Florida Primary Date Subject Of Lawsuit

Florida Democrat Suing Florida over Primary Date

Remember the primary date holy war and the near-daily Florida and Michigan maneuvers? And remember how Team Obama caved and just seated the delegates from the leapfrog states?

Odds are if you aren't an Iowa caucus and political process junkie, you've forgotten. But since you are, there's a fresh lawsuit in the Florida courts:

Jon Ausman, a member of the national Democratic Committee from Tallahassee, Ausman is suing the state over the Legislature's and Gov. Charlie Crist's decision in 2007 to move up the primary date to Jan. 29...

Ausman objects in particular to the statute's wording, which compels rather than permits the parties to participate in the Jan. 29 primary.

Ausman has argued that the parties' decisions to seat Florida in the end do not change the fact that the state forced a primary on both parties in violation of their rules for choosing their delegates.

The plaintiffs are expanding their case to establish that national party rules for primary elections take precedence over state mandates. If they win that argument, the primary date decision will revert to the parties.

"If Ausman wins this case, the outcome will represent a stunning advance in legal rights for political parties," writes Richard Winger at Ballot Access News.

And remember how Obama's initial stance on Florida and Michigan was going to kill his chances in those two states?