They may not go away completely but won't have the power they used to if this comes to pass.
A commission of Democratic leaders on Wednesday recommended their party virtually eliminate superdelegates from their presidential candidate nomination process.
Their proposal -- commissioned by the Democratic National Committee in the aftermath of last year's tough primary season -- would essentially make the "superdelegate" post an honorary position.
Consequently, these powerful party leaders could no longer select the candidate of their choice; rather, their votes would be tied to the outcome of their respective states' primaries, which choose winners by popular vote. - The Hill
You can read more of our Superdelegate coverage here.
The Commission approved a draft report that recommends converting most automatic unpledged “superdelegates” to pledged delegates who will fill slots reflecting the voter preferences in their state’s primary or caucuses – thus becoming automatic, pledged, voting convention delegates. The DNC Rules and Bylaws Commission (RBC) will consider the Commission’s report and then forward proposed delegate selection rules to the DNC for action later in 2010.
Superdelegates: The draft report proposes a new category of National Party Leader and Elected Officials (NPLEO) delegates who will serve as full voting delegates to the national convention. The current proposal thus backs off from the prior proposal which would have made superdelegates non-voting delegates. The current add-on unpledged delegate positions that were filled at state conventions would be eliminated. Each state would receive a number of additional delegates (NPLEOs) that is equal to the number of its current automatic delegates – including all DNC members (elected, at large, state party chairs and vice chairs, and DNC officers), members of Congress, Governors, and Distinguished Former Party Leaders. After the state has held its primary or caucus process and determined the percentage of delegates to be allocated to each presidential candidate, the NPLEOs, like the current At Large and PLEO delegates, would be allocated to those candidates. Each NPLEO then woukld have the choice of pledging to a candidate or not pledging to any candidate and participating in the convention as a nonvoting delegate.
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