PRESS RELEASES from the New Hampshire Democratic Party
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Pia Carusone 
December 1, 2007

DNC Rules & ByLaws Committee Overwhelmingly Supports NH Primary

Committee votes to strip Michigan of 100% of it's delegates

(Vienna, VA), The Rules and ByLaws sub-committee of the full Democratic National Committee voted this morning to support New Hampshire's "first-in-the-nation" status. With a vote of 28-2, the committee granted New Hampshire a waiver to hold its primary on January 8th, 2008, the date recently set by Secretary of State Bill Gardner. Though there was talk of sanctioning New Hampshire, this vote signified that the committee stands in solidarity with the Granite State. New Hampshire will travel to Denver, Colorado in the summer of 2008 with all 30 of its voting delegates and 4 alternates.

Michigan's request for a waiver was denied by a vote of 28-2 despite testimony from MI Chair Mark Brewer and DNC Member Debbie Dingle.

New Hampshire's waiver was considered together with requests from Iowa and South Carolina. Chairman Raymond Buckley offered testimony to the committee prior to the vote. Below is an excerpt from his remarks:

First of all, I want to thank everyone who offered their thoughts and prayers to the hostages in New Hampshire yesterday. It was very difficult to be so far away, but we are obviously thrilled to hear that it ended peacefully.

Madame Secretary, Mr. Co-Chair and members of the committee, earlier this year, then-NH Chair Kathy Sullivan and I wrote the plan we presented to you.

The plan, passed unanimously by the NH Democratic State Committee , listed our primary date as January 22nd, a date selected by the commission, this committee and the full DNC.

It was our hope that January 22nd would have been the date of the NH Primary. However, in the plan we presented to you, we added "subject to change", recognizing there may be circumstances occurring outside of NH's borders and beyond our control.

Today, I am here to respectfully request that the DNC recognize our new primary date of January 8th and grant us a waiver.

New Hampshire Democratic Party Vice Chair, State Senator Martha Fuller Clark, is a member of the Rules and ByLaws sub-committee. "By granting us this waiver, the committee endorsed New Hampshire's first in the nation primary and acted in the spirit of the early nominating calendar. Chairman Buckley and I are very pleased with these results."

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Pia Carusone 
November 29, 2007

Chairman Ray Buckley Prepares to Defend the NH Primary

DNC Winter Meeting will take up topic of sanctioning

Concord- The Rules and By-Laws Committee of the Democratic National Committee will meet Saturday morning in Vienna, Virginia to decide whether New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Michigan will be sanctioned for holding their primaries on dates out of compliance with the pre-approved calendar.  The below letter from Chairman Buckley was sent to the Rules and By-Laws Committee asking for a waiver due to the recent decision of NH Secretary of State Bill Gardner to move the primary date.

If sanctioned, New Hampshire would automatically lose half of it's pledged delegates and all of it's unpledged delegates, bringing the total delegation down from 30 to 11.  Any further sanctioning would be decided on Saturday at the committee meeting.

"I'm hopeful that the Democratic National Committee will hear my appeal for a waiver and choose a course supportive to our first-in-the-nation tradition," said Chairman Ray Buckley.  "I hope it helps that I have known some of the committee members for a long time.  I'm certainly not new on the scene and I will do my best to represent the importance to retail campaigning that New Hampshire remains first."

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James Roosevelt, Esq.
Hon. Alexis Herman
Rules and By-Laws Committee Co-Chairs
Democratic National Committee
430 South Capitol St., SE
Washington, DC 20003

Dear Co-Chairs Roosevelt and Herman,

I am writing to inform the Rules and By-Laws Committee that the New Hampshire Secretary of State has set the date of the New Hampshire Presidential Primary for Tuesday January 8, 2008.  The New Hampshire Democratic Party respectfully requests that the RBC grant a waiver to change the date of the primary referenced in our delegate selection plan from January 22, 2008 to January 8, 2008.  Under New Hampshire law the date of the New Hampshire Primary is set at the sole discretion of the New Hampshire Secretary of State and must be seven days before any similar event.

In the summer of 2006, the RBC and DNC agreed to a delegate selection calendar that kept New Hampshire in the pre-February 5th window.  On August 25, 2007 the RBC found the NH plan in conditional compliance.  Since that time there has been movement from a few states to move their contest into the "pre-window" period granted to Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.  The New Hampshire Secretary of State is required by law to keep the New Hampshire Presidential Primary the "First-in-the-Nation", and due to other states trying to move up their date in the calendar, he has moved our date up to January 8, 2008.

Thank you for your consideration and patience.

Sincerely,

Ray Buckley
Chair