CQ Answers Five Burning Questions About Saturday’s DNC Rules Meeting

[DogPoundPup]

Will the Democrats seat the Florida and Michigan delegations at the August Democratic National Convention? Should they, if those states broke the party rules?

The Democratic National Committee’s 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee will meet Saturday in a Washington hotel to discuss what to do about Florida and Michigan. Once the exclusive province of political insiders, the Rules and Bylaws Committee has become central to the ongoing battle for the Democratic presidential nomination because the states’ 366 delegates, if seated, could affect the balance of the tight contest.

Florida has 210 delegates and Michigan has 156 (including superdelegates). According to the Associated Press, Barack Obama currently has 199 more delegates than Hillary Rodham Clinton .

CQ Politics answers some of the central questions regarding this weekend’s tete-a-tete:
1. What exactly will they be doing on Saturday?

Starting at 9:30 a.m., interested parties will get the chance to speak for 15 minutes to the Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) about the delegations to the Denver convention from Michigan and Florida.

The list includes Democratic National Committee member Jon Ausman of Tallahassee, Fla., and a representative from the Michigan Democratic Party. They are actually bringing the challenges to the penalties the party imposed.

In addition, there will be representatives from the campaigns of Clinton and Obama and representatives for Florida and Michigan Democrats. The committee then will break for a private lunch.

At an open afternoon session, members of the committee will discuss the challenges and proceed according to parliamentary rules. Luis Miranda, a spokesman for the DNC, said he expected most of the panel’s 30 members to attend the meeting Saturday. Of those members, 13 support Clinton, eight support Obama and other nine haven’t committed, according to a Los Angeles Times count.
2. So, these specific challenges from Florida and Michigan, what are they?

There are three pending before the committee: ............
Continue reading at http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002884993

[izzie]

1. I just do not get all this.

First these polls. Wasn't Kerry the one that was going to win by the polls? What does Clinton mean that the polls show her as the best one to run? When her people talk on TV I get it they think she is ahead. What is with that? This is the same old stuff we have had for years. I can not wait for it all to be done with.