[EL] Florida to award delegates proportionally?
Rob Richie
rr at fairvote.org
Tue Jan 31 08:00:06 PST 2012
An co-author of a Politico piece last November suggesting the potential of
a brokered convention, I'll say three things here:
* Our theory was based on Romney potentially being unable to "seal the
deal" with a majority of Republicans. At this point, I would be extremely
surprised if he doesn't seal that deal -- in part because he's being forced
into more meaningful contests and is having more of a chance to prove his
support among Republican voters.
* Having proportional representation in nomination contests in no way
prevents nominees from getting first ballot majorities, as Democrats keep
showing. What it does do is make the convention more reflective of a
party's big tent, which is healthy in my eyes, and also doesn't prematurely
put an end to nomination contests, thereby giving more party voters in more
states a chance to cast a meaningful vote, which is also healthy for a
party.
* Many Republican states holding contests before April 1 are not using full
proportional allocation rules (for instance, a provision that you can "win
all" if getting more than 50% in some states) and many stats holding
contests after March 31 are using winner-take-all. So if Romney does
"secure the base", he can roll to an easy victory. You can see our
easy-to-use summary of state-by-state rules here:
http://www.fairvote.org/delegate-allocation-rules-in-2012-gop<http://www.fairvote.org/delegate-allocation-rules-in-2012-gop#.TygPoVxrPw2>
Now if Gingrich pulls of a remarkable upset today, all bets are off.
Rob Richie
On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 10:48 AM, Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
> My semi-facetious "doomsday clock" for a brokered Republican convention
> just moved another minute closer to midnight in anticipating of Florida
> awarding its delegates proportionally rather than winner take all.
> Everyone can decide for themselves whether the clock's hands are showing a
> time during the morning, or showing 11:59 p.m., or somewhere in between.
> The convention could be a lot of "fun", given the blessing of the US
> Supreme Court in NY Bd. of Elections v Lopez-Torres to the idea that
> convention procedures for elected delegates "need not be fair", given
> (among other considerations cited) the venerable history the Court cited of
> political parties making nominating decisions in "smoke-filled rooms."
>
> Rather than embracing an anti-corruption principle, the US Supreme Court
> has gone all the way to the opposite extreme in Lopez-Torres, embracing
> past unfairness or corruption in smoke-filled rooms as venerable
> tradition. While the Court did mention in dicta that legislatures might
> act to mitigate unfairness, they would have to do so while respecting the
> First Amendment rights of association of the political parties themselves,
> raising grave questions about whether state legislatures could act in an
> effective manner to vindicate a fairness or anti-corruption principle that
> operates at party nominating conventions.
>
> Paul Lehto, J.D.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 10:22 AM, Goldfeder, Jerry H. <
> jgoldfeder at stroock.com> wrote:
>
>> There is an issue, raised on this site over the weekend, that, while the
>> RNC has "punished" Florida for its primary date by halving its delegation
>> and limiting its credentials and other convention-related perks, the state
>> might also be forced to award its delegates proportionally. The rationale
>> for not having done so thus far was that Florida has already seen its
>> delegation cut by 50% ("the state has been punished enough!"); the
>> rationale for compelling proportionality is that such procedure was
>> contemplated by the RNC Rules that Florida has broken, and to simply reduce
>> its delegation without compelling the required proportionality would be to
>> turn a blind-eye to the central offense. The long and short of it is that
>> a challenge to any winner-take-all result might ensue.
>>
>> Jerry H. Goldfeder
>> Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP
>> 180 Maiden Lane
>> New York, NY 10038
>> 212-806-5857 (office)
>> 917-680-3132 (cell)
>> 212-806-7857 (fax)
>> jgoldfeder at stroock.com
>> www.stroock.com/goldfeder
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:
>> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Michael
>> McDonald
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 10:15 AM
>> To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
>> Subject: [EL] Florida to award delegates proportionally?
>>
>> Michael Steele on MSNBC just stated that he has learned that Florida will
>> award its delegates proportionally. Certainly an important development,
>> particularly for Gingrich, if true.
>>
>> ============
>> Dr. Michael P. McDonald
>> Associate Professor, George Mason University
>> Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
>>
>> Mailing address:
>> (o) 703-993-4191 George Mason University
>> (f) 703-993-1399 Dept. of Public and International Affairs
>> mmcdon at gmu.edu 4400 University Drive - 3F4
>> http://elections.gmu.edu Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Paul R Lehto, J.D.
> P.O. Box 1
> Ishpeming, MI 49849
> lehto.paul at gmail.com
> 906-204-4026 (cell)
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