Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) has suggested seating the Michigan and Florida delegates at the Democratic National Convention, even though the Democratic National Committee (DNC) stripped them of their status. The DNC originally set itself up for trouble by denying these influential states a place at the convention as punishment for scheduling their primaries too early in the year. However, the fact remains that, since each and every Democratic presidential candidate pledged not to campaign in these states and to abide by the DNC’s decision, these delegates should not be seated at the convention.

On September 1, the campaigns of Clinton and Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) issued press releases stating that they had signed pledges affirming the DNC’s decision to approve certain representative states and sanction others for moving their nominating contests earlier. But now that the race is close, Clinton — whose top advisor Harold Ickes voted as a member of the DNC to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates — is pushing for the delegates to be seated.

Her argument is that not doing so disenfranchises the 1.7 million Florida Democrats who voted and that her pledge promised only that she wouldn’t campaign in the states, not that she wouldn’t try to seat the delegates. However, the results of the contests in Florida and Michigan are not necessarily representative of the voters’ preferences in those states. Given that most of the candidates removed their names from the Michigan ballot, and that many voters stayed home from the vote in Florida with the understanding that their contest would not affect the final delegate count, the delegate totals that the candidates accumulated in these states may not accurately reflect the will of the voters. Had there been no restrictions in Michigan and Florida, the turnout, and thus the results, may have been different.

The Four State Pledge all candidates signed on Aug. 28 stated, “Whereas, the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee will strip states of 100% of their delegates and super delegates to the DNC National Convention if they violate the nomination calendar... Therefore, I ____________, Democratic Candidate for President, in honor and in accordance with DNC rules ...pledge I shall not campaign or participate in any election contest occurring in any state not already authorized by the DNC to take place in the DNC approved pre-window.” When the candidates pledged to campaign only in approved states, they were also agreeing to the terms listed above, which explicitly mentioned stripping noncompliant states of their entire delegation.

As it has become clear that the delegate race will be very close, politicians in the Democratic party are discussing the implications of the DNC pledge, and whether it would be wise to seat the delegates after all, rather than risk offending these important states that could be influential in the November election.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) recently said that the Florida and Michigan delegates should not be seated if they would decide the nomination. Other compromise proposals include holding new nominating contests in these states, but such contests would be expensive and cumbersome. The irony is that had Florida and Michigan not moved up their primaries, they would have voted in February and March, when they would have been even more important than in earlier months in determining the Democratic nominee — and would not have created an enormous controversy that has the potential to divide the party.

It should be made clear that the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee seriously erred in penalizing Florida and Michigan by removing all of their 367 delegates. It was a foolhardy and shortsighted move that broke party rules (under which Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina should have lost delegates as well) and was motivated by party leaders’ punitive desire to regain control of the nomination process by punishing frontloading states. The DNC did not foresee the tight race we have today, and foolishly created an impossible situation. But because these contests cannot be undone, the most consistent and even-handed way to proceed is by abiding by the rules everyone agreed to before the primaries began.