Question for Harold Ickes

Sen. Bill Nelson* of Florida has been touting a compromise that would admit delegates apportioned by the January primary at half of their worth. This was the Republican compromise (that McCain is now free to overturn as the point is now irrelevant).

Harold Ickes raised a concern on the Clinton conference call today:

Ickes also raised a technical objection to the “half-Nelson” compromise option: “I don’t think the campaigns could make a deal to seat a half-vote each,” he said, citing Democratic Party rules.

Now, Ickes is famously the master of DNC rules. So it’s possible he’s referring to something I am not aware of. But the official DNC charter has no language that would limit the ability of the Credentials Committee in any way whatsoever; and considering that the Committee will be mostly made up of supporters of the two campaigns, they could self-enforce this compromise as far as I can tell.

Article 2, Section 10 (b) of the DNC By-laws reads:

(i) The Credentials Committee shall receive and consider all challenges to the credentials of Democratic National Committee members.
(ii) Any challenge to the credentials of a member of the Democratic National Committee may be made by any Democrat from the state or territory of the member challenged or any member of the Democratic National Committee and shall be filed by Registered Mail (return receipt requested) within thirty (30) days of the selection of such member.
(iii) The Credentials Committee shall determine the validity of the credentials of those elected to the National Committee, and decide all challenges to the seating of such members. The Credentials Committee shall provide each party to a dispute a reasonable opportunity to be heard, and may give an opportunity for submission of briefs and oral argument and shall render a written report on the issues to the National Committee.
(iv) The National Committee shall proceed to a determination of such contest or contests as its first order of business, if feasible, including the temporary seating of challenged members, in order that the members may participate in other business before the National Committee.

There is absolutely no limit on what the Committee can do in terms of their listed powers. The only restriction is that the National Committee needs to deal with the decisions of the Credentials Committee as soon as possible.

Moreover, under Article 2, Section 1, Part (b) of the By-laws, the DNC has authority on conducting of the Party’s Presidential Campaign.

Link to the Charter and By-laws.

Presumably, the violation of Michigan and Florida is that of Article 2, Section 4, part (a) of the Charter, in that they violated the right of all states to Equal participation - which the first four states got an exemption from.

I’ve combed through the entire Charter and By-laws - not a fun thing to do by the way - and I’m not sure what Ickes was talking about.

*oops, first draft had “Ben Nelson”