Mar
13
Dastardly Democratic Delegate Discrimination (done dirt cheap)
March 13, 2008 |
Robert Sanchez is outraged. The Democcratic National Committee’s refusal (so far) to count the Florida and Michigan delegates is an abomination akin to Jim Crow. I am not exaggerating his argument.
Question: What’s the essential difference between the Democratic National Committee and the Boy Scouts of America or the Augusta National Golf Club?
Answer: Not much right now.
The Scouts, exercising their freedom of association as a private group, won a court ruling letting them bar atheists and avowed gays from joining or serving as leaders.
The Georgia golf shrine shamefully excluded minorities for decades — and still bars women from membership. Given Tiger Woods’ recent success there, it’s easy to forget that until recently no black golfer could compete for the green jacket presented to the winner of the club’s Masters tournament.
Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee is trumping these groups in the discrimination department by barring millions of Floridians from participating in a crucial step in the process of electing the nation’s next president.
Why? Because Florida (and Michigan) violated party rules. Yet those rules merely enshrine the quaint tradition of allowing New Hampshire and the Ethanol Empire of Iowa to have an outsized role in the determining the nominee in both political parties.
It’s not the first time a political party has attempted to enshrine a quaint tradition in its rules. On May 24, 1932, when the Great Depression had made Jim Crow even meaner, a state convention of the Texas Democratic Party adopted the following rule:
“Be it resolved that all white citizens of the State of Texas who are qualified to vote under the Constitution and laws of the State shall be eligible to membership in the Democratic Party and, as such, entitled to participate in its deliberations.”
The party rule replaced a 1925 state statute that a federal judge had thrown out as a violation of the 14th Amendment. That statute read, “In no event shall a Negro be eligible to participate in a Democratic Party primary election in the State of Texas.”
At the time, the exclusion of African Americans from participating in the nominating process was especially egregious because the Democrats’ primaries in the one-party Deep South were invariably referred to as “tantamount to election.”
This flagrantly discriminatory rule, however, was too much even for the U.S. Supreme Court, which previously had tended to keep its hands off the internal affairs of political parties.
I am not really sure where to even begin with this. First of all, Sanchez is all over the place. He sort of throws up every historical case of discrimination - both perceived and real - and hopes that somehow the reader is going to make the connection between the DNC disallowing the Florida and Michigan delegates and, say, the prohibition of blacks from voting in Texas. Sure it’s no nuttier than trying to connect the Clinton 3 AM ad with the Birth of a Nation, but it’s pretty strange.
Furthermore, Sanchez really doesn’t have a constitutional case. Political parties are not in the Constitution, and there is no fundamental constitutional right to participate in the nomination of a presidential candidate. Parties are allowed to structure their internal rules as they see fit. It doesn’t mean we have to like those rules, but we can’t go running to the Courts because we don’t like how the nomination system is structured.
I would also add that Michigan and Florida voters are not being “discriminated” against. Voters in the two states are not being disenfranchised because of creed, color or sex. These states knowingly and willingly decided to move up their primaries when they were told by party bosses that doing so would threaten their delegations. (And I would also add that the Florida primary was moved up at the instigation of Democratic state legislators - not Republicans as reported. The state GOP merely consented to the other party’s wishes.) The rule may be silly, but members of the party knowingly signed onto these rules.
But I do hope people like Mr. Sanchez continue to cry “discrimination” at trifles such as these. The national Republican party doesn’t mind it one bit. Carry on Democrats. Carry on. I think I need some popcorn.