Judge Rejects Clinton Supported Lawsuit Challenging Vegas Caucus Sites

Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report at 7:22 AM on January 18, 2008.

It's become quite a dispute in Democratic circles. The Nevada Democratic Party created "at-large" casino precincts about eight months ago, so that casino employees (most notably, members of the Culinary Workers Union) 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 precincts were approved unanimously.

This wasn't at all controversial until last week, when the Culinary Workers endorsed Barack Obama. After the union endorsement, the Nevada State Education Association, which is backing Hillary Clinton, filed suit, asking that the nine "at-large" precincts be eliminated altogether.

Today, a state court rejected the lawsuit.

Democrats with ties to Hillary Rodham Clinton failed in court Thursday to prevent casino workers from caucusing at special precincts in Nevada.

The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge James Mahan was presumed to be a boost for Clinton rival Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential caucuses Saturday because he has been endorsed by the union representing many of the shift workers who will be able to use the precincts on the Las Vegas strip.

"State Democrats have a First Amendment right to association, to assemble and to set their own rules," Mahan said.... [Mahan added,] "We aren't voting here, we're caucusing. That's something that parties decide." He said it is "up to the national party and the state party to promulgate these rules and enforce them."

In retrospect, I can't help but wonder if, politically, the NSEA would have helped Clinton's campaign more by simply remaining silent. Not only was the lawsuit a long shot, and not only did it cause unnecessary division, it actually created a stronger incentive for Obama backers to participate in the caucuses. Indeed, the Culinary Union said the suit was an attempt to disenfranchise its members. "Backers of Hillary Clinton are suing in court to take away our right to vote in the caucuses," a union flier said.

On a related note, you may have heard that Bill Clinton got rather agitated yesterday responding to a reporter's question about the legal dispute.

"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 everybody that voted at the casino a vote worth five times as much as people who voted in their own precinct?" Mr. Clinton said after an event on Wednesday in Oakland, Calif. "Did you know that? Their votes will be counted five times more powerfully, in terms of delegates to the state convention, compared to delegates to the national convention." [...]

"When you ask me that question, your position is that you think that the culinary workers vote should be easier for them to vote than anyone else in Nevada who has to work on Saturday. Second, when they do vote, their vote should count five times as much as everybody else? That's what the teachers have questioned. If that's your position, you have it.

Paul Waldman argues that this isn't quite right.

As is often the case in the Rube Goldberg delegate allocation system used in caucuses, there is an absurdly complex formula to determine how many delegates each precinct receives. But the Las Vegas Sun crunched the numbers, and according to their calculation, if 10,000 people voted at the at-large precincts, they would make up around 6 percent of the total delegates for the state. Now, does that mean that the votes of those who vote there will count five times as much as anyone else's? Only if you assume that statewide turnout will be so large the at-large precincts will only make up 1.2 percent of the vote (6 percent divided by 5). That would mean, under this scenario, that total turnout in the Democratic caucus would have to be 833,333.

Will turnout be that high? Well, no. As the Sun recently reported, "Democratic circles are abuzz with excitement about Nevada's caucus, and people are starting to think that the state party's early estimate - recently repeated by Sen. Harry Reid - of 100,000 people might just be possible."

In order for the at-large precincts to be over-represented, the turnout there would have to be incredibly low, while turnout everywhere else in the state is incredibly high, and there is no reason to think that will happen. I don't expect some local TV reporter to go toe-to-toe with Bill Clinton when he probably didn't have all the information at his disposal anyway, but somebody should confront Clinton on why he keeps just making stuff up.

And isn't it about time we did away with caucuses altogether? Is there any reason to do things this way? Might be something to add to the democracy agenda, after we fix our voting machines and amend the constitution to eliminate the electoral college.

Sounds good to me.

Tagged as: obama, hillary clinton, bill clinton, culinary workers union, nevada caucuses

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.