Ever since the US became the first colony of an Empire to win its independence in order to establish a “democratic” Government, the rest of the world has observed their innovations as they strove to fulfil “government for the people, by the people and of the people”. There was the introduction of a written constitution demarcating the powers of the State especially as they related to the rights of citizens in whom all residual sovereignty resided. The “separation of powers” both horizontally and vertically was another consequence.
But there have also been changes at the more practical level to ensure those who would represent “the people” in governance are actually chosen by the citizenry. The “primaries” by the US’ Democratic and Republican Parties choose their presidential candidates, and those which are presently drawing to a close for their General Election of November 8, 2016 are particularly interesting.
One criticism of “democracy” in its modern incarnation, as exemplified by the US Government, has been its supposed “elitist” bias which presents candidates to the mass of electors who are actually self-selected by party “power brokers” in backroom deals. From the 19th to the mid-20th Century this was the reality as exemplified by the corrupt “Tammany Hall” establishment in New York City that exchanged votes of poor neighbourhoods for political patronage.
In the “primaries”, registered voters from each party separately vote for delegates that are “pledged” to the several contestants that would represent their parties at their national conventions. There are also “caucuses” in some locales where party members are physically present to perform the same task. The signal democratic feature is “the people” actually choose their delegates and, by extension, also their presidential candidates.
At present, however, while this is the state of affairs in the Republican Party, which is supposed to be “elitist”, the Democratic Party introduced the innovation of “superdelegates” that undermines the thrust for greater democracy in the selection of their party’s presidential candidate. These 719 superdelegates are not chosen by the ordinary party members but are ex officio comprised by the elected members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC); “distinguished party leaders”, consisting of current and former Presidents, Vice Presidents, congressional leaders, and DNC chairs and sitting Democratic Governors and members of Congress.
As matters presently stand with California’s massive 475 delegates to be chosen today and 2383 delegates needed to clinch the nomination, Hillary Clinton has 1812 pledged delegates as apposed to 1521 for Bernie Sanders. From actual support from grassroots democratic members, Clinton, therefore, leads Sanders by 291 delegates, which is not insurmountable. However, at this point, Clinton had received the nominal support of 548 superdelegates compared to Sanders’ minuscule 46 and technically needs only 23 more overall delegates. This she is sure to get even though polls indicate she will lose California overall to Sanders.
But this state of affairs raises the issue as to whether the whole notion of “superdelegates” is not bringing back “Tammany Hall” through the backdoor. Clinton is clearly favoured by the “establishment” Democratic Party, but how “democratic” is this? The Republicans have a more democratic system where while each state has three delegates from the party structure, these delegates have to vote in line with what the popular vote in the primaries or caucuses indicated. In this way, they are not distorting “the peoples’ choice” as does the Democratic Party’s superdelegates.
While not directly making this point, Bernie Sanders has pointed out that “superdelegates” can switch their support so that technically the democratic nominee will not be chosen until the actual vote at the Democratic National Convention July 25-28 in Philadelphia. Sanders has support for his position on the undemocratic nature of superdelegates. On Saturday, at a state party gathering, the very powerful Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts declared: “I’m a superdelegate, and I don’t believe in superdelegates.”Maybe democracy may still prevail to produce a nominee for the Democratic Party.
