Florida sues over Democrats' primary rules

[DeepModem Mom]

USA Today: Florida sues over Dems' primary rules
By Ariel Sabar, The Christian Science Monitor

Does a national political party have to count every vote in choosing its nominee for president? Or can it enforce its rules in a way that leaves some voters, or even an entire state, out of the process? Those questions are at the heart of a lawsuit unfolding in Florida that is the latest volley between states and the national parties over the scrambled primary calendar.

The lawsuit, filed this month by Florida's leaders in Congress, accuses the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and state officials with the unconstitutional and "wholesale disenfranchisement" of Florida's 4 million Democratic voters.

The plaintiffs want the U.S. District Court in Tallahassee to undo the DNC's sanctions against Florida for its early primary date. Those sanctions stripped Florida of its delegates to the 2008 Democratic convention, where the delegate count determines the party's White House nominee. Without delegates, the lawsuit alleges, Florida's Jan. 29 primary will deny a voice to the state's Democratic voters — and particularly its blacks, who disproportionately vote Democratic.

The lawsuit faces hurdles, mainly because courts have given political parties wide leeway to set rules for primaries. In landmark cases in Wisconsin in 1981 and Illinois in 1975, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively said that party rules trump state law in the selection of nominees.

The lawsuit also takes an unusual tack in naming as defendants not just the national party but the state government, which courts would be likely to hold to a higher standard than a party alone, experts say. The lawsuit says the GOP-led Legislature and Republican Gov. Charlie Crist moved the primary from its traditional March date to January after the DNC had announced the penalties for setting primaries before Feb. 5, a window reserved under Democratic rules for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina....

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2007-10-15-floridavote_N.htm

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. I thought this was already settled law

Presidential candidates are selected at the national convention; presidential primaries have meaning if and only if the parties want them to have meaning (the Washington State Democrats have always ignored the results of the presidential primaries and have instead chosen delegates to national by caucus.) The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that states have very limited ability to interfere with the internal workings of a political party, and then only with regards to races which fall within the scope of state law. Nomination of presidential candidates has never fallen under state jurisdiction.