The Right To Vote

by dday

Patrick Leahy just endorsed Barack Obama, and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee had this to say about this flap over the “at-large” precincts in Nevada being set up for shift workers at the casinos.

Leahy also came out strongly against the ongoing lawsuit in Nevada, where the state teachers union and some Clinton backers are trying to shut down the special caucus locations for Las Vegas Strip workers. “If you’re shutting people out from the nominating process, you’re going to be discouraging people all the way down,” Leahy said. “And that’s not the approach we want to take in the United States.”

John Kerry also came out very strongly against this tactic at TPM Cafe yesterday.

For too many years, American politics has been divided between two types of people: those who want more people to vote, and those who want fewer people to vote. Just last week, the Bush-packed Supreme Court heard oral arguments about the kind of law we’ve become all too familiar with these last years: an Indiana law putting more roadblocks in the way of people who simply want to vote. (Talk about a not so subtle reminder of why some of us filibustered Sam Alito’s nomination two years ago this month.)

Well, it’s troubling to me that now we see another kind of effort to keep people from voting in Nevada. But this time, it’s not the Republicans trying to limit the vote, it’s a fight within our own Party […]

Here are the details. Last March, the Nevada Democratic Party came together and put together the rules of the caucus. Because of the high number of casino workers in Las Vegas, and because those workers have to work on weekends, the Democrats of Nevada decided to have special, at-large caucus sites in certain select areas (like right on the Vegas Strip) to give those working people a chance to make their voices heard. The Culinary Workers Union, who represents the workers, celebrated the move.

Suddenly, a mere days before the caucus, we now see a lawsuit to shut down those at-large sites and deny the casino workers their right to vote. Three of the plaintiffs voted for the very plan they’re now trying to block – reasonable people have guessed they’re changing their minds presumably because just a few days ago the Culinary Workers Union endorsed Barack Obama.

Here’s the bottom line. I understand people gut it out to win on Election Day. But certain tactics make victory pyrrhic – empty – hollow – and it’s not worth winning if you lose what really counts in the process. And you know what, if the Culinary Workers had backed someone besides my choice in this race – Barack Obama – I’d still say it’s right for every candidate to make sure these workers get to vote.

Many have claimed that the Clinton campaign is not behind this effort by the teacher’s union, but the fact that Bill Clinton lost his shit on a news reporter who tried to bring this up should throw some cold water on that suggestion.

Mr. Clinton turned the tables on Mr. Matthews, whom the former president asserted had taken “an accusatory tone” by claiming a link to Mrs. Clinton’s operation. “Your position is that you think the Culinary Workers votes should count: A–it should be easier for them to vote than anybody else in Nevada that has to work on Saturday. That’s your first position. Second, when they do vote their votes should count five times as much as everybody else. That’s what the teachers have questioned. So if that’s your position, you have it. Get on your television station and say it…. ‘All I care about is making sure that some voters have it easier than others and that when they do vote, when it’s already easier for them, their vote should count five times as much as others.’ That is your position,” Mr. Clinton said. “If you want to take that position, get on the television and take it. Don’t be accusatory with me. I have enough to deal with.” […]

At one point during the exchange with the TV reporter, (Oakland) Mayor Ron Dellums tried to physically pull Mr. Clinton away, but the former president held his ground.

UPDATE: There’s video:

I have to say that, of all the misunderstandings and misinterpretations and smears by surrogates and everything in this primary, the concerted strategy of disenfranchisement, a tactic at odds with the core values of the Democratic Party in the 21st century, is the most troubling. This is not a media creation or something blown out of proportion or the result of an emotional reading of the impact of race or gender. This is about the right to vote. The Nevada State Democratic Party set these caucuses up in March. The DNC approved them. The state board approved them. I’ve been privy to similar processes in the California Democratic Party, and they are a transparent, open, small-d democratic process. If the teacher’s union or their representatives in the NSDP wanted to object to this they had ample opportunity to do so nine months ago.

We have to make the right to vote sacrosanct. The defining feature of our political lives in this century is the Florida recount, and the voter suppression tactics used prior to Election Day. Republicans successfully manipulated the vote and mau-maued the media into defusing the controversy. There is no glory in any Democrat using the same tactic to win a primary or a general election.

Barack Obama has given us all pause with his comments about President Reagan (The charitable interpretation is that he’s simply building on St. Ronnie’s hagiography by trying to get some reflected glory for himself; I don’t think good progressives should be legitimizing that false portrait). But Obama has been a stalwart on voting rights; in fact, it’s one of the rare moments in his Senate career where he boldly led.

Jane Hamsher is correct that this attack on Obama from the Politico is unfair. The FEC cannot implement the provisions of legislation Obama pushed through because Obama (among others) placed a hold on Hans Von Spakovsky, a horrific pick to be a commissioner of the FEC. Obama has been very good on voting rights, and it’s ridiculous to hold him accountable for Bush’s propensity to pick as regulators people who don’t believe in the mission of the agency they are supposed to run.

Abrogating the right to vote in any form or fashion is not a road that Democrats should ever go down. The Obama campaign hasn’t been particularly energizing for progressives, but on this he has it absolutely right, and the teachers are trying to punish his supporters in Nevada simply for being his supporters. That is wrong. And the Clinton campaign shouldn’t want to get a victory that way.

Update from Digby:

This post is by DDay, not me. I don’t necessarily disagree with it, but since I’m being accused of being inconsistent and delusional, I thought I should point it out.

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UPDATE from dday: The at-large caucuses will go on. Also this idea that the Culinary Workers are bullying their members into supporting their endorsee is pretty much not true. There appears to be, far from coordination, a good deal of confusion about these caucuses among the Hispanic community (there’s no word in Spanish for “caucus”), and it isn’t even a slam dunk that many of these employees will be allowed to caucus by their employers even with the events at the hotel (which I believe is a violation of federal labor laws). The caucus system is far from perfect, but the point I was trying to make was that inclusion over exclusion should be the general rule.