BlackCommentator.com Feb 20, 2020 - Issue 806: Abolish Superdelegates Before It’s Too Late By Paul Rockwell, BC Guest Commentator

Feb 20, 2020 - Issue 806

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Abolish Superdelegates
Before It’s Too Late
By Paul Rockwell

"There are two kinds of delegates at Democratic Party
Conventions today: real delegates (duly elected in primaries
or caucuses from the states) and fake delegates, delegates
artificially created by the Democratic National Committee.
These delegates, who lack direct support from primary voters,
are called superdelegates."

There is much talk among Democratic Party insiders about restoring the role of superdelegates on the first ballot at the Democratic Party convention.

Many young activists and voters were not alive when the superdelegate system was conceived and born.

There are two kinds of delegates at Democratic Party Conventions today: real delegates (duly elected in primaries or caucuses from the states) and fake delegates, delegates artificially created by the Democratic National Committee. These delegates, who lack direct support from primary voters, are called superdelegates.

The seating of delegates at Democratic Party conventions has often been a source of conflict. In 1964, Fanny Lou Hamer led a sit-in on the convention floor. The Mississippi Freedom Democrats wanted nothing more than a few convention seats—seats to which they were entitled by open, fair elections in their home state. Walter Mondale, who was to become the architect of the current superdelegate system, refused to seat the elected delegates of color in 1964. Wait until 1968, Mondale insisted, as the representative of the Credentials Committee.

The non-violent mass movements of the 60s; the passage of the Voting Rights Act; the Poor People’s Campaign and march on Washington, led by Dr. King; the lowering of the voting age; the massive anti-war demonstrations; and the anti-nuclear campaigns—all generated a sustained groundswell of new voters in Democratic party politics. However, far from welcoming the newly enfranchised activists, party leaders were filled with fear—class and race fear. They never accepted the democratic reforms enacted in the 1970s, when youth and many people of color participated for the first time in establishment politics. Under segregation, prior to the civil rights movement, the Democratic Party saw no need for superdelegates.

The superdelegate system, as we know it, came from the backlash of the 1980s. In January 1982, supported by Mondale, the Hunt Commission and Democratic National Committee reversed grassroots reforms. They rewrote the rules, not to make elections open and fair, but to make sure the centrist (right-wing) candidates maintained hegemony over nominees and party affairs. It was out of fear of new uncontrollable voters that the Commission created a block of uncommitted delegates drawn from a primarily white, male establishment.

Mondale, the same insider who prevented elected Mississippians from taking their seats in 1964, played the pivotal role in creating hundreds of unelected delegates in 1984.

Superdelegates comprised 14 % of the convention in 1984 (they constitute 16% today), and eighty-five percent of the superdelegates picked Mondale! Superdelegates claimed Mondale was a “sure winner.” He was trounced in the presidential election.

Nevertheless, the superdelegate number passed the 600 mark by 1988, as Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition (supported by Burlington Vermont Mayor Bernie Sanders) gained momentum. The Jesse Jackson campaign, especially the massive victory over Dukkakis on Super-Tuesday, electrified the country. Jackson won 7 million primary votes in 1988, more than Mondale won as a nominee in 1984. Many party regulars were gripped with panic, and some superdelegates, backed by mainstream media, organized a stop-Jackson movement within the party. Jackson protested the role of superdelegates, but his challenge went unheeded. Party leaders continued to look for ways to blunt the growing power of grassroots movements. While they could not stop voters from voting, they could turn superdelegates into a countervailing force.

Mondale was quite open about the undemocratic aims of the superdelegate system. In a number of talks, he acknowledged that superdelegates were created with the explicit aim of preventing voter insurgencies. He espoused his anti-democratic sentiments in the New York Times, February 2, 1992, where he called for expansion of superdelegate numbers:

“The election is the business of the people..But the nomination is more properly the business of the parties…The problem lies in the reforms that were supposed to open the nominating process…Party leaders have lost the power to screen candidates and select a nominee. The solution is to reduce the influence of the primaries and boost the influence of party leaders…The superdelegate category established within the Democratic Party after 1984 allows some opportunity for this, but should be strengthened.”

The superdelegate issue should not be confined to a debate over the first or second ballots. The superdelegate controversy is a matter of principle. The very integrity of the primary is at stake. No vote is safe when a self-appointed group of insiders can nullify the results of a primary election that displeases them.

The System is Unconstitutional

Even reformers of superdelegate deals tend to underestimate the gravity of the issue. In its very essence, the superdelegate system is unconstitutional. It destroys the right of primary voters to choose their own nominee. It offends the principle of one person one vote. In three primary cases (Nixon v. Herndon,1927, Nixon v. Condon, 1932, Smith v. Allwright, 1944) the Supreme Court affirmed that the right to vote in a primary (a right which includes the right to be counted and respected), is protected by the Constitution. Officials cannot legally circumvent the vote. These were discrimination cases, but the arguments apply directly to the superdelegate situation in the Democratic primary.

Up to a point, a political party is master of its own house. But no party, nor any group within a party, can legally tamper with primary results. In Terry v. Adams (1953), the Supreme Court ruled against the “Jay Bird Association,” a group of powerful white Democrats who tried to create a private enforcement process within the Democratic primary. Justice Tom C. Clark ruled that “any part of the machinery for choosing officials becomes subject to the Constitution’s restraints.”

The superdelegate system flouts the very purpose for which primaries were conceived. “Fighting” Bob La Follette, the Wisconsin progressive who organized the first primaries in 1903, hated boss-controlled conventions, back-room deals in smoke-filled rooms. The aim of primaries is to remove the nominations from the hands of professionals and the wealthy donors whom professionals obey. The superdelegate issue should not be resolved through deals and negotiations. The integrity of elections is not negotiable.

Respecting the will of the voters is a precondition to unity of the Democratic Party and victory against Trump. Removing superdelegates from the first ballot was the first step. But Democrats should take the final step—abolishing the superdelegate system itself—before it is too late.

BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator, Paul Rockwell, is a writer living in the Bay Area. He is a columnist for In Motion Magazine, the East Bay Times and Montclarion in Oakland. Contact Mr. Rockwell.

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