Democrats: Trying for Party Reform

NO hired bands and conscripted paraders will erupt in "spontaneous" demonstrations. The total time for nominating and seconding speeches for a candidate will be limited to an austere 15 minutes. Favorite sons will be discouraged. When the Democratic Party meets in Miami Beach next July to anoint its presidential choice, some of the more garish rituals of American political folklore will be missing. So, too, the party's reformers hope, will be the spectacle of bosses brokering power in cigar-clouded hotel suites amid a certain heady cynicism about how the game is played. No one is certain what will replace the old game. Ever since the broken heads and tear gas of Chicago more than three years ago, the Democratic Party has been embarked on an extraordinary and ambitious attempt at self-transformation.

In 1968 at least 20 states had no rules --or totally inadequate rules--for the selection of convention delegates, leaving the process to a caucus of party leaders. In Georgia, for example, the delegates were personally picked by the Governor. States that held conventions to choose delegates favored the party's establishment. More than a third of the 1968 delegates were chosen before the year began, when neither major issues nor possible candidates had been clearly identified. Blacks made up only 5.5% of the Chicago delegations, although they are 11% of the population and 20% of the total that eventually voted for Hubert Humphrey. Women provided 52% of the Democratic vote in '68, yet they made up only 13% of the delegations. A majority of the delegations had no more than one member under 30 years old. The convention was predominantly white, male, middle-aged and at least middle class.

To change that situation, a special commission first headed by South Dakota's Senator George McGovern worked for 8 months and finally in November of last year adopted a program to reform delegate selection. A second commission reviewed the commission rules. Apart from trying to tone down the convention spectacle itself, the commissions' 18 guidelines call for these major changes:

> The unit rule (by which the majority carries the entire delegation) must be abolished in order to assure that minority voices will be heard. Delegates must be selected in the same calendar year as the convention so that they will reflect current thinking of the party. > In states that hold party conventions, at least 75% of the delegates must be picked at the congressional-district level or lower.

> Explicit written rules must establish uniform times and dates for all state conventions or other meetings that select delegates.

> Each candidate for delegate must be given a chance to state his presidential preference on the state convention ballot.

>Above all, the state parties must "encourage minority-group participation so that they will be represented on the national convention delegation in reasonable relationship to their presence in the population of the state."

The movement to put these guidelines into effect is now in midpassage. So far, 22 states have satisfied the Democratic

National Committee that they are in full compliance with all 18 guidelines. The rest of the states are in various stages of compliance. The process has been delayed because in some states the party has had to seek legislative approval to change the rules on delegate selection. Sometimes, recalcitrant old-pro politicians have slowed the process.

Twenty-two states plus the District of Columbia will hold presidential-preference primaries to select their convention delegates. The other 28 states will choose delegates through local and county caucuses leading to state conventions. Georgia and Mississippi, both of which occasioned some of the bitterest credentials fights ever in 1968, have gone out of their way to ensure free delegate selection. Georgia's new rules call for wide-open conventions next spring in each of the state's ten congressional districts. At that, the new process may seem a kind of reversion, since every faction will try to pack the district convention halls with allies.

Already the reforms have shaken the fiefs of party regulars. In Illinois, Edmund Muskie has made inroads into a delegation that otherwise would have been the feudal property of Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley. Some organization Democrats have begun working with Muskie's men as representing the lesser of two evils; they fear that under the new rules, which encourage delegates to commit themselves, George McGovern insurgents might defeat uncommitted regulars, thus diminishing the Daleyites' clout in Miami Beach.

Open Doors. The effort to achieve proportional representation for minorities, the young and women contains an inherent difficulty. The reform commission did not dictate quotas, relying instead on the democratic process to achieve a better mix. Yet states that rely on election of delegates may find white middle-class majorities choosing white middle-class delegates, just as before. Some states have worked out formulas to adjust the proportions; in Pennsylvania, for example. 75% of the delegates will probably be elected, with at least some of the remaining 25% picked by party leaders to balance the delegation to the satisfaction of the credentials committee.

At first, the national party said it was enough to throw open the doors. Now women's groups and black organizations are pressuring for guaranteed representation at the convention. Recently, a task force from the Na tional Women's Political Caucus told Democratic National Committee Chairman Larry O'Brien that it will not be satisfied unless at least 50% of the delegates to Miami are female. Black leaders are demanding that 20% of the delegate seats be occupied by blacks.

Four at Once. One large question is whether the minorities, the poor, the young and women will get their own representatives or those picked by party professionals and organized labor. "They'll just send Joe's wife instead of Joe," says one Democratic official. Another envisions the pros picking a poor, young, black woman and getting credit for four categories at once.

At the moment, on paper, the reforms look impressive. Some Democrats doubt that in the end the party's choice will be radically different than it would have been under the traditional system. But if the reforms work, they might make it psychologically much more difficult for a Eugene McCarthy or some other liberal to launch a fourth-party movement. One real danger is that the Democrats, by advertising a new standard of political purity, may be destroying the spirit of accommodation and compromise within their own ranks, inviting a shrill marathon of credentials challenges next summer. The parades may be gone, but it will not be a dull convention.

Meanwhile, given either primaries or party conventions in all 50 states, the effect will be to encourage delegate candidates to link up with a presidential contender rather than go uncommitted or identified with a favori:e son. Thus, with more committed delegates being chosen all through the spring, it should be much easier to chart the progress of presidential candidates as the convention approaches. Theoretically if not realistically, it is possible that one of the candidates might wrap up a majority of the 3,000 delegates by May 23, the date of the Oregon primary, provided that all of the delegates chosen in the 16 primaries and eleven state conventions up to then were pledged to him.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.