this memo at 8:30.

"so lets not count these places, since we aren't going to count michigan & florida by full value."

In my alternate universe Al Gore is finishing up his 2nd term.

"since we aren't going to count michigan and florida ( and SHOULD NOT count the above caucuses and non-states"

WTF is a non-state?

Why dont you just argue that the facts are unfair to Hillary, therefore we should ignore them. It would save you alot of typing...

actually hyperrevue if you remove the super delegates from the caucus states and from the non-states.... hillary would have the right amount of super delegates to push her over the top and be the winner.............. GO HILLARY!!!!!!!!!!

however, i believe that the delegates from michigan and florida will be seated in full and the votes will be counted as is...... which will help hillary win the democratic race against Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. come this convention in denver.... go hillary......

"IF" by chance he does win,..... just think you are going to be putting a HUSSEIN in the white house..... HAAAAAAHHHHAAAAHAHAHA

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS! FOR HILLARY!!!

"actually hyperrevue if you remove the super delegates from the caucus states and from the non-states...."

to quote Ronny Reagan: "There you go again..."

Actually HillaryClintonlostin08, this is not reality. we only have STATES here.

The Hussein families must be laughing at america!!!!

GO HUSSEIN.... GO HUSSEIN GO.... WE WILL WE WILL WILL WIN THIS:).....HAHAHAHAHA

The Hussein families must be laughing at america!!!!

They only laugh at the caucus and non-states...

JohnMcC SF and Mageduley made the point.

The Rules Committee is the body that accepts challenges offered by the candidates and cites rulings only. An area cited in the challenge is the credentials of the uncommitted delegates in Michigan and the process to follow in granting credentials. As long as she can question candidate selection of the uncommitted, the Credentials Committee is where Clinton will take her challenge next. Whether she ends up with 1/2 or 1/4 of delegates is inconsequential to her.

I think she'll use the process to take it to the convention.

"IF" by chance he does win,..... just think you are going to be putting a HUSSEIN in the white house..... HAAAAAAHHHHAAAAHAHAH

Wow. This is....offensive.

Obama gets 3 SDs today. 45 away!

HillaryClinton08, congratulations on your swan dive into the deep end of the racist/xenophobe hatemonger pool!

As has been pointed out in the past, some of her biggest supporters & superdelgates have said they will support whichever candidate is the clear leader after the primaries are done.

Chuck Schumer: “I don’t think either candidate wants - or can even get away with - forcing their will down the throat of the other. At the end of the day, on June 7, for the sake of party unity, Howard Dean and the two candidates will have to get together if neither candidate has 2,025 and come up with a strategy. Each candidate will have to have buy into that strategy.”

Charles Rangel: “It’s the people [who are] going to govern who selects our next candidate and not superdelegates. The people’s will is what’s going to prevail at the convention and not people who decide what the people’s will is.”

The big guns in her camp aren't going to sacrifice themselves on the altar of Clintonism. As it is there's talk in NY about whether she's already damaged herself irreparably. There is NO way other elected pols are going to destroy their own careers for her. And that's just her NY delegation - how many politicians in other states are going to die for the Clintons?

Nope - it will be over next week. Even if everybody has to unite to push the Clintons off the cliff.

Both candidates signed the "Four State Pledge" agreeing, not only not to campaign in Michigan and Florida, but also not to "participate" in those primaries.

One candidate violated the Four State Pledge in both states. She participated in the Michigan election by "choosing" to leave her name on the ballot and later claiming victory. In Florida, she campaigned in the days leading up to their primary via both national and local news media. On the other hand, the other candidate honored the Four State Pledge.

The issue is simple. Do we punish honesty and reward dishonesty? If we distribute Michigan and/or Florida delegates based on the so-called "election results", rather than a 50-50 split, then the answer to that question is yes.

Sorry if I'm behind on this and it's already been mentioned, but Ben Smith references page 29:

It basically recommends that for Michigan, the Uncommitted votes belong collectively to Obama, Edwards, Biden and Richardson; and that those candidates can decide for themselves how to allocate those delegates.

To those here that would know, is that your take?

Ahem.

Told you so. DNC long-standing rules impose a sanction of loss of half the delegates for any state breaking the rules.

Where are the trolls?

Bye, bye BILLARY Clinton!

Also, "At the end of this process, more people will have voted for Hillary Clinton than for any other potential nominee in the history of the Democratic Party, or of the country. She will emerge as the candidate with the best chance of taking back the White House in November. This memorandum offers automatic delegates key metrics that Hillary Clinton is winning in this primary race: the popular vote, a broad coalition of supporters, and millions of new Democratic voters who registered to vote for her. It also sets forth why, having amassed more ballots than any other Democratic primary candidate in history, she is best poised to beat John McCain and win the White House in November. I. Hillary Clinton Will Lead in the Popular Vote for the Democratic Nomination At the conclusion of the primary season on June 3rd, Hillary Clinton will have the most popular votes. " etc. etc. etc.

They can follow any GD rules they like because they're the ones who make up the rules. This nonsense about them being helpless to do the right thing is BS. We're not talking about a democracy - the DNC operates as an oligarchy that answers only to themselves. I certainly didn't have any say in appointing them. All I can do is raise hell and speak out when they decide to turn the nomination into a coronation and disenfranchise millions of voters.