[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6858-6859]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      FLORIDA PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I want to address the Senate on 
two subjects. I will be brief.
  The task has fallen to this Senator from Florida to continue to try 
to press the chairman of my party and its executive committee, in the 
form of the Democratic National Committee, to recognize the votes of 
1.75 million Florida Democrats who went to the polls on January 29, a 
turnout of twice any previous turnout in a Presidential primary, to 
express their preference for the nominee of our party. They did so in 
those huge numbers, they did so in a duly called election by Florida 
law, which caused all of the rhubarb in the first place because the 
legislature of the State of Florida moved ahead of the date set by the 
two parties after which they would then be punished by the party rules.
  Both party rules provided that the two parties would be punished if 
they moved earlier than the date of February 5 for their primary. The 
party rules in both parties said that half of the delegates would be 
taken away. Indeed, that is what the Republican National Committee did. 
But not so the Democratic National Committee, for they decided to take 
a full pound of flesh and take away all the delegates and say the 
election didn't count.
  There are some people who are thinking, even though they felt 
passionately about it at the time, the way all this worked out, since 
we don't have a nominee yet at an early day like the Republican 
nominee, I think some people are thinking maybe this should have been 
worked out a long time ago, such as last summer, before this ever came 
to a head.
  But it is what it is, and all the attempts at finding a compromise 
that can seat the Florida delegation at the convention have all come to 
naught because of the inability of the two candidacies to come to a 
conclusion as to what they would be able to accept.
  The bottom line is that seating Florida, whether you seat them 
according to the DNC rules, taking away half the delegates, or seating 
the whole delegation, advantages one candidacy and it disadvantages the 
other candidacy. As a practical matter, I think it is going to be 
difficult to get an accommodation and agreement to do it.
  But I want everybody to understand that the Democratic National 
Committee can take away delegates--they have that authority. But the 
Democratic National Committee cannot deny the certification of a legal 
election by Florida voters. You can't deny that. It is a fact. It is a 
certified election under Florida law. That was a legal election under 
Florida law and it

[[Page 6859]]

was a clean election under Florida law. The Democratic National 
Committee cannot deny that certification of that legal election.
  Sadly, one of the byproducts of all this is that in listening to what 
the latest Gallup poll says, one-half of all the Democrats in the 
United States think all of this fracas is hurting the party--one-half 
of all the Democrats in the country. When you combine that latest 
Gallup Poll with the fact that months ago a poll in Florida showed that 
22 percent of Independent Florida voters, 22 percent of Independents in 
Florida, would be less likely to vote for the Democratic nominee in 
November because of the way that Florida is being treated by the 
Democratic National Committee: Democratic National Committee, you 
better wake up. We have a problem on our hands.
  What we ought to be doing is looking at November. As the old 
colloquialism says, we better watch out or we are going to be cutting 
off our nose to spite our face.

                          ____________________