A history: Mikulski and the creation of superdelegates

Baltimore Councilwoman Barbara Mikulski: Circa 1973In 1972, Baltimore City Councilwoman Barbara Mikulski was selected as the second-ranking co-chair of the Democratic Party’s Commission on Delegate Selection to their quadrennial conventions. The panel, to be headed by United Auto Workers leader Leonard Woodcock, was assigned with the task of reviewing the composition and seating of delegates.

At the time the panel was created, it seemed the reformers were victorious. They had nominated Sen. George McGovern (one half of the McGovern-Fraser Commission that revamped the process after the 1968 Chicago debacle) and party insiders seemed to have lost their control over the Democratic machine’s levers of power.

But the general election wiped that slate clean, humiliating the reformers’ ineptness with a 49-state landslide. It was time for the party professionals to take it back from the wide-eyed amateurs.

DNC Chairman Robert StraussThis is why Woodcock resigned his post before the commission even got its work underway. He cited pressure from his union duties, but most knew that it stemmed from the decision of newly-elected DNC Chairman, Robert Strauss, to add 20 extra members so he could assert his influence over the commission.

The baton was passed and it was now the Mikulski Commission that would follow up on the reforms of McGovern-Fraser.

Strauss, whose closest political ally was Texas Democrat-turned-Republican John Connally, probably had a mixed read of Mikulski. She was known for her advocacy on behalf of blue-collar ethnic white communities – the ‘Silent Majority’ that went for Nixon. But she was also as a staunch feminist and a community activist – not a party hack.

As the New York Times then said, “Miss Mikulski brings to her task a special political background that enables her to have as much in common with a liberal, intellectual McGovernite as with an old line Mayor from a big city’s Roman Catholic wards. Her career has involved her with both.”

Yet her unbending principles and no-nonsense demeanor repeatedly sparked clashes with Strauss as the committee heard testimony and made its ideas known.

On the eve of the final rules-writing session in October 1973, Strauss announced he wanted former New York Mayor Robert Wagner – and not Mikulski – to oversee the commission’s enforcement. Mikulski could write the report, but would then be shown the door.

As was (and is) her style, Mikulski publicly bucked the chairman, suggesting she would fight for control. But the commission was not aligned in her favor, and she joined in the unanimous vote to make Wagner chairman of the Compliance Review Commission in April 1974, even participating in the pro forma gesture of nominating him. She made an unsuccessful last-ditch effort to again secure the second-in-command spot, but Strauss would have none of it, and made sure it was a one-officer body.

Losing that battle, Mikulski went on to her first run for Senate: an ill-fated challenge to Sen. Charles Mathias in 1974.

As to the Mikulski Commission’s legacy, its recommendations to the DNC were to lessen the influence of primaries in the presidential nominating process by banning winner-take-all primaries and making candidates’ delegate shares proportional to their primary and caucus percentages. Some would argue this was more in line with the reformers thinking: making the process more representative.

In the final analysis, “Democrats All: Report of the Commission on Delegate Selection” was harder on reformers than it was on the regulars. Somewhat like Mikulski herself, it was seen as not taking an explicit stance in favor of or against the reforms that had caused the old guard so many headaches in 1972. It derided the racial and gender quotas that had been the most controversial aspect of the McGovern-Fraser decisions, yet it did not expunge them, praising the need for diversity.

As for reform-minded things, it required elected delegates be linked to their preferred candidate on the ballot. But the institution fared a little better, as the Mikulski Commission did something much more significant: it created superdelegates.

By adopting their recommendation, the DNC allowed for up to 25% of each state’s delegation to be made up of delegates chosen by the state party – in other words, the bosses. While they were strongly encouraged to reflect the will of the people, there were (and have become even more) ways to slip loose of their respective electorate’s decisions.

So 35 years later, here we are, unsure if the winner of the elected contests will become the Democratic nominee, and Hillary Clinton has her national co-chairwoman to thank for it. Though the blame hardly rests with her. (OK, ‘powernaps’ with her would be appropriate).

There’s a lot of hand-wringing over it these days, second-guessing if it’s right that the party has such a mechanism in place, but perhaps the most important piece of evidence against the reforms of the Mikulski Commission is its inability to infect the Republican Party.

Prior to 1973, the DNC’s delegate reform decisions were in many ways just as important for the Republicans, as they often adapted to the Democrats’ plans immediately afterwards, if not simultaneously. These reforms did not take, which says something.

Was it that the Republicans had just won a landslide and were politically comfortable in their skin? Probably. But its arguable they were even more influenced by the pandemonium and catastrophe that defined the Democratic National Conventions due to its complicated rules.

The Mikulski Commission recommendations couldn’t have been all that bad, though. They set the stage for the peaceful nomination of Jimmy Carter, and several others to follow. Only now will its legacy be tested by a truly bruising and historic nomination fight to the finish.