Sen. Nelson: Train wreck coming at national convention

Sen. Bill Nelson delivers his remarks on the Senate floor Friday.

U. S. Sen. Bill Nelson says he sees a train wreck coming.

Nelson, a Democrat from Florida, said Friday morning on the Senate floor there will be a train wreck if Florida and Michigan delegates are not seated at the Democratic National Convention in August.

An unofficial transcript of Nelson's remarks:

Mr. President, I have two subjects that I want to discuss before the Senate.

The first is with the dramatic events shifting as we select the nominees for president from our two great parties, we potentially have a significant train wreck that may start occurring in the Democratic party as a result of a divisive issue of ceding the Michigan and Florida delegates.

Because the Florida legislature, a legislature that is controlled by the Republican party, passed a bill that moved the Florida primary earlier than the date allowed by the Democratic National Committee -- in fact, it moved it instead of the deadline of February the 5th, one week earlier to January the 29th.

The Democratic National Committee then stripped all of Florida's delegates to the national convention. Now, mind you, the bill that was passed was an election reform bill, and while it was being deliberated in the state legislature of Florida, in fact the Democratic leader of the state senate offered an amendment to take out January 29 and instead put it back to February the 5th, which would have complied with the Democratic National Committee's request and rules.

That amendment by the Democratic leader of the state senate was defeated. The bill then went on to pass because it was an election reform bill having to do with the functioning of election machines in Florida, something that we are quite sensitive about in our state as a result of our electoral history.

And as a result, the Democratic National Committee took great umbrage at this and instead of their rules providing that they would take away half of Florida's delegates to the national convention, they took a away all of Florida's delegates.

And in fact, the first four privileged states that were allowed to have primaries or caucuses prior to February the 5th -- namely, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina -- extracted a pledge from all the Democratic candidates for president that said that they would not campaign in the state of Florida.

They honored that pledge. The election was held pursuant to state law, a law passed by the legislature and signed into law by a governor, who our governor happens to be Republican. And because of that, Florida is being penalized by the national committee of national having any delegates.

In the meantime, the state of Michigan, under a Democratic legislature, signed into law by a Democratic governor, moved their primary up to January the 15th, had their primary January the 15th. Likewise, the Democratic National Committee took away their delegates to the national convention, but the difference was that only a couple of the presidential candidates' names were on the ballot because of a Michigan law that allows the candidates to withdraw their names from the ballot when in fact the Florida law does not allow that. The Florida election on January 29 had all of the candidates on the ballot.

Now, here is the coming train wreck. If one of our two leading candidates does not get a majority by the time that all the primaries and the caucuses are over, which is the last -- the last one is a South Dakota primary on June the 3rd -- if that does not decide who is the winner of the presidential sweepstakes of being the Democratic nominee, then we go into a period during June, July, and all the way to the end of August at the National Democratic Convention, a period of enormous uncertainty and turmoil - first of all, the turmoil of whether or not the superdelegates who are generally the members of the DNC, the congressional delegations, both house and senate and the governors, who are all un unpledged, who they would vote for, so they would be getting in their back rooms deciding, and the turmoil of what to do with Florida and Michigan's delegations. now, why is this important?

Well, it's certainly important to this senator, the senior senator from Florida, because in fact not only did Florida voters turn out on January the 29th in the primary, they turned out in record numbers.

About 1.8 million Florida Republicans turned out, and the Republican National Committee was penalizing Florida Republicans. But not by taking away all of the delegates to the national convention; by only taking away half.

And over 1.7 million Florida Democrats turned out to vote, and they expressed their will. And so the turmoil is what to do about the seating of the Michigan and the Florida delegations.

And just recently the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, an esteemed, very distinguished former governor of Vermont, Governor Dean, our chairman of the party, as reported in "The New York Post" a couple of days ago, was proffering maybe having a caucus, a new caucus in Michigan and Florida as a way of selecting the delegates to the national convention from those two states.

But Mr. President, you can't undo an election with a caucus, and especially you can't undo an election where 1.7 million Florida Democrats have gone to vote in a secret ballot and replace it with a caucus that maybe 50,000 people would show up. It's a basic underpinning of our democracy, and it is a basic underpinning of a constitutional right to vote and to have that vote counted.

So what do we do?

Well, I am certainly amenable for anyone who has a suggestion to get us out of the potential train wreck because the potential train wreck could well be that if the Florida and Michigan delegations are not seated at the national convention in August. Those are two key states that only two months thereafter would be voting on who is going to be the next president of the United States.

And so, with this speech, I am making a plea to all of our colleagues in the Senate and beyond to try to find an accommodation of which the right to vote and to have that vote counted can be respected, especially in the state of Florida, where all of the candidates' names were on the ballot.

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