E-mail a friendKaren Thurman
airdate March 17, 2008
Karen Thurman has been chair of the Florida Democratic Party since '05. She previously represented the state's 5th Congressional District, where she was recognized as an expert on health, veterans and tax issues and sat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. A former middle school math teacher, Thurman began her public service career as a member of her town city council and went on to serve as mayor and in the state senate, where she was the first woman to chair the Agriculture Committee.
Florida Democratic Party chair breaks the news that the vote-by-mail option has been scrapped for her state's Democratic primary. (2:43)
Karen Thurman
Tavis: Karen Thurman is the chair of the Florida Democratic Party and a former U.S. congresswoman from Florida. She is now in the middle the debate over what to do about Florida's Democratic primary and its delegates. She joins us tonight from Tallahassee. Madame Chair, nice to have you on the program.
Karen Thurman: I'm so glad to be with you, Tavis, thank you.
Tavis: I know you've been in meetings all day today so let me start by updating you, perhaps, on what happened in Michigan while you've been behind closed doors all day today. These two states that are contested, Michigan and Florida, contested in terms of what to do about these delegates being seated, of course, at the Democratic convention.
As of now, at least, they're not being seated, so we're trying to figure out what to do, in case you've not been following this story. So in Michigan today, the legislature essentially put together a proposal to do a complete redo. June the third, the state of Michigan, the Democratic Party, would do the vote all over again, to be paid for by private donations. Because the states have both been saying, Michigan and Florida, "We don't have the money to do it over again."
So Michigan says, "We'll get the money from private donors, we will redo this thing over, on June the third, and give the delegates to whomever wins the delegates." At the hour of this conversation, the Clinton camp has signed off on that plan in Michigan.
Again, at this point, the Obama campaign has said nothing as we talk to Ms. Thurman, nothing from the Obama camp about what would happen in Michigan, although I can't imagine the Obama camp would not come around to supporting a chance to redo in Michigan and to go campaigning, along with the Clinton people, in the state of Michigan. That's Michigan.
Florida, very different, lot more people, bigger canvas here. Karen Thurman, again, joins us from Tallahassee. She's the chair of the Democratic Party there in the state. So that's what's happening in Michigan. What happened in your closed-door sessions today?
Thurman: Well, Tavis, first to start off, last week, we unveiled a vote-by-mail and made it very clear that we thought at least from a party perspective that would be the only opportunity and option we had available to us. In our state, unfortunately, the Republicans have the governor's mansion; they also control both the House and the Senate.
And it has been made very clear to us by the Republicans that they want nothing to do with a revote no matter who pays it, and clearly, it would not be the state. However, in saying that, listening to our activists in the state of Florida, concerns that have arisen, particularly around the verification of signatures in a vote-by-mail, it became apparent we would probably pull the plug on this today, and in fact we've issued a statement basically saying that.
Tavis: So the vote-by-mail in Florida will not happen, which means what at this point?
Thurman: Well, we've been in a lot of conversations. I've been talking to people all across the state as well. And it's been made very clear to me that people want something to happen. Some would like it just to accept the vote that was taken on January 29th. Oh my gosh, we had a record number - 1.75 million people showed up to vote.
And they believed that their vote should be counted. And I might add, that also is the other difference between Michigan and Florida, is the fact that all of the candidates were on the ballot in Florida on January 29. But in saying that, again, there are those that think that maybe that you should go back to the DNC rules, which would have been originally what should - the 50 percent cut in our delegates.
But there's been a lot of formulas running out there; but one of the clear things that I hear from people in the state of Florida is please make our votes counted. We went out, we voted, and we want to make sure that we have our delegates going into the convention.
Tavis: So I know that you cannot, by yourself - although you might like to - fiat into existence a solution here. But at this point, we know that mail-in is not an option. So at this point, what are the options that still exist, number one, and what is your deadline? What's the wall that you guys are operating against to get this thing figured out? Because there is a wall (unintelligible).
