This article continues the story of the MDP botching the U of M Regents nomination at the August 2024 State Convention two weeks ago. Since then, an MDP lawyer told Congresswoman Tlaib that the MDP “never” follows their own rules, and the Huwaida campaign sued the MDP, Chair Barnes, and Secretary of State Benson, and hearing was scheduled. I attended and testified at the hearing yesterday.
At the Veteran’s Memorial Courthouse in Lansing Michigan yesterday, September 6th 2024, the Michigan Democratic Party (MDP), through their lawyers, argued in open court that MDP leadership has no obligation to follow any rules while organizing and executing it’s Constitutional duties under the Michigan State Constitution. MDP leadership can just make it up as they go along, according to their lawyer.
Under the Michigan State Constitution (Article VII Section 5):
The regents of the University of Michigan … shall constitute a body corporate known as the Regents of the University of Michigan … The board … shall be elected as provided by law.”
The election process beings with the nominations, and MCL 16.282 is the law that provides the nomination process.
At its fall state convention each political party may nominate 2 candidates for membership on the board of regents of the University of Michigan… .
The Constitution says the law shall provide the method by which U of M Regents are elected. The Michigan law on nominations says “each political party may nominate.”
Let’s be very clear, the law does not say the Chair of the party, or the Officers, or the Executive Committee, or even the full State Central Committee, or whoever happens to temporarily be in party leadership at any given time, nor does it say whoever happens to be tabulating the vote, it says the “political party” as a whole.
The MDP as a whole has a set of Rules/Bylaws and a set of Rules for Voting and Elections (RVE) that the whole party agreed to when we passed them in 2018. The new 2018 rules explicitly say that the only rules valid in the MDP are the rules publicly posted on the MDP website (MDP Rules 2.5). The only rules posted on the MDP website are the Rules/Bylaws and the RVE. Therefore, according to the “political party”, the Rules/Bylaws and the RVE are the only rules the “political party” is allowed to use for anything, including nominating U of M Regents.
The political party known as the MDP decided how it wanted elections to be run. The temporary leadership of the MDP is arguing that they don’t have to follow the rules adopted by the whole party. The current MDP leadership team is making the King Louis XIV argument: “I am the state.” MDP leadership is claiming “we are the party, not the membership” - and since we the leadership “are the party” we the leadership get to decide how to nominate candidates under the State Constitution.
MDP leadership is saying, it doesn’t matter what the Rules Committee decided, or the full State Central Committee, or the whole Party at a convened State Convention (per MDP Rule 10.1 the highest authority in the party), all of which adopted the new Rules/Bylaws and Rules for Voting and Election in 2018. The temporary leadership is saying, the only thing that matters is what that temporary leadership decides.
The Michigan State Constitution doesn’t give any particular faction in a political party the right to nominate, it gives the whole political party the right to nominate. This is in keeping with Article 1 Section 1 of the Michigan Constitution, which reads:
All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their equal benefit, security and protection.
The people of Michigan organize themselves into political parties. The people in those political parties are empowered by the Michigan Constitution to nominate candidates for certain offices which are not nominated in an open primary, including the Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State, and the State Board of Education, the Boards of Regents or Governors of State Universities, and State Supreme Court Justices. These are some of the most powerful positions in Michigan Government.
The State Constitution doesn’t say only some of the people in the parties may select the nominees for those offices, it says the “political party may nominate”. A political party is composed of its membership, not just those members temporarily in leadership. The Rules/Bylaws and RVE were instituted by the “political party” to govern their affairs and ensure the “equal benefit, security and protection” of their members within their party, in alignment with the State Constitution.
The MDP Rules/Bylaws and RVE as passed by the MDP in 2018 aren’t perfect, but they do go a very long way to ensuring everyone in the party enjoys “equal benefit, security and protection” per Article 1 Section 1 of the Michigan Constitution. In particular regarding this case, they include:
A requirement that MDP “publish” and “publicize” a “full description of the legal and practical procedures” of how every election will be run in advance of the election (Rules 2.14).
