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sponsorship
The first half of today’s RBC meeting was all about “unity”
and healing. The second part, not so much.
After an extended lunch break, the panel returned with a set
of resolutions. The first, presented by committee member Alice Huffman,
proposed seating Florida’s
entire delegation. Even before it was voted down, Clinton supporter Tina Flournoy mourned that
the resolution had “no chance of passing this body.” “That saddens me,” she
said. “It really does.” The motion failed, but it was closer than most people
expected, 15-12. Instead, the committee unanimously passed a motion splitting
the Florida
delegation in half. When DNC Secretary Alice Germond tried to soften the mood
by describing her experience hearing MLK speak in Washington, D.C.,
the Clinton-friendly crowd booed. Okay,
you won, the boos said. Just don’t
pretend it’s democratic.
Things turned even more sour during the Michigan discussion. The committee passed a
motion adopting the Michigan Democratic Party’s 69-59 split, but giving each
delegate only half a vote. The solution nets Clinton five delegates. (If you include Florida, she netted 24 delegates today.) Even before the vote,
everyone knew how it would turn out. Clinton
supporter Don Fowler voiced his disappointment with the resolution, but said he
would vote for it anyway. He then addressed Harold Ickes. “This is my position.
I respect and love you, but this is what I think we should do.”
Ickes, after a pause, leaned into his mic. “We find it
inexplicable,” he said, speaking for himself and Clinton, “that this body that
is supposedly devoted to rules is going to fly in the face of other than … the
single most fundamental rule in the delegate selection process. That is fair
reflection.” As far as he’s concerned, fair reflection—the notion that delegate
allocation must reflect the true vote—is “analogous to the First Amendment of
the U.S. Constitution.” He went on: “The motion will hijack, remove four
delegates from Hillary Clinton.” (In Michigan’s
Jan. 15 vote, “Uncommitted” won 55 delegates; the solution gives him 59.)
“There’s been a lot of talk about party unity,” he said. “I submit to you that
hijacking four delegates is not a good way to start down the path of party
unity.”
Committee member Ben Johnson tried to push back, denouncing
the “propaganda” disseminated by “one of my colleagues that makes it sound like
this motion will hijack” some delegates. But the damage was done. Clinton supporters chanted “Denver! Denver!”
from the balcony. Every time a committee member said the word “vote,” someone
from the audience would yell, “You mean half!”
If the goal of this meeting was to take a step toward party
unity, its final moments don’t bode particularly well. At the end of his
speech, Ickes left us with “one final word: Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve
her right to take this to the Credentials Committee.” An ominous warning for party
healers everywhere.