{"id":33329,"date":"2016-03-11T08:20:47","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T12:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=33329"},"modified":"2016-03-11T08:22:03","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T12:22:03","slug":"rigged-democracy-nearly-10-of-democratic-party-superdelegates-are-lobbyists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=33329","title":{"rendered":"Rigged Democracy \u2013 Nearly 10% Of Democratic Party Superdelegates Are Lobbyists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more-->by Mike Krieger<br \/>\nLiberty Blitzkrieg<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em><strong>On July 25, these\u00a0superdelegates\u00a0will cast votes at the Democratic National Convention for whomever they want, regardless of primary and caucus outcomes. Democrats like to describe superdelegates as mostly elected officials and prominent party members, including President Obama and former Presidents\u00a0Bill Clinton\u00a0and\u00a0Jimmy Carter.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>But this group, which consists of 21 governors, 40 senators and 193 representatives, only makes up about a third of the superdelegates. Many of the remaining 463 convention delegates are establishment insiders who get their status after years of donations and service to the party. Dozens of the 437 delegates in the DNC member category are registered federal and state lobbyists, according to an ABC News analysis.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>In fact, when you remove elected officials from the superdelegate pool, at least one in seven of the rest are former or current lobbyists registered on the federal and state level, according to lobbying disclosure records.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 From the ABC News article:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/reason-dozens-lobbyists-democratic-presidential-delegates\/story?id=37289507\">The Reason Why Dozens of Lobbyists Will Be Democratic Presidential Delegates<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When it comes to presidential primaries, there isn\u2019t a whole lot of \u201cdemocracy\u201d in the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, The<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2015\/06\/02\/us\/politics\/money-in-politics-poll.html\"><em> New York Times<\/em> published<\/a> an article examining the American attitude toward the question of money in politics. This is what it found:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"quote_start\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"quote_end\"><\/div>\n<p id=\"story-continues-2\" class=\"story-body-text story-content\"><em>Americans of both parties fundamentally reject the regime of untrammeled money in elections made possible by the\u00a0Supreme Court\u2019s Citizens United ruling and other court decisions and now favor a sweeping overhaul of how political campaigns are financed, according to a New York Times\/CBS News poll.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\"><em>The findings reveal deep support among Republicans and Democrats alike for new measures to restrict the influence of wealthy givers, including limiting the amount of money that can be spent by \u201csuper PACs\u201d and forcing more public disclosure on organizations now permitted to intervene in elections without disclosing the names of their donors.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\">As evidence of just how lopsided opinion is on the subject, see the following graphic:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"quote_start\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"quote_end\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2015\/06\/02\/us\/politics\/money-in-politics-poll.html\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-32188\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-32188\" src=\"http:\/\/libertyblitzkrieg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Screen-Shot-2016-03-10-at-12.22.27-PM-1024x359.jpg\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2016-03-10 at 12.22.27 PM\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\">You might think the supposedly \u201cliberal\u201d Democratic Party would take this sort of thing to heart, but you\u2019d be wrong. Not only is the super delegate system intentionally undemocratic, but <strong>a remarkable 9% of superdelegates are actually lobbyists.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\">You just can\u2019t make this stuff up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/reason-dozens-lobbyists-democratic-presidential-delegates\/story?id=37289507\"><em>ABC News<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"quote_start\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"quote_end\"><\/div>\n<p><em>H<a id=\"ramplink_Hillary Clinton_\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/topics\/news\/whitehouse\/hillary-clinton.htm\" target=\"_blank\">illary Clinton<\/a>\u00a0holds a substantial edge among a particular and little-noticed kind of delegate to the Democratic National Convention: Superdelegates.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>On July 25, these\u00a0<a id=\"ramplink_superdelegates_\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/topics\/news\/elections\/superdelegates.htm\" target=\"_blank\">superdelegates<\/a>\u00a0will cast votes at the Democratic National Convention for whomever they want, regardless of primary and caucus outcomes.<\/strong> Democrats like to describe superdelegates as mostly elected officials and prominent party members, including President Obama and former Presidents\u00a0<a id=\"ramplink_Bill Clinton_\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/topics\/news\/us\/bill-clinton.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Bill Clinton<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a id=\"ramplink_Jimmy Carter_\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/topics\/news\/us\/president-jimmy-carter.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Jimmy Carter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>But this group, which consists of 21 governors, 40 senators and 193 representatives, only makes up about a third of the superdelegates. Many of the remaining 463 convention delegates are establishment insiders who get their status after years of donations and service to the party.<strong> Dozens of the 437 delegates in the DNC member category are registered federal and state lobbyists, according to an ABC News analysis.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>In fact, when you remove elected officials from the superdelegate pool, at least one in seven of the rest are former or current lobbyists registered on the federal and state level, according to lobbying disclosure records.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>That\u2019s at least 67 lobbyists who will attend the convention as superdelegates. A majority of them have already committed to supporting Hillary Clinton for the nomination.<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course they have.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"quote_start\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"quote_end\"><\/div>\n<p><em>Superdelegates are unique to the Democratic nominating process. Of the 4,763 delegates who will attend the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, 717 will be superdelegates \u2014 almost a third of the total required to win the nomination.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\">Meanwhile, former presidential candidate and current Democratic Party superdelegate, Howard Dean, shared his personal thoughts on\u00a0democracy via\u00a0Twitter the other day.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/twitter.com\/GovHowardDean\/status\/706219827535462401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/p>\n<p>Any questions?<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2016-03-10\/rigged-democracy-%E2%80%93-nearly-10-democratic-party-superdelegates-are-lobbyists\">http:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2016-03-10\/rigged-democracy-%E2%80%93-nearly-10-democratic-party-superdelegates-are-lobbyists<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}