This is an update from my sister's story from yesterday about Sheila Jackson Lee.
My sister told me that their convention lasted until past 8pm last night. Apparently Clinton supporters attempted to use procedure to steal delegates during their county convention. Apparently it was pretty chaotic, but here's she reported to me. Oddly enough, it wasn't delegate poaching, but far worse. Read on for details and some important lessons to be learned from this experience.
UPDATE: The Obama campaign responded. They said they're aware of the problem and are currently investigating this.
Her county went overwhelming for Obama (80%-20%). My sister said that this diary pretty much summarizes what she saw yesterday in terms of delegates being challenged, which is why the convention started so late.
Finally, they got around to announcing the delegates. They were supposed to have a total of 81 delegates, which meant that Obama was supposed to get around 64, and Clinton 17. The chairperson read each person's name and the candidate they supported. He read out about 50 names (less than the total) and then called for the convention to ratify the list. Then people noticed that there seemed to be way too many names for Clinton, and they hadn't read out even 81 names.
That's when the crowd, after being there for hours, started to perk up. People started getting irritated, and some demanded to be heard by the chair. The chair refused to recognize anyone, and chaos started to ensure. Finally people were able to object. They demanded to hear what the presidential preference breakdown was, what the delegate breakdown by candidate was, and to have all 81 names of the delegates read. The committee hemmed and stalled. Finally, after about 30 minutes of argument they gave the figures. They said that Obama would get 43 delegates and Clinton would get 34, or almost a 50/50 split, despite the fact that Obama had won the county 80-20!
There was an uproar that the Clinton delegate count was higher than what should have been determined by the overall caucus numbers. Someone pointed out that even if Clinton were to get 34 names, they had actually read out more than 34 names for Clinton! After much deliberation, the chair admitted that there was an issue.
The chair announced that according to the rules, delegates should be chosen in percentage to take into account the overall demographics of the delegates that attended the convention (race, gender, age, etc.). They said that Obama did not have enough white delegates, so in order to make the demographic goals work, they had to include Clinton supporters as delegates.
Of course, although the rules do state that delegates should reflect the demographics of the convention, that doesn't override presidential preference; that completely goes against the rules. People continued to get angry. Someone stood up and read them the rules, and explained that you had to pick by presidential preference first, and then choose delegates by demographics. Personally, I think the nominating committee knew this, but they were pretended they didn't in order to confuse the issue and give Clinton more delegates.
They finally agreed for the nominating committee to redo the list. They didn't agree to inform the convention of the new list of delegates until someone else raised the issue to do that. The convention was adjourned without a new list of delegates created.
So there's a few things here to note.
First, whoever, controls the nominating committee can try to flagrantly overturn the will of the people in how they select delegates. This time it didn't come from poaching, but from nominating more delegates accordingly to a favorable "misunderstanding" of the rules. I don't know if the Clinton camp controlled the nominating committee, but it sounded like it.
Second, the fact that the chair on stage was being difficult could suggest that there were some attempts to overturn the will of the people that way as well. My sister said that many people had left by this time, and that could be what someone was hoping for-- fewer people to object.
Finally, it's important to realize the convention doesn't end when you vote. If you're lucky enough to be a delegate, it's important to stick around to make sure that the rules are followed and things like this can't happen.