Thurman: Well, there is a wall. That was the concern we had last week and why we pushed so hard to come to some conclusion, because like Michigan, the DNC's end of this or coming to some kind of a solution would be June 10th. So any revote that would take place, if you did it by state you'd have to follow the rules.
Similar to what you said in the very beginning, again, I think it's going to have to go back to the two candidates. You're looking at the Michigan potential primary; you have one candidate that has said yes, waiting for another candidate to give their grace on this. I think once that happens that there is the possibility that it has to be kicked up to the DNC.
I've kind of kidded about this but I'm almost ready to put them both into a room and say, "Okay, look, this is what's going to happen if you guys can't come up with a better decision," because it's gotten that critical down here.
Tavis: With all due respect to you and to Democrats all over Florida, it's easy now, to your point about kidding, easy now to kid the campaigns, easy now to cast aspersion on the DNC, but isn't it true that you guys created this mess yourselves? Democrats in Florida put yourselves in this trick box - that's what some people think.
Thurman: Tavis, that's not true, and let me make this very clear. When the legislature met, it was a priority of the Republicans to move it to January 29th, suggesting that that would make the voters in Florida more relevant. Remember, we've always had a March vote, which meant that most of the times we went to the polls, it was over by the time we got there.
Tavis: I feel your pain; I live in California. Same thing here.
Thurman: (Laughs) Yes, you do. So when we got to the legislature, both the House minority leader and the Senate minority leader offered amendments on both sides and asked for it to be put back to February 5th. I have to tell you it was really ugly if you listened to that debate. It was Representative Gelber was on the floor, he put the motion, the amendment was taken up, and David Rivera, who is the chair of the rules and is a Republican made it very clear.
"Now let me understand: You want to make the people of Florida less relevant, and you're only doing this for the party bosses?" And the laughter in that chamber was deafening, especially for those who did not see this as funny. And quite frankly, the Republicans shunned their own party as well. They sat there and knew the consequences, both on the Democratic side and the Republican side, remembering the Republicans were not unscathed in this debate, either; they lost half of their delegates.
Tavis: So what's the Republican governor, the very popular Republican governor, Charlie Crist, what's his solution? What's he suggesting?
Thurman: Well, we've talked to him, obviously, and I guess his solution was to go out and stir up a whole bunch of things up again last week, talking about oh, every voter should count. And then when you went to talk to him about what would he be willing to do, there really was a silence.
Tavis: So who knows at this point, but since you are the chair of the party, what's your best sense of what is going to happen here, ultimately?
Thurman: We've always believed that Florida was an important state in the selection of a presidential candidate, and we still maintain that. And we believe that to go forward and for somebody to want to be president of the United States, it is hard to just discount the 4.7 million Democrats that we have in the state, not to mention the probably hundreds of thousands of independents that we have.
And it would behoove both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, along with the DNC, be glad to participate in those conversations, but I do think at this point we've reached a level where the conversation is going to have to come down to what can we do, but keeping in mind what the voters said in January.
Tavis: Got just a few seconds here, about 30 seconds, to be exact. Let me ask, as a Floridian - you, that is - as a Floridian, whether or not this is embarrassing to people in Florida, to once again be caught up in yet another election scandal?
Thurman: Tavis, let me say this. I think there is - and I won't call it embarrassment, because I really don't believe it's something we put on ourselves. The unfortunate part is that whole story has not been told about the legislative - and what happened in the legislature. But in saying that, look, it's never good to go back and look, it's how do we get out of this, and hopefully we can have some sense moving forward and so we can make sure that Floridians know that they've been fought for and that their voices are going to be heard.
Tavis: Well, I was just in Florida last weekend doing a couple speeches and had a lot of conversations, as you can imagine, about this.
Thurman: I can imagine.
Tavis: So in the best interest of all Floridians, and for that matter, for the democracy -
Thurman: Absolutely.
Tavis: - I hope that we get this issue resolved. Karen Thurman, nice to have you on the program.
Thurman: Well, thanks for having me, Tavis. You have a great evening.
Tavis: Thanks for taking the time; I appreciate it.
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