On July 25, these superdelegates will cast votes at the Democratic National Convention for whomever they want, regardless of primary and caucus outcomes. Democrats like to describe superdelegates as mostly elected officials and prominent party members, including President Obama and former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
But this group, which consists of 21 governors, 40 senators and 193 representatives, only makes up about a third of the superdelegates. Many of the remaining 463 convention delegates are establishment insiders who get their status after years of donations and service to the party. Dozens of the 437 delegates in the DNC member category are registered federal and state lobbyists, according to an ABC News analysis.
In fact, when you remove elected officials from the superdelegate pool, at least one in seven of the rest are former or current lobbyists registered on the federal and state level, according to lobbying disclosure records.
– From the ABC News article: The Reason Why Dozens of Lobbyists Will Be Democratic Presidential Delegates
When it comes to presidential primaries, there isn’t a whole lot of “democracy” in the Democratic Party.
Last year, The New York Times published an article examining the American attitude toward the question of money in politics. This is what it found:
Americans of both parties fundamentally reject the regime of untrammeled money in elections made possible by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and other court decisions and now favor a sweeping overhaul of how political campaigns are financed, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.
The findings reveal deep support among Republicans and Democrats alike for new measures to restrict the influence of wealthy givers, including limiting the amount of money that can be spent by “super PACs” and forcing more public disclosure on organizations now permitted to intervene in elections without disclosing the names of their donors.
As evidence of just how lopsided opinion is on the subject, see the following graphic:
You might think the supposedly “liberal” Democratic Party would take this sort of thing to heart, but you’d be wrong. Not only is the super delegate system intentionally undemocratic, but a remarkable 9% of superdelegates are actually lobbyists.
You just can’t make this stuff up.
From ABC News:
Hillary Clinton holds a substantial edge among a particular and little-noticed kind of delegate to the Democratic National Convention: Superdelegates.
On July 25, these superdelegates will cast votes at the Democratic National Convention for whomever they want, regardless of primary and caucus outcomes. Democrats like to describe superdelegates as mostly elected officials and prominent party members, including President Obama and former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
But this group, which consists of 21 governors, 40 senators and 193 representatives, only makes up about a third of the superdelegates. Many of the remaining 463 convention delegates are establishment insiders who get their status after years of donations and service to the party. Dozens of the 437 delegates in the DNC member category are registered federal and state lobbyists, according to an ABC News analysis.
In fact, when you remove elected officials from the superdelegate pool, at least one in seven of the rest are former or current lobbyists registered on the federal and state level, according to lobbying disclosure records.
That’s at least 67 lobbyists who will attend the convention as superdelegates. A majority of them have already committed to supporting Hillary Clinton for the nomination.
Of course they have.
Superdelegates are unique to the Democratic nominating process. Of the 4,763 delegates who will attend the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, 717 will be superdelegates — almost a third of the total required to win the nomination.
Meanwhile, former presidential candidate and current Democratic Party superdelegate, Howard Dean, shared his personal thoughts on democracy via Twitter the other day.
https://twitter.com/GovHowardDean/status/706219827535462401
Any questions?