Had a ton of emails today from people wondering about the Ausman Petition, however they all spelled it “Osman Petition”. It literally took me an hour to figure out what the heck they were all talking about. There is nor Osman!
Anyway onto the Ausman Petition. Last week, Democratic National Committee member Jon Ausman filed a petition with the party’s rules and bylaws committee pointing out that the charter of the Democratic National Committee uses the verb “shall” when describing the relationship between super delegates and the convention, as in super delegates “shall” be seated. The argument, basically, is that the charter supercedes any penalty imposed by the RBC. The counter arguement is that the verb “shall” is later qualified. The 28 members of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws committee may well decide that the challenge has validity and may well decide to seat the super delegates from Florida, and then, should there be a similar petition from Michigan, the super delegates from Michigan.
If you are an Obama support then you are likely against the Ausman petition since Obama did not even campaign in Florida or Michigan after he found out that the states primaries would not count towards the nomination. The next few days should be interesting as this matter is discussed further. Either way though, Obama has a commanding lead among democrats.
Jon Ausman is pictured below:
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