Pelosi says nominee will decide whether to seat Fla delegate

By Brian E. Crowley, Palm Beach Post Blogs

Tuesday, October 9, 2007, 02:56 PM

Cox News Service reporter Scott Shepard is reporting "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who will serve as honorary chair of the Democratic national convention next summer, said Tuesday that the party's presidential nominee will be the ultimate arbiter of whether delegates from the state of Florida are seated at the 2008 convention."

Shepard continues:

The Democratic National Committee's rules panel has voted to strip Florida of its convention delegates because the state's presidential primary will be held in January in violation of party rules.

But "that will be determined by the presidential nominee," Pelosi said at a private lunch with political reporters in response to a question about her opinion in the matter.

"The Democratic National Committee is the ruling authority now .. but the tradition is that the presidential candidate will decide," Pelosi said.

She noted that she had the job in 1984 of reviewing whether states had complied with rules governing the party's presidential primaries and caucuses.

She recalled that when she threatened the states with not seating their delegates if they broke the rules, "they said ha, ha, ha, because no presidential candidate is going to say we're not seating New Hampshire and we're not seating Iowa."

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