Fla. Primary A Concern To Democrats

By WILLIAM MARCH and BILLY HOUSE , The Tampa Tribune

Published: Aug 23, 2007

WASHINGTON - Top officials of the national Democratic Party are threatening tougher-than-expected sanctions against Florida over its too-early Jan. 29 presidential primary date.

Those penalties, if enforced, essentially would render the primary votes of Florida Democrats moot in the battle for the party's nomination.

The national party's Rules and Bylaws Committee will decide on the primary Saturday in Washington.

Some members of that committee, even while they took a hard line in interviews this week, also hinted that they would accept face-saving compromise measures from the Floridians.

Others, including committee Co-Chairman James Roosevelt Jr., said that even if the committee enacts tough sanctions, it might not be able to enforce them when it matters: at the Democratic National Convention next August in Denver.

The bottom line appears to be a cloud of uncertainty, leaving Florida's Democrats in doubt about whether their Jan. 29 primary votes will count.

It will be at least a month, and maybe not until next summer, before that cloud begins to clear.

What is clear is that an argument over the nation's largest swing state won't help the Democrats retake the White House in 2008.

"The Republican Party is having a primary campaign and doing all the things that attract voters, and the public sees us appearing to be fighting like children in a sandbox," said Don Fowler of South Carolina, a former Democratic national party chairman and member of the rules committee. "It creates a real deficit for us."

Conflict Could Dilute Power

The problem springs from the Florida Legislature's decision in the spring to hold the state's presidential primary on Jan. 29. They hoped the early date would make Florida more influential in choosing the nominees.

However, the date violates rules set by both parties, which want to prevent states from moving their primary dates earlier and earlier. Both set Feb. 5 as the earliest for most states.

Of course, party rules can't control Florida's primary date, but they can control seating of delegates at the national conventions. The delegates carry out the will of primary voters by casting convention ballots for the winners.

Both the Florida Republican and Democratic parties are in conflict with their national parties over their convention delegations.

The GOP delegation could be cut in half, diluting the power of Florida Republicans' primary votes.

Under the Democratic Party's tougher rules, the minimum penalty would be the loss of more than half its delegation - at least 117 of its 210 members - plus a boycott intended to prevent candidates from campaigning in Florida before the primary. A candidate who broke the boycott would lose any Florida delegates.

Roosevelt said the rules panel is prepared to enforce at least these penalties if Florida Democrats don't alter their plans.

"Every member that I have talked to - and I've talked to a pretty fair number in the last 10 days - is basically saying that," Roosevelt said.

This week, however, several rules panelists said they may go further - even banning the state's full delegation to the national convention.

No Disenfranchising?

Complicating the picture is that Florida's move threatens to open the floodgates for others states to move up their primaries.

In Michigan, with a primary set for Feb. 9, Democratic leaders "have pledged that if any state violates the scheduling rules, we will move our caucus up to that date or earlier," said Jason Moon, a spokesman for the Michigan party.

Iowa and New Hampshire have vowed to remain earlier than any other state, even if it means moving the Iowa caucus into December.

Allan Katz of Tallahassee, the only Floridian on the rules committee, said he'll argue Florida's case but expects to "get run over."

"With the Michigan announcement, they really don't have much of a choice," Katz said. "They can't just slap us on the wrist."

The committee is expected to find Florida out of compliance with party rules, and to give the state 30 days to find a way to comply.

The national party has suggested Florida Democrats could comply by holding a caucus on Feb. 5 or later to choose their convention delegates. In that case, the Jan. 29 primary would be a meaningless "beauty contest," choosing no delegates.

State party Chairwoman Karen Thurman ruled out that idea Wednesday.

The result, she said, would be that votes in the primary wouldn't count - unacceptable in a state where memories of the 2000 presidential election and allegations of uncounted votes are still raw.

"We are not going to do anything that's going to disenfranchise Florida Democratic voters," Thurman said. "That is our biggest commitment and the place that we just can't move from."

"When we go to Washington on Saturday, we're going to fight for all our delegates, and it will be the [national party] that chooses to penalize us, and the disenfranchisement is on their hands," she said.

Party spokesman Mark Bubriski said up to 2 million Florida Democrats probably would vote in a primary election, but the caucus plan suggested by the national party would involve only about 100,000 people.

Top Candidate Has Upper Hand

There's one possible escape hatch: a clause in the rules that says the committee could be lenient if the state party takes "provable, positive steps" to resolve the situation, even if those steps aren't successful.

The state party has done that, it contends, asking GOP Gov. Charlie Crist and the Republicans who dominate the Legislature to reconsider the Jan. 29 date. Bubriski acknowledges they are highly unlikely to comply with any additional request.

At least one rules committee member, Donna Brazile, took a hard line on Florida's primary date, but she hinted that she would consider whether the state party took such "positive" steps.

Asked whether she would change her view even if those steps weren't successful, she wouldn't comment.

"I'm a strong supporter of sticking with the rules. I'm not willing to bend over backward just because Florida has 27 electoral votes," said Brazile, who managed Al Gore's 2000 campaign.

Roosevelt and Fowler, however, said the rules committee's action could turn out to be irrelevant.

The final say on seating state delegations at the convention belongs not to the rules committee, but to the convention's credentials committee. That committee is likely to be controlled by the candidate who enters the convention as the presumptive nominee, based on primary results.

That candidate, looking toward the general election, wouldn't want to offend Democrats from big states including Florida or Michigan, or swing states including New Hampshire, and will insist their delegations be seated, Fowler said. "The political reality is that the nominee takes over and will decide these things," Fowler said.

Chaos could erupt if no clear nominee emerges by the convention and the delegate count among candidates is close, Roosevelt and Fowler said.

In that scenario, there could be a battle within the convention's credentialing committee over Florida's delegation, and who should be seated as delegates, Roosevelt said.

Reporter William March can be reached at (813) 259-7761 or wmarch@tampatrib.com. Reporter Billy House can be reached at (202) 662-7673 or bhouse @tampatrib.com.

Step 1: Attempting to prevent states from moving their presidential primaries earlier and earlier, Democrats adopted rules saying Feb. 5 should be the earliest states choose their national convention delegates. The exceptions: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Step 2: In the spring, the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature, hoping to make the state more influential in choosing presidential nominees, set Jan. 29 as the Florida primary date.

Step 3: Florida Democrats decided to pick convention delegates based on the primary, despite the party rules.

Step 4: Florida's move-up threatens to cause a flood of other states, notably Michigan, to move up primaries, wrecking the schedule planned by the national parties.

Step 5: On Saturday, Democrats could strip Florida of half or more of its delegation - or all of it - and penalize candidates who campaign in Florida before the primary. However, they may not be able to make that penalty stick.