State, national Dems squabbling
Jim Ash
News Journal capital bureau chief

TALLAHASSEE -- The proverbial circular firing squad that marks a bitter dispute between Florida Democrats and their national party got a little tighter today.

Florida's leading Democrats renewed their threat of legal action if the Democratic National Committee punishes the state for moving its primary from March to Jan.29.

"I hope it doesn't come to that," warned U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who is leading the charge. However, Nelson acknowledged that he isn't sure what legal recourse is available.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean has threatened to strip half of the state's delegates from the national convention in Denver next year if Florida doesn't agree to turn the earlier primary into a "non-binding straw poll."

That would avoid trespassing on national party rules that prohibited states from moving their presidential primaries any earlier than Feb. 5. But critics say it would depress turnout in January and disenfranchise Democratic voters in a state where the 2000 election debacle is still a painful memory.

Florida Democrats have derisively called the proposal a "beauty contest," but in a conference call this morning with reporters, U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings went a step further.

"I see it as offering us an ugly contest," Hastings said.

The legislation to move the presidential primary was sponsored in the state Senate by a Democrat, but Nelson defended the move as something Democrats were powerless to stop in a Republican-dominated Legislature. Democrats were forced to vote for a measure that also included one of their top priorities, doing away with touch-screen voting machines in favor of optical scanners that create a paper trail, Nelson said.

The most reasonable compromise to avoid a stampede by other states is to allow the handful that want to stay ahead of Florida, and have the authority to do so without passing new laws, to move their primaries up by seven days, Nelson said.

Nelson quoted from a statement the powerful party chairman issued earlier this month that called protecting voting rights the party's top priority.

"So it is ironic that the DNC finds itself taking a position that is contrary to the party's stated priority," Nelson said.

DNC spokeswoman Stacie Paxton could not immediately be reached for comment.

The latest clash was prompted by news reports that Dean and the national party plan this weekend to make good on the threat.

"If true -- and, if the DNC strips Florida of all or some of its delegates to the national convention -- we would ask the appropriate legal officials to determine whether this could violate any state or federal laws governing and protecting individual voting rights," Nelson wrote in a letter to Dean.

Hastings and fellow Democratic House members Debbie Wasserman Shultz and Kathy Castor also signed the letter. They told reporters today that all Democratic members of the Florida congressional delegation support them.

State party chief Karen Thurman has sent out an urgent message to the troops, asking state Democrats to flood Dean with protests before she attends Saturday's meeting of the national rules committee in Washington, D.C.

"I'm going to fight to have Florida's votes counted, but in reality, I'm only one out of more than 4 million Florida Democrats. The DNC really needs to hear from people like you," Thurman wrote.


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