What Is This Thing Called The Credentials Committee? [View All]

What Is This Thing Called The Credentials Committee?
By Greg Sargent - March 31, 2008, 4:23PM


Here it is: The Election Central Idiot's Guide To The Credentials Committee.

The other day Hillary said in an interview that if the Florida and Michigan voting standoffs don't get resolved by the campaigns, this will be resolved one way or another at the Democratic National Convention in August -- by the credentials committee.

Her comments caused a big stir, and since then there's been a great deal of confusion out there over how the process will work, with some of you readers wondering whether Hillary could amass a majority on the committee and swing the decision her way.

So, after talking to the Democratic National Committee about this, here's the deal on how the credentials committee works.

There are a total of 186 members on the credentials committee. Twenty five of them are appointed by DNC chair Howard Dean, and the remainder are alloted by state, in numbers based on each state's population and Democratic performance.

The process that determines how those credential committee members are split between the candidates is a convoluted one. But the gist of it is that each state's delegation to the credentials committee is allocated between the candidates in a number that's proportional to the number of pledged delegates he or she has won in that state.

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