South Dakota Bid for Early Delegate Selection Blocked

A Democratic Party panel threw out South Dakota’s attempt to move near the top of the presidential primary schedule and warned on Friday that convention seats and hotel rooms could be denied to states breaking party rules.

The decision by the party’s Compliance Assistance Commission, which rules on local parties’ methods of picking national convention delegates, marked the second time it has turned back a state’s attempt to push ahead of the pack.

Both South Dakota and Minnesota planned to hold their key delegate-selection events on Feb. 23 in violation of party rules that permit only Iowa, New Hampshire, Maine and Wyoming to begin picking delegates before March 8, 1988.

Similar Threats in 1984

The party had made similar threats against New Hampshire and Iowa in 1984 for choosing their delegates earlier than the rules allowed. But when faced with a convention floor fight over seating the two delegations, the party backed down.

“There’s some feeling out in the land . . . that ‘we don’t have to comply because they won’t do anything,’ ” said Kathy Vick, chairwoman of the commission. But the rules “will be enforced, and we do mean it.”

The commission said it will use its influence with other party committees to deny accommodations, mainly hotel rooms, to delegations from states that do not play by the rules, besides refusing to seat the delegations at the convention, scheduled from July 18 to 21, 1988, in Atlanta.

A half-dozen other states were ready to move their primaries or caucuses ahead of March 8 if South Dakota was allowed to do so, Vick said. She did not name the states.

Act of Legislature

South Dakota’s primary, traditionally held in June, was moved to February by an act of the Republican-dominated Legislature in 1986. By contrast, Minnesota’s decision to hold its caucuses on Feb. 23 had been backed by Democrats.

South Dakota Democrats tried in a later legislative session to move the primary back within party limits, but the measure failed in the state Senate, said Jim Robinson, executive director of the South Dakota Democratic Party.

Minnesota Democrats have said they will fight any attempt by the national party to impose its will on the state. Rep. Wes Skodlund, the Democrat who sponsored the bill to hold the caucuses on Feb. 23, said the Legislature will “absolutely not” give in to the national party.