Rule 2.14 also specifies that this publication and publicization must take place in time for “prospective members” to be “fully informed of the pertinent procedures in time to participate in selection procedures and to compete for office.” Since “prospective” members are not yet members, this means MDP must publicize these details in time for a new member to join and be eligible to vote and to run for MDP office. Since MDP Rules 3.2.1 and 3.3.1 specify that new members cannot vote or run for office for 30 days, combined with Rule 2.14 this means MDP must publicize these details at least 30 days in advance of the election.
Since 2018, including the 30 days prior to the Convention, the only document containing a “full description of the legal and practical procedures” for running an election of any kind the MDP has published or publicized are the Rules for Voting and Elections (RVE).
Both MDP Rule 2.5 (see above) and MDP Rule 2.14 make clear that the Rules/Bylaws and RVE posted on the MDP website are the only rules the MDP is allowed to use. Period.
The RVE only allows two election procedures, and reserves one of them exclusively for single-position offices (majority voting), and the other exclusively for multiple-position offices (slate voting).
RVE 2.4:
“single-position office: an office filled by only one person.”
RVE 2.1:
“multiple-position office: an office for which more than one person is to be elected.”
There were 2 positions available for nominee to the U of M Board of Regents. Since “more than one person is to be elected” to the office of Regent, this is a multiple-position office per RVE 2.1 and cannot possibly by a single-position office per 2.4.
RVE 6.1 reads “Multiple-position offices … must be elected by one of the methods approved for implementing proportional representation, detailed below in 6.4 and 6.5.”
The one and only method approved for proportional representation in 6.4 and 6.5 is slate voting.
Consequently, the MDP must use slate voting to select their nominees for U of M Regents. For anyone interest, here’s a more step-by-step explanation of slate voting than available in the RVE, with a simpler and clearer way of doing the same math and clearly worked out examples.
Using any other method for electing nominees for U of M Regents is an explicit violation of MDP Rules/Bylaws (2.5, 2.14) and Rules for Voting and Election (6.1, 6.4, 6.5). Since the Michigan Constitution and statutes give the “political party” the power to nominate, not the temporary leadership of any party, this is a clear and direct violation of the Michigan Constitution and Michigan law.
Under slate voting tabulation, Huwaida wins 1 of the 2 positions for nominee to the U of M Board of Regents. MDP reporting otherwise to the Secretary of State is a clear and direct violation of the Michigan Constitution and Michigan law.
You can read the specific arguments from the MDP lawyer when the transcripts are available (I’ll publish them here), but they boil down to nothing more than the assertion that whoever is in power in the party at any given time is empowered by the Michigan Constitution and Michigan law to decide how to nominate for these powerful positions, and they aren’t required to tell anyone in advance of the vote how they’re going to tabulate the vote. If they aren’t required to tell everyone how the election will be run, there is no way to verify that the election was run in a manner that ensure “equal benefit, security and protection” to the members of the party or the citizenry generally. This is nothing but MDP leadership usurping the role of the “political party” as a whole to nominate, and appropriating it for themselves.
This isn’t the first time MDP has made these fundamentally authoritarian arguments. In 2021 the same fundamental issues about nominating procedures arose in a different context, I wrote about it here.
Ponder this question: if MDP leadership doesn’t follow the rules duly adopted by the MDP, then what rules are they following when performing these Constitutionally mandated duties?
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For those interested: here’s the story of what happened when I first joined the MDP, and my 4 year progress report (2016 -2020), after which I was elected to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on the Solidarity Slate (also see the platform). Here’s my 2023 DNC report. I’ll write a final DNC report before the end of the year when my term ends. Some other good articles from this era include this piece on clearly distinguishing between capitalism and markets, this one on collective bargaining, and this piece on cargo cult democracy. For a summary of many of the problems in the Democratic Party, see this press packet.
Quite an eye opener regarding what goes on here in the name of democracy!