Clinton Camp Crushed in Casino Caucus Court Case

The Clinton campaign is proving once again that their approach to politics is as it has been since the 1980s: power trumps principle. In Nevada, the Democratic party set up 9 caucus sites on the Las Vegas Strip for shift workers who couldn’t attend their regular caucuses. This was established 10 months ago by the state party and ratified by the Democratic National Committee in August. Only when the Culinary Workers Union, most of whose 60,000 members work on the Strip, backed Senator Obama did it fuss the Clintonites. A judge has decided it’s a little late to change the rules.

Although the Clinton campaign said it wasn’t directly involved, the Nevada State Education Association that brought the suit is supportive of Mrs. Clinton’s effort – although it didn’t quite endorse her. The plausible deniability is standard for the Arkansas mafia Monica Lewinsky’s ex-boyfriend and his wife control. But as the 42nd president was asked about this lawsuit by a San Francisco reporter, he lost his cool.

The former president snapped, “You have asked the question in an accusatory way, so I will ask you back, do you really believe that all the Democrats understood that they had agreed to give people who worked in the casino a vote worth five times as much as people who voted in their own precinct?” Actually, that isn’t accurate, but he was angry.

The truth is that the state party set the rule up that way because the Culinary Workers’ Union is a special needs case. Las Vegas doesn’t close so the housekeepers, waitresses, bellhops, and restaurant workers are kind of screwed if that isn’t taken into account. US District Court Judge James Mahan’s decision noted that, and he went further in saying that the party could set up its own rules if it wanted to do so.

He wrote in his decision, “State Democrats have a First Amendment right to association, to assemble and to set their own rules.” He also noted, “We aren’t voting here, we’re caucusing. That’s something that parties decide.” He further said that it was “up to the national party and the state party to promulgate these rules and enforce them.” Suing a couple days before the caucus when the NSEA had since at least August to complain demonstrates that it is purely a political move.

What a sad commentary on the Clinton campaign that it would seek to disenfranchise a large segment of minority, poor and unionized workers during the week-end America observes the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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