Apparently Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee, doesn’t care if she alienates Bernie followers. The Sanders campaign had been hoping for a significant role at the Democratic convention, but Wasserman Schultz has picked 75 members of the convention’s key committees -- rules, credentials and platform – and accepted only 3 of Bernie’s choices, failing to acknowledge the proportion of the vote Bernie has won in the primaries and caucuses.
Now it’s the Democratic convention that’s promising to get messy.
After piling up millions of votes and wins in 19 states, Bernie Sanders and his supporters are beginning to lay out their expectations for the Democratic National Convention — and they’re expressing deep frustration with what they see as a wall of party resistance.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/bernie-sanders-dnc-rules-committee-222978#ixzz48iIq8LBK
.
The most recent flare-up occurred last week, when Sanders publicly released a letter to Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz accusing her of stacking the deck against him on the convention's standing committees. “[W]e are prepared to mobilize our delegates to force as many votes as necessary to amend the platform and rules on the floor of the convention," wrote Sanders, several days after a tense phone conversation with the chairwoman.
According to a Sanders official with knowledge of the call, the senator demanded more representation on the committees but Wasserman Schultz would only assure him that he would have representation. A DNC spokesman declined to characterize the conversation and would only confirm that it took place.
For a party that's anxious to unite all its factions behind likely nominee Hillary Clinton after a long slog of a primary, it was an inauspicious — and worrisome — start.
"I'm surprised and a little bit shocked that the numbers are so few given the nature of the base in the coming decade. This is not necessary," said Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, a Sanders supporter. "In other words, if Hillary Clinton is the nominee, it is not necessary to solidify her election by fashioning a list that's so restrictive."
Both the Hillary Clinton and Sanders campaigns had submitted names for consideration on the convention's standing committees, but in January when Wasserman Schultz handed down her final list of 75 nominations — all of whom were approved by the DNC's Executive Committee — nearly all of Sanders' choices had been disregarded.
The Vermont senator had provided the DNC with 45 names — a diverse list that included Sanders supporters ranging from Congressmen Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison to former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower, a leading progressive populist. Wasserman Schultz picked just three of the 45.
Months of negotiations with the DNC failed to add any additional Sanders supporters on the standing committees, leading Sanders to go public with his grievance last week.
To the Sanders camp, Wasserman Schultz’s selections for committee chairmen rubbed salt in the wound. Among the committee co-chairs she named were two sharp-elbowed Clinton partisans known for their harsh criticism of the Vermont senator: Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy and former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank.
“It's sort of like coded language, dog-whistle politics. You only hear the language if it's directed at you,” said Maine state Rep. Diane Russell, a Sanders supporter who pushed an amendment at the Maine Democratic Party convention Saturday that would make delegates and super delegates align their support in proportion to the state's caucus results. “I think when you saw when the committees were laid out there was no real way to say the DNC was actively shutting out this group of people, supporting this other candidate until you really saw the construction of the committees and I think that brought it to life.”
The tensions between the DNC and the Sanders campaign are long running, ranging from disputes over debates to a bitter feud was over the committee's decision to revoke the Sanders campaign's access to its voter data file following after a data breach. Last week, the Sanders campaign accused the DNC of having an inappropriate fundraising agreement with the Clinton campaign.
Wasserman Schultz insists that the committee has been an honest broker, and that none of the lingering acrimony will have an effect on the convention.
“I'm not at all concerned that we are going to have a divisive fight at our convention. At our convention we are headed toward unity,” she said in a conference call with reporters Wednesday. “Both of our candidates have clearly stated that they will support the other one if they were to win the nomination and I would expect that we would go through a platform drafting process that the entire party rallies around. Both of our candidates are going to substantially participate in the drafting of our platform.”
the allocation of the initial 75 DNC-nominated standing committee members doesn’t in any way reflect the proportion of the vote the senator has won in the primaries and caucuses.
"The chairwoman who I would call a friend has been less than impartial in her presiding over the Democratic National Committee during this primary season," New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski, a Sanders supporter, said pointing to the makeup of the standing committees as the latest example. "This is not just John Wisniewski saying it. Governor [Martin] O'Malley raised the question back probably eight or nine months ago at the DNC meeting in Minneapolis in which he questioned a primary season that had four debates. So this an old critique and it is a critique that continues to have life because the optics of what takes place gives credence to it."
Frank, the co-chair of the influential Rules Committee, felt the brunt of Sanders backers' anger on Saturday at the Maine Democratic Convention. When Frank delivered his speech there on behalf of Clinton, he was booed and shouted at as a "sellout" who should "go back to Massachusetts."
The frustrating aspect of this campaign season, and the point and time which we're in, is that we hear calls from supporters of Secretary Clinton that it is time to unite the party," said Wisniewski. "Setting aside that Sen. Sanders has a path, albeit a very narrow one, to the nomination, that theme of uniting the party is one that should be bilateral and not a one-way street if the goal ultimately is to make sure that however the primary season turns out that all of us, Sanders supporters and Clinton supporters, are all working for the same nominee. It behooves those who have a position of authority to conduct themselves in an impartial and evenhanded fashion."
