[NOTE: Update at bottom. Matt Bai of The New York Times calls for Clnton campaign to cease-and-desist.]
From Mark Halperin at Time:
Group sends letter to the president of the Nevada State Education Association urging them to drop lawsuit filed by their union, allow at-large caucus locations on the Strip to stay.
Text of letter:
(more)
January 14, 2008
Ms. Lynn Warne
President
Nevada State Education Association
3511 East Harmon Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89121
Dear President Warne:
As teachers in Nevada, and members of the Nevada State Education Association, we are deeply dismayed that our union is trying to stop our students’ parents from caucusing on Saturday. We urge them in the strongest terms to drop this lawsuit immediately.
Many of our students are Hispanic Americans and come from low-income families. Their parents are construction workers, McDonald’s employees, and other shift workers on the strip, who work around the clock, and won’t have time to travel to their caucus locations on Saturday. That’s why the state Democratic committee set up nine at-large precinct locations on the strip – to provide nearby caucus locations for Nevadans who otherwise wouldn’t be able to caucus.
These at-large locations were approved back in March of 2007, and no one raised any concerns about them for nearly a year. But now, our union is filing a lawsuit making the baseless charge that these at-large caucus locations are discriminatory, when the fact is they were set up to make sure as many Nevadans could caucus as possible.
This lawsuit is all about politics. 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.
We never thought our union and Senator Clinton would put politics ahead of what’s right for our students, but that’s exactly what they’re doing. As teachers, and proud Democrats, we hope they will drop this undemocratic lawsuit and help all Nevadans caucus, no matter which candidate they support.
Sincerely,
Tamara Anderson, Elementary School Counselor
Monica Baldwin, 3rd grade teacher
Jodi Brant, Government teacher for 12th graders
Mari Calderon, Kindergarten teacher
Jessica Cohn, 3rd grade teacher
Ketica Guter, 3rd grade teacher
Sarah Irby, Kindergarten teacher
Padmini Jambulapati, 7th and 8th grade teacher
Tracy Kamhi, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade teacher
Jennifer Kehs, 4th grade teacher
Clara Munk, Primary Reading teacher
Matthew O’Keefe, 4th grade teacher
Frances Rabbitt, Special Education teacher
Chantae Readye, 5th grade teacher
Jessica Tolliver, 1st grade teacher
Don't these stupid teachers know that even though many of the people involved in filing the lawsuit are Clinton backers, the suit has nothing to do with Clinton's campaign? (I know this! I've read it here from Clinton backers!) Kind of like how the comments of Shaheen, Cuomo, Bob Kerrey, and BET founder Bob Johnson have nothing to do with the Clinton campaign?
Can someone explain to me, again, how Democrats benefit by having one Dem-supporting group trying to limit the participation of fellow Democrats in the Nevada caucus? Is this akin to the complaints that students shouldn't participate in the Iowa caucus?
How does blocking casino employees from participating help school janitors, again? What logic is used to make that case?
And is capturing the Hispanic vote on February 5 in places like California and Nevada really a key strategy for the Clinton campaign? If so, why would they have surrogates seek to disenfranchise large numbers of Hispanic casino employees?
Oh, wait! The suit has nothing to do with the Clinton campaign!
Sorry! I forgot! (Stupid teachers!)
Update [2008-1-14 15:46:45 by Bob Johnson]:
Matt Bai calls on both Clintons to stop tarnishing their legacy at The New York Times' "The Caucus" blog:
WASHINGTON — There’s an old joke people here in the capital like to tell about Charles E. Schumer, the New York senator, and over the years I’m sure it’s been used to describe other politicians, as well: The most dangerous place to stand in Washington is between Chuck Schumer and a bank of television cameras.
Well, that may be, but it seems to me that the most dangerous place to be in the rest of the country is between the Clintons and an elected office.
Just this weekend, after all the recent attacks against Barack Obama involving his kindergarten essay and cocaine, the "fairy tale" of his antiwar stance, we found out that the Nevada teacher’s union with ties to the Clintons is suing to keep workers on the Vegas Strip from being able to caucus in their workplaces, since most of those workers belong to unions that have endorsed Mr. Obama.
...
What’s most confounding about this latest turn into ugliness, though, is the Clintons’ remarkable capacity to cast themselves as the victims in every fight.
...
No one expects Mrs. Clinton to stand down and let Mr. Obama make his case unchallenged. She could, however, send a clear message to the cogs in the machinery she’s built that there is a line she will not cross. She could tell her Nevada allies that the job of the Democratic Party she grew up in is to make it easier for people to caucus, not harder.