Rigged Democracy – Nearly 10% of Democratic Party Superdelegates are Lobbyists

March 11th, 2016

Awake Goy

On July 25, these superdelegates will cast votes at the Democratic National Convention for whomever they want, regardless of primary and caucus outcomes. Democrats like to describe superdelegates as mostly elected officials and prominent party members, including President Obama and former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

But this group, which consists of 21 governors, 40 senators and 193 representatives, only makes up about a third of the superdelegates. Many of the remaining 463 convention delegates are establishment insiders who get their status after years of donations and service to the party. Dozens of the 437 delegates in the DNC member category are registered federal and state lobbyists, according to an ABC News analysis.

In fact, when you remove elected officials from the superdelegate pool, at least one in seven of the rest are former or current lobbyists registered on the federal and state level, according to lobbying disclosure records.

– From the ABC News article: The Reason Why Dozens of Lobbyists Will Be Democratic Presidential Delegates

When it comes to presidential primaries, there isn’t a whole lot of “democracy” in the Democratic Party.

Last year, The New York Times published an article examining the American attitude toward the question of money in politics. This is what it found: