The Daily Background

MSNBC’s First Read quotes Bill Clinton defending the dirty disenfranchising lawsuit that the NEA has filed on behalf of his wife:

He said that, in essence, state Democrats made “a special rule only for” members of the Culinary union, the most powerful in the state, to be able to caucus at their work sites rather than at their home precincts. “I think the rules oughta be the same for everybody,” he said. “I question why you would ever have a temporary caucus site and say only the people that work there — i.e. the people that we know are going to vote in a certain way or we think they will — should be able to caucus here. I think that we oughta make it more possible for everybody to vote.”

(Of course, we’ll ask again: If the Culinary Workers had endorsed Hillary, would there even be a lawsuit? And if so, would Bill be defending it?)

Are Clinton’s claims true or false? Did Nevada Dems create a “temporary cacus site and say only the people that work there — i.e. the people that we know are going to vote in a certain way or we think they will — should be able to caucus here”?

Status: 50% False, 50% Misleading.

Misleading: In reality, the at-large caucus locations were created 9 months in advance of when the Culinary Workers Union endorsement was decided upon, back when Barack Obama was running a far-behind-third in national polls and wasn’t even registering in Nevada. So it’s misleading to say that these locations were created just for people who would be known to be voting a certain way.

False: Clinton’s claim about the at-large caucus locations only being available to these union workers is completely and utterly false. Anybody who works within a 2.5 mile radius of the at-large caucus locations, union or not, is eligible to caucus there. That means McDonalds employees, custodians, secretaries, casino workers, waiters and waitresses, Elvis impersonators– everybody can caucus there, regardless of their union affiliation (or lack thereof).

In fact, the only difference between an at-large caucus location and a normal caucus location is that at-large locations determine caucus eligibility based on where a person works, rather than where a person lives, since they are designed to allow workers who can’t attend their home caucus due to work commitments. This shameful NEA lawsuit is about nothing more than trying to stop Democratic union members from voting, and Bill Clinton is shamefully defending it.

For more debunking of common misconceptions about this matter, check out my FAQ on the Nevada at-large caucus disenfranchisement debacle.

A Nevada court will take up the disenfranchisement lawsuit on Thursday.

An Associated Press report unearths this key detail about the people who filed the lawsuit:

Four of the five individuals named as plaintiffs in the suit were members of the party’s state central committee that unanimously approved rules in March. Minutes from the vote show all four were present and do not indicate that any objections were raised. The caucus rules were approved by the Democratic National Committee in August.

In other words, they didn’t have a problem with these 9 caucus locations (out of 1,745) until it was known that the Culinary Workers Union would endorse Obama rather than Clinton. The Las Vegas Sun also adds of the NEA, “The teachers union’s deputy executive director has personally endorsed Clinton, and the union’s political consultant is an adviser to Clinton’s state campaign chairman.”

Even so, not all NEA members support the lawsuit. More than a dozen of them wrote a letter to their leadership complaining that “This lawsuit is all about politics” and “It’s widely known that many of our union’s top officials support Senator Clinton and now that the Culinary Workers Union has endorsed Senator Obama, they’re using our union to stop Nevadans from caucusing for Senator Obama.”

“As teachers, and proud Democrats,” they write, “we hope they will drop this undemocratic lawsuit and help all Nevadans caucus, no matter which candidate they support.”

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog