A Dubious Lawsuit Favorable to Clinton May Undermine Nevada Caucuses

Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report at 12:11 PM on January 14, 2008.

Late Friday, the Nevada State Education Association, which is backing Hillary Clinton in the state's upcoming caucuses, filed an interesting lawsuit that deserves a closer look.

The Nevada caucuses are a week away, and the state teachers' union has decided to throw a monkey-wrench into the legalities of the process. The Nevada State Education Association has filed suit against the state Democratic Party, on the grounds that the nine at-large caucus locations set up on the Las Vegas Strip make it too easy for workers there to caucus, while no similar accommodations have been made for other Nevadans.

Those workers, if they can come out and caucus, are expected to vote heavily for Barack Obama, who won the Culinary Workers Union endorsement this past Wednesday.

"This has been a fully transparent process," state Democratic party spokeswoman Kirsten Searer told the Las Vegas Sun. "These rules have been approved by the Democratic National Committee and the campaigns have been fully informed throughout this process, which started in May."

Here's the deal: the state party created "at-large" casino precincts about eight months ago, so that casino employees (most notably, union members) would be able to participate in the Democratic causes easily and conveniently. At the time, the Nevada Democratic Party said the precincts were designed for the "4,000 or more shift workers per site who could not otherwise take the time off to go to their home precincts."

The Nevada State Education Association never complained about the "at-large" precincts -- until Obama won the support of the Culinary Workers Union, whose members mostly work near these precincts. Given the timing and the circumstances, it certainly appears that the NSEA wants Clinton to have an advantage, so the group is suing to eliminate these precincts, making it harder for other union members to participate in the election process.

This is very disappointing. We're Democrats -- don't we want to make it easier for people (especially union members and minorities) to vote?

Indeed, the closer one looks at this, the worse it appears.

When the Nevada Democratic Party took up the issue of creating these "at large" precincts last year, the plan passed unanimously. And yet, four Nevadans serving as plaintiffs in the lawsuit were in attendance when the measure was approved. If they didn't like the proposal, why didn't they vote against it?

Culinary union secretary-treasurer D. Taylor told the Associated Press that the plaintiffs were using "Floridian Republican tactics to suppress cooks, housekeepers, people of color and women." That's certainly harsh, but given what we know, the criticism is not without merit.

Now, it's worth noting, as Jeralyn does, that these "at large" precincts may, in fact, be flawed. There are legitimate questions about whether workers along the Las Vegas strip are getting an unfair benefit. I'm not an attorney, so I can't say the extent to which this is legally problematic, or what the appropriate remedy might be.

What I can say is that the timing of this lawsuit looks utterly ridiculous. The precincts were fine right up until another union backed the "wrong" candidate? People who supported the precincts are now going to court to shut the precincts down? One union wants to make it harder for another union to participate in a Democratic caucus?

Here's the bottom-line question for anyone looking at this controversy: if the Culinary Workers Union had thrown its support to Hillary Clinton last Wednesday, would the Nevada State Education Association have filed a lawsuit on Friday? I think the reasonable, intellectually honest position is pretty obvious.

Josh Marshall added:

When asked why the union had never approached the state party about this issue until Friday, union president Lynne Warne, tellingly replied, "We're approaching them now."

If there's one thing that's core to the modern Democratic party is that voter suppression tactics are always wrong. Much of the US Attorney purge scandal was at root about Republican voter suppression tactics. I suspect this is doubly wrong -- both in the sense that the suit is meritless on its face but certainly also in the sense that you don't decide how easy to make it for people to vote depending on who you think they're likely to vote for.

Please leave these shameful tactics to Republicans.

Good advice.

Tagged as: clinton, obama, nevada, culinary workers union, nevada state education as

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.