Now it’s the Democratic convention that’s promising to get messy.
After piling up millions of votes and wins in 19 states, Bernie Sanders and his supporters are beginning to lay out their expectations for the Democratic National Convention — and they’re expressing deep frustration with what they see as a wall of party resistance.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/bernie-sanders-dnc-rules-committee-222978#ixzz48iIq8LBK
.
The most recent flare-up occurred last week, when Sanders publicly released a letter to Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz accusing her of stacking the deck against him on the convention's standing committees. “[W]e are prepared to mobilize our delegates to force as many votes as necessary to amend the platform and rules on the floor of the convention," wrote Sanders, several days after a tense phone conversation with the chairwoman.
According to a Sanders official with knowledge of the call, the senator demanded more representation on the committees but Wasserman Schultz would only assure him that he would have representation. A DNC spokesman declined to characterize the conversation and would only confirm that it took place.
For a party that's anxious to unite all its factions behind likely nominee Hillary Clinton after a long slog of a primary, it was an inauspicious — and worrisome — start.
"I'm surprised and a little bit shocked that the numbers are so few given the nature of the base in the coming decade. This is not necessary," said Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, a Sanders supporter. "In other words, if Hillary Clinton is the nominee, it is not necessary to solidify her election by fashioning a list that's so restrictive."
Both the Hillary Clinton and Sanders campaigns had submitted names for consideration on the convention's standing committees, but in January when Wasserman Schultz handed down her final list of 75 nominations — all of whom were approved by the DNC's Executive Committee — nearly all of Sanders' choices had been disregarded.
The Vermont senator had provided the DNC with 45 names — a diverse list that included Sanders supporters ranging from Congressmen Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison to former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower, a leading progressive populist. Wasserman Schultz picked just three of the 45.
Months of negotiations with the DNC failed to add any additional Sanders supporters on the standing committees, leading Sanders to go public with his grievance last week.
To the Sanders camp, Wasserman Schultz’s selections for committee chairmen rubbed salt in the wound. Among the committee co-chairs she named were two sharp-elbowed Clinton partisans known for their harsh criticism of the Vermont senator: Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy and former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank.
“It's sort of like coded language, dog-whistle politics. You only hear the language if it's directed at you,” said Maine state Rep. Diane Russell, a Sanders supporter who pushed an amendment at the Maine Democratic Party convention Saturday that would make delegates and super delegates align their support in proportion to the state's caucus results. “I think when you saw when the committees were laid out there was no real way to say the DNC was actively shutting out this group of people, supporting this other candidate until you really saw the construction of the committees and I think that brought it to life.”
The tensions between the DNC and the Sanders campaign are long running, ranging from disputes over debates to a bitter feud was over the committee's decision to revoke the Sanders campaign's access to its voter data file following after a data breach. Last week, the Sanders campaign accused the DNC of having an inappropriate fundraising agreement with the Clinton campaign.
Wasserman Schultz insists that the committee has been an honest broker, and that none of the lingering acrimony will have an effect on the convention.
“I'm not at all concerned that we are going to have a divisive fight at our convention. At our convention we are headed toward unity,” she said in a conference call with reporters Wednesday. “Both of our candidates have clearly stated that they will support the other one if they were to win the nomination and I would expect that we would go through a platform drafting process that the entire party rallies around. Both of our candidates are going to substantially participate in the drafting of our platform.”
the allocation of the initial 75 DNC-nominated standing committee members doesn’t in any way reflect the proportion of the vote the senator has won in the primaries and caucuses.
"The chairwoman who I would call a friend has been less than impartial in her presiding over the Democratic National Committee during this primary season," New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski, a Sanders supporter, said pointing to the makeup of the standing committees as the latest example. "This is not just John Wisniewski saying it. Governor [Martin] O'Malley raised the question back probably eight or nine months ago at the DNC meeting in Minneapolis in which he questioned a primary season that had four debates. So this an old critique and it is a critique that continues to have life because the optics of what takes place gives credence to it."
Frank, the co-chair of the influential Rules Committee, felt the brunt of Sanders backers' anger on Saturday at the Maine Democratic Convention. When Frank delivered his speech there on behalf of Clinton, he was booed and shouted at as a "sellout" who should "go back to Massachusetts."
The frustrating aspect of this campaign season, and the point and time which we're in, is that we hear calls from supporters of Secretary Clinton that it is time to unite the party," said Wisniewski. "Setting aside that Sen. Sanders has a path, albeit a very narrow one, to the nomination, that theme of uniting the party is one that should be bilateral and not a one-way street if the goal ultimately is to make sure that however the primary season turns out that all of us, Sanders supporters and Clinton supporters, are all working for the same nominee. It behooves those who have a position of authority to conduct themselves in an impartial and evenhanded fashion."
