The Commission on Party Structure and Delegate Selection, first chaired by Senator George McGovern and later chaired by Representative Don Fraser, was tasked with reforming the Democratic nomination process in the aftermath of the violent convention in Chicago in the summer of 1968. The commission ran from 1969 through 1972 and was composed of twenty-eight members.
One of the primary tasks of the commission was to give the average citizen of the Democratic Party a greater role in the party nomination process. Convention delegations could not be composed of state and local party officials. Rather, delegations had to be more broadly representative in terms of race, gender, and age, given the population demographics of the state. And the process for delegate selection had to be open and public, with some element of public participation. The role of party officials was limited to that of superdelegates, a small, fixed proportion of delegates who were not committed to candidates as a function of primaries or caucuses in their states. Rather, superdelegates were appointed by the party and were unconstrained in their voting. Most importantly, the national Democratic Party gave itself the power to overrule decisions made by state political parties. This latter power became particularly important in the Campaign of 2008, when the Democratic National Committee (DNC) chose not to recognize delegates from the states of Michigan and Florida at their convention, because the parties in those states held primaries on dates forbidden to them by the DNC. (Similarly, the Republican National Committee exacted a penalty on both Florida and South Carolina for deviating from their established primary schedule in 2008.)
Ultimately, many states opted to hold primaries as the simplest means for complying with the new set of rules issued by the commission. Because many state legislatures (even in the South) were controlled by the Democratic Party during this era, the expansion of the primary system tended to affect both political parties. The trend is quite clear. In 1968, only sixteen states held some type of primary, and Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic presidential nominee in the Campaign of 1968, did not win a single one of them. By 1972, twenty-two states held presidential primaries, and in 1976, primaries were held in twenty-nine states. Six additional states held primaries in 1980. (Many states skipped Republican primaries in 1984 when Reagan was running unopposed; similarly, many states skipped Democratic primaries in 1996 when Clinton was running unopposed.) By 2008, the number crept up to forty. Just as important, for most sub-presidential nominations, primaries have become the norm.
Political scientists view the reforms recommended by this body as the basis for the modern political primary, with its effects ultimately influencing the nomination process of presidential candidates for Democrats and Republicans alike. Ultimately, the McGovern-Fraser Commission vastly expanded the role of the average citizen in the presidential election process and served to limit the power of political parties over political candidates.
See also Frontloading
Paulson, Arthur. Realignment and Party Revival: Understanding American Electoral Politics at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000.
Polsby, Nelson W. “The Reform of Presidential Selection and Democratic Theory.” PS: Political Science and Politics 16, no. 4 (Autumn 1983): 695–698.
Steller, Chris. “40 Years Ago, McGovern-Fraser Commission Paved Way for Challengers Like Obama.” Minnesota Independent, May 30, 2008.
Stricherz, Mark. “Primary Colors: How a Little-Known Task Force Helped Create Red State/Blue State America.” Boston Globe, November 23, 2003.
Sundquist, James L. Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States. Washington, DC: Brookings, 1983.