About a half hour ago, all Democratic eyes turned to the meeting of the DNC’s Rules & Bylaws Committee, which is hearing complaints filed by Clinton supporters in Michigan and Florida regarding the seating of their delegates. The Clinton campaign has famously been working to gin up a demonstration, and worked to fill up the public spaces in the meeting facility with supporters (presumably vocal ones). It would seem to have the makings of an ugly scene, but with all the pre-meeting hubbub, it’ll be likely just to elicit eye-rolling.
But what can be accomplished? Word is that, according to a DNC lawyer, the Rules & Bylaws Committee cannot fully restore the delegations after the two states moved their primaries up in defiance of DNC rules – that the delegations must at least be halved (a result which would alter the Primary delegate math only negligibly). The growing scuttlebutt is that this will be it for Clinton’s now-quixotic quest for the nomination, as heavy hitters are preparing to step in and call for resolution.
But what if she doesn’t? What’s next? Failing in the RBC with the DNC rules, She could next try her hand with the Convention Credentials Committee, which has the authority to make decisions on who gets into the Convention. It is this body that had the Vermont State Democratic Committee concerned enough to pass a resolution, aimed squarely at National Committeewoman Billi Gosh, a Clinton Supporter appointed by the State Committee to a temporary position on the CCC – directing its representatives to vote in support of the rules and the process and deny Clinton her victory.
(You may wonder… why have temporary committee appointments? Who knows? All I can assume is that the DNC wanted a functioning committee in place before the period their own process is slated to create that committee, just in case they needed it… I guess.)
The question is – is Gosh (or any elected representative to the DNC) obliged to obey?
It’s a moot point, really. For one thing, the CC Committee won’t be meeting before June 7th, which is the date that permanent members will be elected by the Vermont Convention Delegation, replacing temporary member Gosh. And those representatives will be elected in a way that proportionally allocates them by candidate support based on Vermont’s primary. And although a lot of blog attention has been paid to the handful of appointed members and their allegiances, the full committee will have a whopping 187 members, and will likely be stacked with Obama supporters. Now, its true that the full Convention could vote to reject the recommendations of both committees – even voting to suspend the rules if necessary, but again, most of the initially seated delegation will be Obama supporters.
So Clinton’s mischief is going nowhere in a practical sense, the question is whether she wants to proceed with mischief for its own sake.
But given that the State Committee passed a resolution directing one of its National Committeepeople to vote a certain way, does that resolution have any force whatsoever?
Nope. According to the DNC bylaws, the State Committee’s influence on their elected representatives to the DNC begins and ends with their election. Committeemembers can only be removed by the DNC proper, and only with a supermajority vote.
So would the State Committee have any recourse whatsoever if a National Committeeman or woman went rogue?
The only role the State Committees play is in the appointment of its representatives, and the DNC bylaws give them broad authority to make that appointment, so long as that appointment is made “within the Calendar year” of the National Convention. A creatively literal read of these rules could allow for, rather than some sort of impeachment, a second appointment by a State Committee within the time frame, requiring the DNC to accept that appointment so long as it was within that required timeframe.
At the State Committee level, this would mean suspending the rules for temporary passage of some radical changes to their own bylaws regarding the election of these DNC positions, but it’d seem to be technically legal and possible, and the DNC would likely be stuck with this second appointment of someone more palatable to the State Committee than their Convention’s initial choice.
Short of something that wacky though, there is no opportunity for oversight or to demand accountability. The State Committee’s admonitions to their DNC representatives amount to an exercise in sound & fury, signifying nothing.