Nelson and Hastings Sue DNC

Alcee Hastings and Bill Nelson are suing the Democratic National Committee. They seek to stop the DNC from not allowing Florida delegates to vote in the Democratic National Convention. This suit is pointless. A 1981 Supreme Court decision states:

The State has a substantial interest in the manner in which its elections are conducted, and the National Party has a substantial interest in the manner in which the delegates to its National Convention are selected. But these interests are not incompatible, and to the limited extent they clash in this case, both interests can be preserved. The National Party rules do not forbid Wisconsin to conduct an open primary. But if Wisconsin does open its primary, it cannot require that Wisconsin delegates to the National Party Convention vote there in accordance with the primary results, if to do so would violate Party rules. Since the Wisconsin Supreme Court has declared that the National Party cannot disqualify delegates who are bound to vote in accordance with the results of the Wisconsin open primary, its judgment is reversed.

It is so ordered.

Short answer: the state party agrees to abide by the national party's rule when they join the party. The national party decides who and how they nominate a candidate. What makes matters worse is Florida Democrats backed moving the primary to Jan. 29th. They can't break the rules and then decide to sue someone because they don't like the penalty.

I'm not the only person that thinks the suit won't stand up in court.

But Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, said the national Democratic Party had no choice but to resist Florida's decision to move the primary date in violation of party rules.

"Once one state decides to act on its own, others would follow ... and then it's Katie bar the door," Mann said. "The suit is whether the national party committee has the authority to set the rules of the game for the selection of delegates to the national party convention."

Mann described the suit as "weak" and said, "It's hard for me to believe that this is going to reverse the decision of the DNC. I can't imagine the court would overturn it."

Florida was given the opportunity in 2006 to move the primary to January. Both state parties shot the idea down. Then the Florida legislature votes along bipartisan lines to move the primary up without debate and consulting with the national parties. But then the legislature never debates anything. That is why the property tax amendment was shot down in court. The blame for the primary mess goes to the incompetence of the Florida legislature and a Governor that only cared about an election reform bill that would garner him the national spotlight.