With all the bombs bursting in air and rockets' red glare emanating continuously from the White House, other important political news sometimes gets buried. Which is my way of apologizing for not noticing a very important change which is likely to come soon to the Democratic National Committee. On the same day Anthony Kennedy announced he would be stepping down from the Supreme Court, the D.N.C.'s Rules and Bylaws Committee held a very important vote. They voted (almost unanimously, with only one holdout) to adopt a modified version of a proposal to dramatically reduce the importance of superdelegates in selecting a presidential nominee at the party's quadrennial convention. But the way they chose to do so was actually pretty elegant, because while it does reduce their power, it will also guarantee that the superdelegates get to take part in the process, one way or another. Senator Bernie Sanders is happy with the way things worked out, which is important since he and his followers were the ones pushing to make changes in the first place. Sanders released a statement right after the committee voted, in which he said: "This decision will ensure that delegates elected by voters in primaries and caucuses will have the primary role in selecting the Democratic Party's nominee at the 2020 convention. This is a major step forward in making the Democratic Party more open and transparent, and I applaud their action."

Here's how the new system will work. Rather than superdelegates being automatically allowed to vote in the first round of voting (the way it previously worked), they will only be allowed to vote in the first round if one candidate has already secured the nomination by winning a majority of the pledged delegates. So the primaries and caucuses will be more important than before, and any endorsements of superdelegates before the primaries are over will be much less important, since their vote will only count if someone has already won the nomination through the primary process. This will level the playing field in the exact manner that Sanders wanted, putting the focus back on the primary voters themselves rather than party bigwigs.

If no candidate secures enough delegates for an outright majority of the pledged delegates, then there will be a second round of voting at the convention. This can only really happen if there are at least three candidates who have won delegates in the primaries, obviously (in a two-person race, one candidate or the other is guaranteed to win a majority, in other words). If the party faces this situation, then the superdelegates will not be allowed to vote in the first round of voting. Since no nominee will emerge from this first round, the superdelegates will then be able to vote in the second round of voting. Competition for their endorsements will be quite fierce in such a situation, one would assume, because it will put them in the position of casting the deciding votes.

The elegant part of this compromise is that no matter what happens -- no matter how the nominee is chosen -- the superdelegates will still get the thrill of actually casting their votes at the convention. In the first case, the winner will be a foregone conclusion anyway, so their votes won't tip the scales. In such a case, it is kind of petty to exclude their votes, since the winner will have won outright at the polls already. In the second case, the superdelegates will actually become the key swing votes during the second (and any subsequent) round of voting. But either way, they'll get to cast their votes.

This is a lot more inclusive than the original proposal from the Sanders crowd, which was to just abolish the superdelegate system altogether. After all, Republicans don't see the need for such superdelegates in their own nominating process, so why should Democrats cling to such an elitist and undemocratic system? Other proposals were floated that were less harsh than abolishing all the superdelegates, such as drastically reducing their overall numbers. But this would have led to many party bigwigs being informed that their wig wasn't quite big enough to be in the "in" crowd (which would have led to a lot of resentment, obviously).

The superdelegates themselves, for the most part, exuded an air of entitlement about the mere suggestion that they should relinquish some of their power. "The very idea!" they exclaimed, while clutching at their pearls. OK, perhaps that's a bit harsh, but at the very least it has to be said that the reform proposals were certainly not enthusiastically embraced by the people who would have to forego their automatic seat at the convention. It's a big perk, so having it yanked away would have been jarring for the party elite.

The compromise idea initially would have left the superdelegates out in the cold during the first round of voting, no matter what. Since it is incredibly rare that any convention goes beyond this first round, this would have been the equivalent of just doing away with the superdelegates altogether. They would have nominally been allowed to vote in second rounds, but if second rounds never happened then they might as well just stay home and not bother attending the convention.

At the last minute, however, the elegant change was introduced. If one candidate won a majority of the pledged delegates outright, then what would be the harm in allowing the superdelegates to vote for that candidate? Barring them from doing so is a little petty, in other words, since a clear winner would already have emerged. Allowing them to vote for (or against) a foregone winner wouldn't change anything at all, and -- importantly -- it guarantees that the superdelegates will be able to cast a vote for their party's nominee, no matter what happens.

This is inclusive -- it still give the party elders their perk -- but at the same time it creates a much fairer system of nominating Democratic presidential candidates. The voters will have the first say, and the only time the superdelegates' votes become important is if the voters haven't rallied behind a single candidate. This elevates the primary process to center stage, which is where Bernie Sanders wanted it to be. It also means that during the entire primary process, it will be almost immaterial how many superdelegate endorsements any particular candidate manages to get in his or her corner. The tallies by the news media will likely not even bother counting superdelegate endorsements, or at the least will only mention them as an afterthought, rather than being the key to winning the nomination. And that is the real change that Bernie wanted. No longer will a candidate like Hillary Clinton be able to lock up hundreds of crucial votes before the primaries even begin, which will leave a level playing field rather than a very biased one.

This isn't a done deal quite yet, it is worth mentioning. The process has been a long one, and it is not over yet. The Unity Commission came up with the plan and presented it to the Rules and Bylaws Committee. This committee just voted 27-1 to adopt the reform plan. The last step is putting the plan up for a vote by the entire Democratic National Committee next month. While at this point it is impossible to predict the outcome, it now seems the reforms have a pretty good chance of being formally adopted. The almost-unanimous vote in the committee shows that the new plan has wide support among both Sanders and Clinton supporters within the party. The last-minute change to allow superdelegates to vote if the candidate has already essentially won the nomination will go a long way towards assuaging hurt feelings among the superdelegates themselves -- many of whom are members of the full D.N.C., and will thus get to vote on the new plan in August. No matter how the candidate is selected, the superdelegates will still get to cast their votes. The only real change is that they will no longer be allowed to be the "thumb on the scale" before such a nominee emerges with a clear majority of the pledged delegates. In other words, the superdelegates will have to give up some power, but they will still be allowed to participate in the process, one way or another. The new system will be a lot fairer to underdog candidates like Sanders, and will elevate the primaries and caucuses to the prominence that they really deserve, making the overall process a lot more (small-d) democratic.

That, to me, is a very elegant solution to what had been a vexing problem. I sincerely hope this proposal will be adopted by a landslide by the full Democratic National Committee next month.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant