Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

"If Obama were determined to make a fight of it, couldn’t he try to persuade some of Hillary’s pledged delegates to switch sides?”

That’s exactly what almost happened in 1984—Jesse Jackson tried to convince some of Walter Mondale’s black and Hispanic delegates to support his campaign at the convention, which would have pushed the nomination to a second ballot. Didn’t work, although that was the last convention where the nomination was even slightly in doubt.

Still, considering that the Democratic nomination this time has been like a CGI-enhanced sequel to 1984, a retread is always impossible.

"No delegate at any level of the delegate selection process shall be mandated by law or Party rule to vote contrary to that person’s presidential choice as expressed at the time the delegate is elected.”

“Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”

I don’t know where to find a copy of the rules, but I look at this and I see something different. At district conventions, supporters of the various candidates for president caucus separately, and all attendees (as well as those seeking to be delegates) sign a pledge that they support the candidate whose caucus they plan to join. These pledged caucuses then elect the pledged delegates.

So the first quote seems to me to say “nobody can be forced to vote for a candidate they didn’t support at their district convention, even if that candidate isn’t officially placed into nomination. (In 2004, a number of pledged Dean and Kucinich delegates voted for Dean and Kucinich, even after Dean had officially dropped out.)

Given that, I think you need more evidence to back up your assertion that the “good conscience” quote releases delegates from their pledges as long as their candidate remains on the ballot at the convention. It sounds more to me that delegates pledged to candidates no longer in contention are expected to vote as they imagine their district caucus would want them to vote.

I think you’re missing a negative there.  You quoted the delegate selection rules:

“No delegate at any level of the delegate selection process shall be mandated by law or Party rule to vote *contrary* to that person’s presidential choice as expressed at the time the delegate is elected.” (My emphasis.)

Consider, for example, a delegate who pledges on election day to support Obama and is elected to do so.  This excerpt doesn’t say anything about the circumstances under which he’s permitted to vote for someone else; it says only that he shall not be compelled by law or Party rule to vote for anyone else. 

If there were a presumptive nominee going into the convention, this excerpt would forbid the Dems from compelling all the delegates to vote for the presumptive nominee, but I think this excerpt isn’t sufficient to claim that delegates can vote for whomever they like.

Having gone on and read the delegate selection rules (thanks for the links - sorry I didn’t see them at first), I think MA04 and I are right about the rule we both quoted - it’s meant to prevent delegates from being compelled to vote for anyone besides their pledged candidate, no matter what.

You and Mr. Hasen seem to have the gist of it right, however. I can’t see anything preventing a pledged delegate from deciding that their conscience requires that they vote for someone other than the person they pledged to support originally.

I think, though, we need to know more about the use of alternates to replace “faithless” delegates. Your link to Mr. Hasen’s article just goes to his assertion - he provides no references beyond a link to this post here.

As a delegate to the 2004 DNC, my understanding was that if I voted for anyone besides my pledged delegate, my vote would be rescinded and one of the alternates would then replace me to vote as I had pledged to do. If that’s the case, then it would be pointless for a delegate to desert a candidate without that candidate’s consent.

I guess the question is, “can candidates replace delegates even after they’ve voted?” Even if I’m not correct, this discussion is pretty academic (though interesting). It would require breaches of faith on a massive scale for the faithless delegates to make a difference at the convention. It’s far more likely that the superdelegates will break for the candidate ahead in the pledged delegate count going into Denver.