The Daily Background

You may have heard that there is a nasty battle over the alleged disenfranchisement of union voters in the upcoming Nevada Democratic caucuses on January 19th. Allegations have been floating around that Clinton-affiliated operatives are trying to disenfranchise union members likely to caucus for Obama.

The National Education Association (NEA, a teachers’ union) has filed a lawsuit against the state Democratic Party alleging that the Party is treating them unfairly by placing 9 at-large caucus locations on the Strip where they will be accessible to workers who cannot leave their jobs to caucus in their own precinct, while not doing the same for NEA members. Much of the NEA’s leadership is known to be loyal to the Clintons, and the lawsuit was filed just hours after Obama accepted the endorsement of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, the most powerful in the area, with thousands of workers on the Strip. The caucus rules had been set up 9 months in advance, and the timing of the lawsuit is seen as extremely suspicious.

Here’s what we know so far.

So what did they do for at-large caucuses in previous years?

Actually, at-large caucus locations for the Vegas Strip didn’t exist in previous years because officials figured there wasn’t enough interest to warrant them. This year however, since the NV state Democratic and Republican parties have moved up their caucuses in order to make the state more relevant in the nomination process, they anticipate higher turnout and wanted to accommodate workers who weren’t able to leave their jobs. The leapfrogging was allowed by the two national parties largely because of the lack of a Western “early state” and NV’s large Hispanic population (they wanted to bring more Hispanic voters into their parties’ processes).

Why didn’t the NEA get at-large caucus locations too?

Two reasons. First, simply never asked for them until now; just days before the caucus is set to occur, on January 19th. The at-large caucus locations that Local 226 set up were part of “a novel deal worked out in advance with the Nevada Democratic party.” How far in advance? 9 months in advance. They had all this time to set up a deal of their own, and the NEA isn’t bringing this up until now (after the Culinary Workers Union endorsed Obama instead of Clinton), making their timing extremely suspicious. However, presumably another union such as the NEA would have been able to set up a similar deal if they had just asked for it in the first place at the appropriate time. If they had real, genuine fears that their members would be disenfranchised, that would have been the time to raise their concerns.

Second, NEA members are much less likely to need at-large caucus locations than Culinary Workers Union members, since many (if not most) NEA members are teachers (NEA stands for National Education Association after all), and the caucus is on a Saturday when school is not in session. Meanwhile, many casino, restaurant and hotel workers will be at their jobs on Saturday the 19th, because it is a holiday weekend and those are typically very busy times for casinos, restaurants and hotels. Simply put, most NEA members do not need an at-large caucus location so they can caucus at work– but many Culinary Workers Union members will.

Will the lawsuit actually get rid of at-large caucus locations?

Instead of seeking additional at-large caucus locations for NEA members that the group says are being disenfranchised by the fact that they have to work on a Saturday, the lawsuit instead seeks to take away the at-large caucus locations allocated to the Strip. The general logic among the NEA leadership seems to be “if we can’t caucus at work because we never asked to be able to, then nobody else should get that right either.”

They are claiming the Nevada Democratic Party violated not only NV state law which pertains to how caucuses must be set up, as well as the United States Constitution’s Equal Protection clause. I’ve been reading the Vegas blogs and papers and the general consensus seems to be that the suit is pretty much without merit (the timing especially makes it suspicious), but then again, anything could happen when the courts get involved. In any case, you can read the 13 page complaint filed Friday here (PDF). In fact, the lawsuit may actually have backfired and could serve as a rallying point for Obama’s supporters as well as the Culinary Workers Union.

Can non-union members participate in these at-large caucus locations?

Absolutely: the caucus locations will be open to anyone who works within a 2.5 mile radius of the caucus location, as is the case with normal caucus locations (only in normally caucus locations are designated based on case it’s where people live, not where people work, which is why this is referred to as an at-large caucus).

How many people are we talking about here?

Nevada has 33 Democratic delegates to offer, and 8 of those are unpledged (superdelegates). According to The Green Papers (which is, by the way, a great electoral resource for this sort of thing), 6 delegates will be allocated through at-large caucus locations.

Who does the lawsuit hurt?

Barack Obama. Because the vast majority of the people who will be caucusing at these at-large locations are hotel, restaurant and casino workers, the at-large caucus goers are widely expected to caucus for Obama, who has the backing of both UNITE HERE Local 226 (more commonly known as Culinary Workers Union) and the Nevada chapter of the SEIU.

Who does the lawsuit help?

Hillary Clinton. As Edwards has chosen to more or less skip Nevada in order to concentrate on the upcoming South Carolina primary, the race in NV is largely down to just Clinton and Obama. Hence, whatever hurts Obama…

But is there any real proof of a connection with Clinton’s campaign?

The Clinton campaign has kept their mouths more or less shut about the lawsuit thus far (”The courts and the state party will have to work it out” Clinton said Sunday on Meet The Press), but there have been clear indications that the lawsuit was filed by individuals working her behalf.

1. The suit was filed by the NEA, a union whose high level officials are known to back Clinton (though the union has not formally endorsed her)
2. Writes Chris Bowers of Open Left, who has experience with the NEA, “considering the demographics of their union I would be shocked if most of their members, and nearly all of their leadership, did not support her.”
3. The suit could have been filed months in advance, but was not filed until it was known that the Culinary Workers Union would endorse Obama instead of Clinton
4. AFSCME, which has endorsed Clinton and has been stooping to low levels to support her candidacy, is considering joining the lawsuit

Has Obama said anything about the lawsuit?

Yes. Obama said the following over the weekend at a rally in Nevada:

“You know you notice that the rules were OK as long as you did what they wanted you to do, and as soon as you decided ‘I’m going to support the outsider, I’m gonna support the new guy. I’m gonna support the guy who’s standing with the working people instead of the big shots,’ all of a sudden they decide they want to change the rules!”

“Now, I didn’t make the rules. Did you make the rules? You didn’t make the rules. They all agreed to how this was going to work, so the notion now that six days before the caucus that they are gonna to try to disenfranchise the hard workin’ folks on the strip, culinary workers, but also folks who are workin’ at the McDonald’s on the strip.”

“Folks who, you know, may not be a member of the union, although they need to be. But You know, the construction worker around here – you know there are a lot of people who want access to the caucus and what we have to do is to remind everybody that you don’t win an election and you don’t serve democracy by trying to keep people out. You’re supposed to try to bring them in and encourage everybody to get involved!”

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