McGovern-Fraser Commission

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The McGovern-Fraser Commission, formally known as Commission on Party Structure and Delegate Selection ^[1] was a commission created at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The 28-member body was selected by Senator Fred R. Harris, who was then the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.^[2] Senator George McGovern and later Representative Donald Fraser chaired the commission, which is how the commission received its name.^[1]

The convention approved the establishment of a party committee to examine current rules and make recommendations designed to broaden participation and enable better representation for minorities and others who were underrepresented. The McGovern-Fraser Commission established open procedures and affirmative action guidelines for selecting delegates. In addition the commission made it so that all delegate selection procedures were required to be open; party leaders could no longer handpick the convention delegates in secret. The commission recommended that delegates be represented by the proportion of their population in each state. ^[3] An unforeseen result of these rules was that many states complied by holding primary elections to select convention delegates. This created a shift from caucuses to primaries. The Republican Party’s nomination process was also transformed in this way, as state laws involving primaries usually apply to all parties’ selection of delegates.