Superdelegate Rules for Replacing Governors

Today's news must be devasting for Eliot Spitzer's wife and frankly very disappointing to those of us who saw Spitzer as a possible future President.  Still, I've seen some commentary on the much less important question of his superdelegate vote IF he should resign, so I thought I would post this.

I downloaded the PDF of the 2008 Call for the Democratic Convention some time ago from democrats.org.  I'd first like to say that I don't think the New York Delegate Slate is yet officially submitted or confirmed, so if the governor would resign he would simply never "really" be a superdelegate.  But even if he is named in the slate, he would be out:

Members of Congress and Democratic Governors shall not be entitled to
name a replacement. In the event of any changes or vacancies in a state’s
Democratic congressional delegation following the official confirmation
and prior to the commencement of the National Convention, the
Secretary shall recognize only such changes as have been officially
recognized by the Democratic Caucus of the United States House of
Representatives or the Democratic Conference of the United States
Senate. In the event of a change or vacancy in a state’s office of
Governor following the official confirmation and prior to the
commencement of the National Convention, the Secretary shall
recognize only such changes as have been officially recognized by the
Democratic Governors’ Association.

I believe the first line covers the idea that a Governor might decide not to show up to the convention, but send someone to cast his vote.  Since one of the purposes of "super delegates" is said to be getting major officials to show up, that is explictly banned.  The bolded section gives the procedure for replacing the governor, if he or she resigns after the delegate slate is confirmed but before the convention.

As I saw noted elsewhere (but can't remember to credit),  Lt. Gov. David Paterson already is a superdelegate by virtue of his DNC position.  In fact, my reading of Rule 13.K says that he will remain a DNC superdelegate rather than a Governor superdelegate, not that it makes any difference:

Members of the Democratic National Committee and delegates selected pursuant to paragraphs G, H and I will be ineligible to serve as delegates under any other category and may hold no more than one (1) vote. Democratic Governors, Democratic Members of the United States House of Representatives and Democratic United States Senators who are members of the Democratic National Committee shall serve as delegates by virtue of their membership on the National Committee.

Hope that answers your questions:  Spitzer would be out as a super delegate, and the total number of super delegates would be decreased by one.  That make up for the new one added in Saturday's special election, except of course that Spitzer is for Clinton and Foster is for Obama.