The Democratic National Committee Rules and Bylaws Committee will meet Saturday, May 31st in Washington DC in an effort to decide what to do about Michigan and Florida.  The entire meeting will be broadcast on CSPAN.  Most believe that the DNC will seat half the delegates of each state.  If the DNC decides to seat all of Florida and Michigan’s delegates as is, Sen. Clinton would make a dent in Obama’s lead.  This result is unlikely however given the following statement by Nancy Pelosi after speaking at meeting in front of the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board in California.  In expressing the neccesity for exacting some sort of penalty to Florida and Michigan, Pelosi said “[i]f you have no order and no discipline in terms of party rules, people will be having their primary in the year before the presidential election,” she said. “So there has to be some penalty.” 

In addition, Pelosi and Harry Reid released a statement Thursday night to the New York times pressing superdelegates to make their decision known by next week.  Reid and Pelosi made clear that they do not want this RBC meeting on Saturday to extend this protracted primary race any further by way of appeals, etc.  The two top congressional democrats plan to urge uncommitted superdelegates to make their decision known by the middle of next week to be exact.  Reid went further by saying that the nominee will be known by Wednesday of next week.  Because superdelegates are members or aspiring members of Congress, word from Reid and Pelosi add a new kind of pressure to the superdelegates. This is bad news for the Clinton Campaign who have been making utterances about taking this to the Credentials Committee at the August convention.

As for the RBC meeting this Saturday, Clinton supporters are expected to protest.  The Obama campaign however has opted to go a different route.  Campaign Obama has asked its supporters not to protest but to take this opportunity to register voters within their community.  The campaign has organized a mass voter registration drive and request that Obama supporters go to www.barackobama.com to find their local registration drive location. The following statement was released by the Obama campaign. 

On Saturday, the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee will meet in Washington D.C. to determine whether Florida and Michigan delegates should be allowed to participate at the Democratic convention in August. We look forward to the meeting proceeding smoothly—and we’re asking that our supporters not demonstrate or disrupt the proceedings in any way.

The following is a list of members, who are also superdelegates, of the Rules and Bylaws Committee and which candidate each member supports.

Co-Chairs - no endorsement
Alexis Herman (co-chair, Washington , D.C. )
James Roosevelt, Jr. (co-chair, Massachusetts )

Members - Clinton supporters (13)
Hartina Flournay (DC)
Donald Fowler (SC)
Harold Ickes, Jr. (DC)
Jaime Gonzalez, Jr. (TX)
Alice Huffman (CA)
Ben Johnson (DC)
Elaine Kamarck (MA)
Eric Kleinfeld (DC)
Mona Pasquil (CA)
Mame Reiley (VA)
Gary Shay (CA)
Elizabeth Smith (DC)
Michael Steed (MD)

Members - Obama supporters (8)
Martha Fuller Clark (NH)
Carol Khare Fowler (SC)
Janice Griffin (MD)
Thomas Hynes (IL)
Allan Katz (FL)
Sharon Stroschein (SD)
Sarah Swisher (IA)
Everett Ward (NC)

Members - no known endorsement (7)
Donna Brazille (DC)
Mark Brewer (MI)
Ralph Dawson (NY)
Yvonne Gates ( NV)
Alice Germond (DC) - DNC Secretary
David McDonald (WA)
Jerome Wiley Segovia (VA)