WASHINGTON -- The Democratic delegate rules Jesse Jackson wants changed are the compromise product of a decade of experimentation and negotiation by a party seeking to balance democracy with practical politics.
The 1984 rules, worked out by a party commission headed by Gov. James Hunt of North Carolina, culminated a process of radical change that began after the divisive 1968 Democratic national convention in Chicago.
That convention was the last to be 'brokered' by party leaders, elected officials and powerful outsiders, such as labor leaders. The wave of reform that overtook the party after its 1968 defeat just about cleaned out the last vestiges of boss and machine rule at national conventions.
The difference between 1968 and 1972 is often illustrated by citing the experience of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. As the host and a leading Democratic power broker, he dominated the 1968 meeting. Four years later, Daley was denied a seat at the convention because his organization had flouted the new reforms in selecting convention delegates.
Daley was not the only Democratic bigwig who didn't get into the 1972 convention. The percentage of Democratic members of Congress and state and county party officials who went to that convention was just about half of the 1968 figure. It rose only slightly at the next two conventions.
The absence of party activists and elected officials on the floor of the Miami Beach convention that nominated George McGovern was one of the factors blamed for the shellacking McGovern suffered at the hands of Richard Nixon in 1972.
Democratic rules tinkering continued for the 1976 and 1980 conventions, in part trying to lure the party's most experienced and influential leaders back into the game and in part trying to deal with a proliferation of presidential primaries that followed the first rules reforms.
To try to get their own leaders back to the convention, the Democrats provided a limited number of 'free' delegate seats in 1976 and 1980. They got a limited number of the people they were seeking - about 8 percent of the convention total -- and in 1984 they sought to broaden that representation by allocating 568 delegate seats, 14 percent of the total, to the leaders.
Meanwhile, The primary problem grew like Topsy. In 1968 there were 17 primaries; in 1972, 23; in 1980, 33.
One reason was the rules had become so specific that many state parties felt the only sure way to avoid challenges was to elect delegates in primaries. This in turn impelled the national party to write more rigid rules for primaries.
These rules have been controversial from the first. Reformers wanted a strict 'proportional representation' rule that awarded each presidential candidate exactly the number of delegates needed to reflect his share of the primary votes. They pointed out that any other system would disenfranchise voters whose candidates did not finish near the top, a repudiation of democracy.
Critics of this idea argued that strict proportional representation would so fracture the convention that it might have difficulty ever nominating a presidential candidate. The spectre of a deadlocked convention, particularly frightening to a Democratic Party that had cast more than 100 ballots trying to nominate a presidential candidate in 1924, was trotted out by the critics.
Rules were adopted requiring candidates to reach a 'threshold' - 10, 20 or some other minimum percentage of the primary vote in a state or district to be entitled to delegates. By 1984, these thresholds had been set at 20 percent in states that use caucuses and conventions to select delegates; up to 25 or 30 percent in most primary states.
At the same time, a number of states began jockeying to hold their primaries early in the presidential year to give themselves more clout in the nomination process. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to be first or near it in the primary parade.
To try to control this 'front-loading,' the rules makers in 1980 and 1984 required all delegate selection, with a couple of traditional exceptions, to take place during a three-month March to June 'window.' They were mostly successful in this effort.
Jackson, like most Democratic reformers before him, has made thresholds one of his targets in the rules. He charges, with some justification, that any departure from strict proportional allocation of delegates helps front-running candidates and hurts underdogs.
Jackson also charges that the 'add-on' delegates, the 'free' seats for party leaders and elected officials, 'locks out' blacks, Hispanics and women. Inasmuch as an increasing number of Democratic leaders are in that category, the validity of the charge remains to be proven.
Jackson also objects to the earlier timing of primaries, which he says is another factor favoring the early leaders for the nomination.
In that concern, he is merely echoing the sentiments of many other Democratic leaders, but most past efforts by the national party to try to regulate presidential primaries, which are in the jurisdiction of state legislatures, have failed.
