Lawmakers sue to protect right to vote

October 4, 2007

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Two members of Congress today mounted a legal challenge to their national political party over its unprecedented plan to deny up to 4.2 million culturally, socially and economically diverse Florida voters a say in picking the next Democrat nominee for president.

Florida’s senior U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and the head of the state’s U.S. House democratic delegation, Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, filed the lawsuit [attached ar-m700n] with other Florida voters in federal court in Tallahassee naming as defendants former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee Dean heads.

The suit contends Dean and the DNC “would impose [voter] disenfranchisement on a massive scale” by stripping Florida of its 210 delegates to the national convention in Denver next year.  The DNC imposed that penalty after Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature moved the state’s primary to Jan. 29 – jumbling the sequence of first-in-the-nation contests.

The suit argues Florida voters have a fundamental right to participate in selecting a presidential nominee.  The state’s delegates to the national convention are chosen proportionately based on the primary vote.  It also contends voters are being denied interaction with presidential candidates, because the DNC has barred campaign appearances in Florida except for private fundraisers.  The suit further charges that the defendants are engaging in an election scheme that will result in “impairing minority voter participation,” which would be a violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“Every one of the more than 4.25 million registered Democratic voters in Florida will be completely disenfranchised and their constitutional rights ... rendered meaningless,” Nelson and Hastings said in the lawsuit.

Also named as a defendant in the 26-page complaint is Florida’s Secretary of State Kurt Browning, who’s job it is to oversee the taxpayer-funded $18 million primary next January.

Before filing the lawsuit, Nelson and Hastings offered Dean several alternatives to the DNC punishing Florida, such as getting states with early-primary status to move ahead one week; or, holding a Florida Democratic convention after the primary to formally ratify the vote; or, mounting a last-ditch effort to get state lawmakers to push the primary back a week or so.

But Dean, in a Sept. 21 letter [see attached letter(s) to, and from, Dean], rejected the proposed solutions as not in compliance with national party rules.  Dean has said Florida’s Jan. 29 primary must be a non-binding beauty contest, and the state party must choose its delegates in a later caucus.

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to find that basic legal and constitutional rights of voters are being violated.  Although the DNC is a political group, it operates in tandem with the state and performs a public function that directly affects the right of Floridians to have their votes count.  Thus, the lawsuit contends, its actions should be subject to the basic protections of the U.S. Constitution.

In the past, courts have held that an individual has a constitutional right to vote in a primary election and that a political party cannot take actions that result in denying, diluting or diminishing that vote.  The lawsuit argues the right to vote trumps the rights of a political party including to enforce its rules for primary elections.

“It's a case of fundamental rights vs. party rules,” Nelson said [see attached voter rights remarks].  “As to our right to vote, and have that vote count, there can be no debate,”

 “One would have thought that we wouldn’t need this type of discussion 42 years after passage of the Voting Rights Act,” said Hastings.  “The right to vote and have your vote matter is the cornerstone of our democracy.”

While the suit speaks for Democrats, Republicans in Florida soon may face a similar problem.  National Republican Party leaders are threatening to strip half the state’s GOP delegates to its national convention because of the earlier primary date.  

A permanent solution for primary disputes beyond 2008 requires new legislation, according to both Nelson and Hastings.

Nelson, with Sen. Carl Levin, of Michigan, has filed a bill [see attached Senate primary bill and Detroit News] that would divide the nation into six regions, and would establish six primary dates for randomly selected states from each region.  Hastings also has introduced legislation [see attached House primary bill] with four House colleagues from Florida establishing a rotating regional primary system consisting of four geographic regions whose primary dates rotate over a period of 16 weeks.

Both bills would give a fair say in choosing nominees to voters from smaller and larger states, and end the dominance of Iowa and New Hampshire.

The dispute over the 2008 primaries is the latest in a series of controversial election problems touching Florida.

“In 2000, Florida was the center of an unprecedented and ultimately unsuccessful battle to secure a recount in the presidential election,” the lawsuit states.  “That extraordinarily intensive process . . . resulted in the rejection of tens of thousands of paper ballots that, if counted, would have changed not just an election, but the future course of national and world events.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the two lawmakers by Miami attorney Kendall Coffey of Coffey Burlington.

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