FACT: Florida Democratic Politicians supported moving up the Florida primary with their own legislative actions and words.Exhibit A: Here is the Florida House vote count pertaining to passage of the bill that moved up the Florida primary date. Notice a pattern? Every Florida legislator voted YES in support of moving up the Florida primary date. A unanimous vote in support of the bill, all Republicans and all Democrats. One might question why, if the Florida Democrats were opposed to moving up their primary date, would they give unanimous legislative support to the bill? Why, if they knew that the DNC was going to potentially penalize them for moving up their primary date, wouldn't they vote unanimously against the bill, and then present this voting opposition to the DNC to plausibly prove that they did all that they could to stop this violation of the rules? While Republican legislators outnumbered the Democratic legislators in the Florida House, and thus still would have been able to pass the bill, the actions of the Florida Democratic politicians proved lethal to their appeals to the DNC and to the soundness of their argument that they actually opposed moving up the primary date.
Exhibit B: Here (and embedded below) is a video of Florida Democratic minority leader Steven Geller "objecting" to moving up the primary date. Note the mocking tone, the sarcasm, and the chuckling regarding making a motion of objection as a formality of having something to "show to [the DNC] later."
No one can argue that the DNC didn't make a mistake by instituting such a harsh penalty against the Florida delegation for violating the rules. And likewise, with the legislative actions and words cited above, no one can argue that Florida Democratic legislators didn't actually support moving up the Florida primary. Once it became clear that the harsh penalties of the DNC were actually going to be levied against the Florida delegation, there began more backpedaling from Florida Democratic legislators than in a reverse bicycle marathon.
4 comments:
The Florida Democrats all voted "yes" because the Republicans put it in a bill loaded with major election reform, and the Democrats couldn't very well be seen to not be supporting that -- the primary date seemed minor in comparison. The Florida Democratic party went before the DNC beforehand pleading for leniency, and none was given. They voted "yes", but to argue they actually supported it is disingenuous.
The Democrats could have made it very clear that they supported the rest of the election reforms but could not ultimately vote to support the bill in it's current form because of the primary date move; as you know, this happens all the time in legislative bodies, where members will not support a bill in it's current state because of an aspect they disagree with.
And, exactly by whose standards did "the primary date seem minor"? It was well known by the Florida Democrats at the time that the DNC was threatening them with harsh punishment if they supported moving the primary date forward, so I don't see how one could claim they didn't know precisely what they were doing when they voted unanimously in support of a bill that included precisely that date change.
And, again, I think the embedded video of the Democratic minority leader (and other statements made at the time by Florida Democratic legislators) shows quite clearly that disingenuous is a word that best describes the Florida Democratic legislators protest over the moving up of the primary date.
It seemed minor to the Florida Democratic party at the time in relationship to the reforms being pushed by the rest of the bill -- real, substantive changes that were years in the making and that needed to be adopted surely seemed more important from their perspective since who could have known that the race would have turned out like it did. I don't think they wanted to hold up important reform over a date change that I'm sure they thought wouldn't ultimately matter since these primary races in the past 20 or so years have tended to be a coronation after the first few -- and I'm sure they thought that, once the party had a winner, their delegation would be seated. Obviously didn't account for the possibility that this could go to the convention, but who did?
The important reforms would have still gone through with them voting against the bill as protest to the date change component (something that would have made it politically difficult for the DNC to penalize them in light of). And, it's true that they thought a nominee would have already been decided by now, which is why they didn't mind risking their delegates for a chance to gain influence in the primary process, but when their risk didn't pay off and they started claiming they were innocent bystanders to the Florida Republican legislators, their arguments started losing credibility.
And, like I've predicted during our phone conversations, I don't think they'll have to worry much because after the nominee is all but officially decided in late May/early June, the DNC will eagerly agree to seat their delegation for the convention. (hehehe)
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