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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

IL Delegate: Superdelegate System Fails Voters

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Monday, July 25, 2016   

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia today the party took a small step that could limit the role of convention superdelegates.

Some Illinois delegates say more changes are sorely needed.

Illinois has 26 superdelegates who are appointed by party leaders and vote for whichever candidate they choose, regardless of who wins the state presidential primary.

Critics have long said the process can favor a candidate who is actually unpopular with voters.

Jan Rodolfo, an Illinois delegate for Bernie Sanders, backed a plan to eliminate superdelegates altogether, but that idea was shot down.

"I'm a supporter of one person, one vote,” she states. “And I think that superdelegates are really a class of party members who have undue weight, in terms of the way that their votes work. It really reinforces the status quo."

On Saturday, the DNC's Rules Committee agreed to set up a commission to meet after the November election. The group will consider changes to the party's nominating process, including getting rid of up to two-thirds of superdelegates.

If the last round of primaries and caucuses had not included superdelegates, Rodolfo says Bernie Sanders would likely have become the Democratic nominee, which could have brought about changes to the party's platform.

"If that were the case, then the situation going to the Democratic Platform Committee would've been very different,” she points out. “Instead of a platform that, for example, completely failed to address the need for single-payer Medicare for all, which is something that the majority of Democrats support, that wouldn't have happened."

Still, even if the commission does support eliminating some superdelegates, the idea would still need approval from the DNC committee, which has squashed similar moves in the past.







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