Last week, the Democratic National Committee Rules and Bylaws Committee met to adopt the 2020 Democratic National Convention Call, Delegate Selection Rules, and relevant Charter Amendments. The final drafts will be sent to DNC members who will vote on them at our August 23-25 meeting. I am very happy to see voter protection efforts incorporated in the documents for the first time and I think we have reached a fair and reasonable approach on automatic delegates.
Here’s a message from Tom Chairman, Tom Perez on Delegate Reform:
The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee took a bold step toward implementing reforms that will strengthen our party and put Democrats in the strongest position to elect the next president in 2020. Since January, the RBC has been working diligently to implement the recommendations of the Unity Reform Commission , including major reform to the role automatic delegates play in our 2020 presidential nominating process.
This week’s vote followed through on a vote by the full DNC membership in March that called for reducing the influence of unpledged delegates in the presidential nominating process, expanding the use of primaries, taking steps to protect the right to vote, making our caucuses more accessible, increasing transparency in our party and increasing grassroots participation.
Under the new rules, which we will all vote on in August, unpledged delegates will only vote on the first presidential nominating ballot if a candidate has already earned enough pledged delegate votes from state primaries and caucuses to win the nomination. While automatic delegates have never decided our nominee, this reform eliminates the possibility that the will of our party’s grassroots voters may go unheeded in the future, while maintaining Democratic leaders’ hard-earned right to show support for the candidate of their choosing.
This reform in particular puts to bed a conversation that has plagued our party and our candidates for much of the last decade and restores trust among many grassroots voters who we need to be engaged and enthusiastic in 2018, 2020, and beyond. As a whole, these reforms will continue to make our party more competitive in every ZIP code. And they will help ensure that the 2020 presidential nominating process is the most fair, open, and transparent in our party’s history.