Lucas,
sign if you agree with CREDO and Daily Kos: No more superdelegates.
The superdelegate system was created to rein in popular democracy. Concerned by progressive Sen. Ted Kennedy’s insurgent challenge to
President Jimmy Carter in 1980, party elites created superdelegates to
water down the influence of pledged delegates. Instead of being selected
based on primaries and caucuses, superdelegates
consist of Democratic elected officials and members of the Democratic National
Committee.
Despite not being elected to the role of delegate, the vote of one of
the 712 superdelegates this summer will count as much as one of the 4,051
delegates who were selected by voters.
Superdelegates are also a
poor representative of supporters of the Democratic Party.
Compared to Democratic voters, superdelegates are:
- More likely to be male. The Democratic Party’s charter mandates that equal number of pledged delegates be male and female. But men make up nearly two-thirds of superdelegates.
- Whiter. The voters who supported President Obama in 2008 and 2012, and the pledged delegates to those conventions, included 20 percent more representatives of communities of color than this year’s superdelegates.
- Older. The average Democrat is 47 years old. The median Obama voter was 44 years old. In contrast, the average superdelegate is 60 years old.
When the rules committee of the Democratic National Convention meets in
a few weeks, it will have an opportunity to end this undemocratic superdelegate system. Doing so would not alter the results of this year’s contest. It
is not about rewarding one candidate or another. It is about making the
Democratic Party more democratic in future nominating contests. Now it’s
time to look to the future and put more power in the hands of Democratic
voters, not elites.
Tell Democratic Leaders: No more superdelegates.
Keep fighting,
Monique Teal, Daily Kos
Paid for by CREDO