WASHINGTON — A key Democratic Party committee seated the Florida and Michigan state delegations — with penalties — on Saturday, dealing a blow to Hillary Rodham Clinton and leaving her supporters feeling hurt and raw.
Florida and Michigan should send delegates — both the pledged delegates and the superdelegates — to the Democratic National Convention with half a vote apiece, the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee ruled. The Florida decision, though it disappointed Clinton’s supporters within the rules committee, passed unanimously, with one abstention. It seated the full delegation with a half-vote each.
But the committee’s decision to accept a proportion of Michigan delegates that differed from the popular vote riled them and left top Clinton aide Harold Ickes fuming.
“Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee,” Ickes told the panel.
In an interview after the ruling, Ickes declined to play his hand further. “I said, ‘We reserve our right to appeal,’ ” Ickes said. “We reserve our right to appeal.”
Ickes railed against the Michigan decision because it worked against the popular vote proportion that — before it was cut in half — would have given 73 delegates to Clinton and 55 to “uncommitted.” Barack Obama withdrew his name from the primary.
Michigan’s state party said the 73-55 vote should be changed to 69-59 because Obama’s name did not appear. After raucous debate, the measure passed 19-8. With the half-vote measure, that means Clinton will get 34.5 pledged delegate votes and Obama 29.5. Ickes said the decision converts Clinton votes to votes for Obama.
“I am stunned that we have the gall and chutzpah to substitute our judgment for 600,000 voters,” Ickes told his peers on the committee.
He wasn’t alone. Clinton supporters broke the unsteady decorum that had existed throughout the long day by shouting “Denver! Denver!” in apparent support of a Clinton appeal to the convention.
Some of the supporters also shouted, “McCain! McCain!” and angrily swore outside the meeting to support the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, if Clinton loses her nomination bid.
Obama later told reporters, “I’m not going to do anything to dissuade Sen. Clinton from doing what she thinks is best. . . . But I also understand that many members of the Florida and Michigan delegation feel satisfied that the decision is fair.”
The committee’s ruling means that now the number of delegates needed to win the nomination climbs from 2,026 to 2,118. According to The Associated Press, Obama is 66 votes short of that watermark. Clinton trails Obama by about 175.
Initially, the Democrats stripped the two states of all delegates because they broke the party’s rules and held their primaries early. Clinton won both states by clear margins, but she and Obama agreed not to campaign in the states.
Florida representatives argued for a plan to seat at least half the delegates and blamed their early primary on a Republican-controlled legislature that moved up the date.
The plan Michigan’s state party presented reflected the frustrating puzzle presented by its primary. Obama and other candidates withdrew their names from the ballot.
Michigan’s plan, derided by some committee members as “Alice in Wonderland” in its reasoning, meant to solve the problem by considering such things as exit polls to better calculate the delegate allocation.
Obama’s representative, a former Michigan congressman, David Bonior, said that because of the incomplete ballot offered to voters, the primary should be considered essentially unfair or unworkable.
“This does not mean the Michigan delegates shouldn’t be seated, but it does mean the delegates should be split evenly between the two candidates,” he said to what had by then become the usual mix of cheers and hisses.
For Clinton, former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard told panelists that although it was unfortunate that Obama and three other candidates took their names off the ballots, they weren’t required to.
“It doesn’t make the election flawed; it means, in my opinion, they had a flawed strategy,” Blanchard said.
The committee, which normally toils in obscurity but on Saturday performed before international media, three live TV stations and a room filled with Clinton and Obama supporters, did the hard work of deliberations behind the scenes, in a five-hour dinner Friday night and a nearly three-hour lunch break Saturday.
Still, the ire between Clinton’s supporters on the panel and Obama’s often bled through in public and could portend a difficult course to November’s general election.
“There’s been a lot of talk about party unity,” Ickes said. “I submit to you ladies and gentlemen that taking four delegates . . . is not a good way to start down the path of party unity.”
If Clinton does appeal the ruling, the matter would have to be taken up when the rules committee hands off its responsibilities to the credentials committee this summer. That body’s motions would have to go to a vote before the full delegation during the first day of the convention, which party leaders want to avoid.
Chuck Plunkett: 303-954-1333 or cplunkett@denverpost.com
How they line up
The members of the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee:
CLINTON SUPPORTERS
Hartina Flournay (D.C.)
Donald Fowler (S.C.)
Harold Ickes (D.C.)
Alice Huffman (Calif.)
Ben Johnson (D.C.)
Elaine Kamarck (Mass.)
Eric Kleinfeld (D.C.)
Mona Pasquil (Calif.)
Mame Reiley (Va.)
Garry Shay (Calif.)
Elizabeth Smith (D.C.)
Michael Steed (Md.)
Jaime Gonzalez Jr. (Texas)
OBAMA SUPPORTERS
Martha Fuller Clark (N.H.)
Carol Khare Fowler (S.C.)
Janice Griffin (Md.)
Thomas Hynes (Ill.)
Allan Katz (Fla.)
Sharon Stroschein (S.D.)
Sarah Swisher (Iowa)
Everett Ward (N.C.)
NO ENDORSEMENT
Co-chair Alexis Herman (D.C.)
Co-chair James Roosevelt Jr. (Mass.)
Donna Brazille (D.C.)
Mark Brewer (Mich.)
Ralph Dawson (N.Y.)
Yvonne Gates (Nev.)
Alice Germond (D.C.)
David McDonald (Wash.)
Jerome Wiley Segovia (Va.)
