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For Democrats, Florida Primary May Not Count
be951 writes "Democratic party leaders are seriously considering making the Florida primary 'nonbinding', meaning they could ignore the actual vote by Florida democrats and allow party leaders to decide how Florida's more than 200 delegates are divided up among the candidates. 'I think it's much higher than 50-50 that we will make Jan. 29 a nonbinding' election, said Jon Ausman, a veteran Democratic organizer in Tallahassee and member of the Democratic National Committee. This is in response to Florida's move to an earlier presidential preference primary, which scrambled the primary calendar carefully worked out by the two national parties."
Is laid out pretty well in Broder's piece today in the Washington Post.
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This whole fiasco is because of the Primary and Caucus states are in an arms race to maintain their historical place as the 'first'. Iowa always has the first Caucus and New Hampshire the first primary. Other states want to be 'relevant' this cycle and some have moved up their date, causing others to move their dates. The party rules state that no state shall have a primary of caucus before Feb 5, 2008. Florida wants to move theirs earlier which would violate the rule and piss off Iowa and New Hampshire. So as a 'compromise', allowing Florida to move theirs up, but it be non-binding, seems to be the current negotiation.
The whole system is screwed up in my opinion...
The Senate was not always elected by the popular vote. It was intended as a check and balance for the House of Representatives and for Federal power overall. Prior to the 17th amendment Senators were appointed by thier state. This allowed the State interests to be represented as well as the people, and because the States don't like being controlled it provided an effective check on Federal power and didn't encourage such blind adherence to the party line. It may have seemed a good idea at the time to quell the infighting in the state legislatures, but the long term consequences have been disastrous, imparting far too much power to the Federal government. Thus making it easier to influence by lobbyists since both houses are popularly elected and thus need to pander to the lobbyists for campaign funds.