Rules Committee: Check!

Well, today's activity involved participating as a volunteer in a largely unremarkable Rules Committee Meeting. The Rules Committee is one of the standing Committees of the Convention (the others being Platform and Credentials). This 180-member Committee is charged with electing the officers of the Convention, establishing the Convention Rules, and recommending any rules change they see necessary.

The meeting kicked off with a welcome by Governor Dean (Current DNC Chairman) and Reverend Leah Daughtery, the CEO of this year's convention.

The main item on the agenda was a resolution jointly offered by Governor Jim Hodges (SC, Obama delegate) and Craig Smith (Fl, Clinton delegate) to establish a "Democratic Change Committee" in the upcoming year. This resolution, which passed unanimously, will take a unique look at the issues around the primary and caucus process. In particular, the Committee will work to find ways to keep the primary process from starting the first week of 2012, examine ways to reduce the number of superdelegates; and study and reform the caucus process.

Much of the meeting was "inside baseball", but it was interesting to see a great demonstration of unity amongst all the Committee members, who were close to being evenly divided between Clinton and Obama. It should be interesting to see this demonstration of party unity grow in the coming days.

Tomorrow, the Credentials Committee meetings, where the Members will decide on the seating of the Florida and Michigan delegations. Stay tuned.