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Lawsuit Would Seat Florida Delegates

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 28, 2008

This morning in a federal courtroom, Tampa political consultant and Democratic voter Victor DiMaio will make a second stab at forcing the seating of Florida's Democratic delegates to the party's national convention.

It's not clear whether he will have any better luck this time. U.S. District Judge Richard Lazzara dismissed the case last year, calling the matter "an intra-party dispute" and concluding DiMaio had no legal basis for challenging the national party.

The Democratic National Committee stripped the state party of its delegates after the Florida Legislature moved up the primary date in defiance of the national party's rules.
Lazzara wrote, "The Supreme Court has consistently recognized that national political parties have a constitutionally protected right to manage and conduct their own internal affairs, including the enforcement of delegate-selection rules and the decision as to which state delegates it will recognize ... ."

This is a case in which "the party's national convention, and not a court, is the proper forum for determining this intra-party dispute with regard to the seating of the State of Florida's delegates," Lazzara wrote.

This go-round DiMaio focuses on whether the party's decision to allow Nevada and South Carolina to follow Iowa and New Hampshire in the early primary contests in part because Nevada has a growing Latino and Asian population and South Carolina has a significant black population discriminates against Florida's voters.

He also argues the party's treatment of the Florida delegation violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because the party receives federal funding for its convention.

But that money had nothing to do with the party's decision to enforce its so-called "Timing Rule."
DiMaio may not win this legal argument, but he should be credited with trying to bring his party to its senses and empower Florida's Democratic voters.

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