As a member of the DNC's Rules Committee he was a proponent of adding other states besides Iowa and New Hampshire early on in the Presidential nominating calendar. He was unsuccessful in his promotion of Alabama as the second primary state, after New Hampshire, which lost to South Carolina. With all but one member of the Rules and Bylaws Commission, Ickes voted in August 2007 to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates. Clinton won the vote in Florida after neither candidate campaigned there and voters were told that their vote would not count, in accordance with the earlier decision.