Below The Beltway

DNC Chairman Howard Dean said today that Florida and Michigan party leaders need to come up with a way to allow people to vote again in their respective states:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean urged Florida and Michigan party officials to come up with plans to repeat their presidential nominating contests so that their delegates can be counted.

“All they have to do is come before us with rules that fit into what they agreed to a year and a half ago, and then they’ll be seated,” Dean said during a round of interviews Thursday on network and cable TV news programs.

The two state parties will have to find the funds to pay for new contests without help from the national party, Dean said.

“We can’t afford to do that. That’s not our problem. We need our money to win the presidential race,” he said.

So now, it seems, the ball is in the court of the Democratic Party officials in Florida and Michigan.

Meanwhile, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida is telling the DNC that they need to do something about his state soon:

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) warned the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Thursday that it is facing the “biggest train wreck you’ve ever seen” if a standoff is not resolved over his state’s pledged delegates to the party’s presidential nominating convention.

Nelson sent a letter to DNC Chairman Howard Dean Thursday asking the committee to either accept the Jan. 29 results of the primary election or pay for a redo of the elections, which could cost in the range of $20 million. He sent the letter after Dean did not return his telephone call Wednesday.

“If they go to the Democratic Convention and stiff-arm the Florida delegations, how in the world do you think Floridians are going to support the Democratic nominee on Nov. 4?” Nelson told reporters Thursday. “It’s in everybody’s interest to find a solution to this problem.”

Nelson is largely correct, but I think that the DNC is right is saying that they aren’t going to use party funds to pay for the primaries. This entire mess is the fault of the parties in Florida and Michigan and it’s up to them to fix it.

And in what appears to be breaking news, The New Republic is reporting that Michigan is close to submitting a plan for caucuses:

A member of the DNC’s Rules And Bylaws Committee–the committee that stripped Florida and Michigan of its delegates for moving their primaries before February 5th–told me that Michigan plans to get out of its uncounted delegate problem by announcing a new caucus in the next few days.

“They want to play. They know how to do caucuses,” the DNC source said. “That was their plan all along, before they got cute with the primary.”

Michigan Democrats had originally planned on caucuses after the legally permissible Feb. 5 date, but then went along with top elected Democrats, including Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who pushed for an early primary.

Caucuses, of course, have usually worked to the benefit of Barack Obama.

H/T: Marc Ambinder on the TNR post