Pat Dollard | Young Americans

The Hill:

House Democrats supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) are rejecting Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (Calif.) plea that lawmakers not overrule voters should they be in a position to decide who will be the Democratic presidential nominee.

Acrimony gathering inside the party has spurred some Democrats to begin discussing reforming the nominating process and perhaps getting rid of superdelegates altogether.

Many Clinton backers representing districts that voted for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) say they are not likely to change their mind should the contest come down to the superdelegates — the 796 Democratic lawmakers, governors and officials who may determine the nominee.
Those lawmakers say they should be able to vote however they want, even if it means giving the nod to the candidate who wins fewer delegates from more than 50 election contests conducted prior to the nominating convention. One member said the only way he wouldn’t vote for Clinton is if he died.

“I am a delegate, I’m a supporter of Hillary, I’m supporting who I’m supporting,” said Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.), even though 62 percent of the Democratic voters in her district backed Obama.

Such devotion worries some party officials who say record turnout and excitement over Democratic candidates could fizzle if voters feel their voices do not count.

Democrats supporting Obama, who has a lead among pledged delegates, agree with Pelosi that superdelegates should follow the “decision of the American people” and line up behind whichever candidate has amassed the most pledged delegates by convention time.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), who endorsed Obama in July, said “when there is so much public participation and excitement, our rules should preserve their voices.”

Pelosi told reporters before the Presidents Day recess: “I don’t think it was ever intended that superdelegates would overturn the verdict.”

Following Pelosi’s advice would likely favor Obama, as he has nearly 150 more pledged delegates than Clinton. Unless Clinton wins next week’s contests in Texas and Ohio resoundingly, Obama would be expected to carry a delegate lead into Denver, host of the summer’s convention.

“This is a new phenomenon,” Johnson said of the extraordinary voter turnout in Democratic primaries and caucuses around the country. “They want their votes to be heard.”

But almost every Clinton supporter interviewed by The Hill voiced a different view.

“Superdelegates are separate and apart and have minds of their own,” said Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), comparing them to pledged delegates. “I don’t see them as one and the same, so I think they should vote their conscience and if they think one candidate is better than the other they have just as much right [as a regular citizen] to cast their vote.”

Obama gained one more delegate than Clinton from the Nevada caucus.

While some lawmakers may compare themselves to an ordinary voter, in reality their ballot is many times more powerful.

In many instances, one superdelegate’s vote is equal to the influence of an entire congressional district. For example, Obama won Connecticut’s 3rd district with 52 percent of the vote but captured only one delegate from the victory. Ten-point wins in Wisconsin’s 5th and 6th districts gave Obama only two more delegates than Clinton.

Several Clinton supporters, such as Reps. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Watson said they were entirely committed to voting for Clinton at the convention unless she drops out of the race.

Pascrell and Meeks said they were “100 percent” for Clinton through the convention, and Cleaver said he would vote for her unless he died first. Primary election results for individual congressional districts in New York have not been made available yet, but Obama is expected to have won easily Meeks’s largely African-American district. He carried Cleaver’s district with 57 percent of the vote.
Other Clinton supporters have shown less resolve.

When asked whether he might vote for Obama at a brokered convention, Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa) said: “At some point I may have to discuss that with Sen. Clinton. Historically we have not gone to this type of convention, and I hope we don’t.”

Obama won Boswell’s district with 37 percent of the vote in a race in which former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) competed strongly.

Boswell said there is growing sentiment among Democrats to abolish the superdelegate system.

“I’m not comfortable with superdelegates,” said Boswell, who still considers himself a Clinton supporter. “My thought is I don’t like it much. There’s some talk among some of us that we’ll suggest at the convention that it’s not a good thing.”

Boswell said any effort to reform the Democratic nominating rules would likely happen at the convention.

Boswell is one of several lawmakers who endorsed Clinton but now feels pressure from constituents to support Obama because he won their districts. There are at least 23 House Democrats, and likely more, who split with the majority of their district over the party’s nominee. The districts of at least 14 Clinton supporters voted for Obama. At least nine pro-Obama Democrats saw their districts vote for Clinton.

Rep. Ron Kind (D), who had long remained neutral, felt compelled to go along with the majority of his Democratic constituents in the wake of last week’s Wisconsin primary. After Obama won his district with 57 percent of the vote, Kind pledged his allegiance.

“I’m not a big fan of the superdelegate process,” said Kind. “It does seem very anti-democratic, the elite powerbrokers operating behind the scenes to potentially nominate our candidate. We risk alienating a lot of the voters who participated.”

Kind sent a letter to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean earlier this month urging him to support reforming the nominating process. Specifically, Kind would like to end the role of superdelegates.

“A lot of my colleagues are starting to do what I did, which is follow the vote of their district,” said Kind.