The list of delegations to next week’s Democratic National Convention should be easy to figure out. Everyone learned the names of the 50 states in grammar school.
But the list has 56 delegations. So who succeeded in sneaking in and taking on state status for the week?
Delegates from Florida and Rhode Island need to know the answer. If not, they’re going to mess up the roll call.
After Delaware, but before Florida, is the District of Columbia. And after Pennsylvania, but before Rhode Island, is Puerto Rico. Every four years since 1976, both have been granted temporary “statehood” by the Democratic National Committee, with votes on the convention floor equal to their number of delegates.
Four other delegations hailing from three other territories and a group representing Democrats living overseas will complete the roll call, their names coming at the end of the list. But while they have some say at the convention, they don’t get the full statehood treatment.
The District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are given state privilege because of their size and degree of political participation, said Rick Boylan, director of delegate selection for the DNC.
“This is a big deal for them, and we respect that,” Boylan said. “We definitely welcome their participation.”
The District of Columbia will have 33 delegates and votes; Puerto Rico will have 58.
“They treat us as a state, and we like that,” said Donna Brazile, an aide to D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. “We should be treated like that every day by both parties.
“While we lack political representation in the halls of Congress, the Democratic National Committee allows it to us at the convention.”
The District of Columbia will be even more visible this year by having Jesse Jackson as one of its delegates.
The three other territories, called at the end of the roll call, are American Samoa, Guam and the Virgin Islands. Each petitioned the DNC to have representation at the convention. But they have been given a scaled-down number of votes.
That differs from the Republican National Convention, where the District of Columbia and all four territories had as many votes as delegates.
At the Democratic convention, American Samoa and Guam both have 12 delegates but only six votes. The Virgin Islands, which has no Democratic governor or member of Congress, has 10 delegates and only four votes.
“Guam is the first U.S. soil to see the sun every day,” said Sandra Palmer, special assistant to Guam Gov. Carl Gutierrez, head of the territory’s delegation. “We are Americans, and we like people to remember that.”
While it can take as long as 20 hours to get from Guam to Chicago, a trip of about 10,000 miles, Palmer said the territory’s representatives wouldn’t miss it. The convention is one of their only chances to directly participate in the political process and is an opportunity for the small island to show its neighbors the importance of democracy.
“It sets a good example for other countries in the area to see us participate,” Palmer said.
Delegates from Guam like to be treated as equals among those from the 50 states, but Palmer said they also try to draw attention to their unique status. Delegates wear traditional island clothing, which can cause others to do a double-take on the convention floor.
If the territories sound obscure to most people, the 56th delegation is even more so: Democrats Abroad.
The group has about 10,000 active participants in 30 countries around the world. They are expatriates who don’t want to relinquish their rights to participate in the U.S. political system.
The Republican National Committee has a Republicans Abroad, but the group is not allowed a delegation at that convention.
“We know we are going to be on the margins of public attention,” said Thomas Fina, executive director of the Virginia-based Democrats Abroad.
Like all the other delegations, the group has its fair share of convention-related events planned during its Chicago visit. They, like the rest, are trying to line up speakers. But they’re under no misconceptions that they’ll be able to lure anyone along the lines of the president or first lady.
“It will be a moment of high tension in the halls when we wait to see which way the votes from Democrats Abroad go,” Fina joked. “In the real world, we know that our voice is not going to be heard.”
