Last night I had an exchange on Twitter with Nomiki Konst, a Bernie Sanders designated member of the Democratic Unity Commission. At the time of the naming of the members of the commission, DNC Chairman Tom Perez said:
At the 2016 convention, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and national delegates agreed that in order to capture the energy of Democrats from across the country it is critical that we enhance the nominating process that continues to embrace the big tent of our party. This includes everyone, from lifelong Democrats to 18-year-olds who cast their first ballot in 2016.
A Democratic Party that gives every Democrat a voice in the process will make enormous gains from the school board to the Senate this cycle and it will take back the White House in 2020. We already see this incredible energy in a number of highly competitive races across the country. [Emphasis supplied.]
Ms. Konst, at the People’s Summit, excoriated closed primaries as racist. Personally, I found the comment offensive and stupid, but about par for the course for Ms. Konst. But just as bad, in my view, was Ms. Konst’s insinuation that the Democratic Party itself had the power to determine whether primaries would be open or closed. Either from ignorance or dishonesty, Ms. Konst appeared to be engaged in a campaign to create the impression that it was the Party who decided whether primaries were open or closed.
This is false. State governments determines the ground rules for party primaries, including whether primaries of any kind will even be held. I repeat -the Democratic Party has no say over the existence or conduct of state run party primaries. This is an indisputable fact.
But Ms. Konst, in response to my tweet correcting her misinformation, challenged my understanding, stating that she had been briefed on this and that “legal precedent” established otherwise. She cited no cases for this. And she is wrong. I don’t know who “briefed” her but I suspected she misunderstood the briefing.
But then it dawned on me, what Ms. Konst really meant was that the states cannot dictate delegate selection processes to the Democratic (or GOP) Party. In this she would be right. The Democratic Party has exclusive control of how its nominees are chosen. (Ironically a crackpot lawsuit filed in federal court in Florida appears to be arguing otherwise.)
And indeed some state Democratic parties have chosen to ignore state run party primaries in favor of party run caucuses. In my view such decisions are an abomination and in many cases, truly racist. They favor non-POC who are more likely to have the time and resources to travel to caucuses rather than participate in state run primaries. There really is no principled defense for favoring a caucus that is relatively sparsely attended to a state run primary that includes magnitudes more voters, especially voters of color.
But my surmise is that this is exactly what Ms. Konst and her fellow Sanders designated delegates on the Democratic Unity Commission have in mind. I suspect that they are proposing a rule that will call for the the Democratic Party Presidential nominating rules to require a state either hold open primaries or if the state refuses, and instead holds a closed primary, that a state party hold a caucus instead to select presidential nomination delegates.
The effect of such a rule is obvious;; (1) it would disenfranchise millions of Democratic voters who can not attend caucuses; and (2) it would disenfranchise particularly voters of color, the base of the Democratic Party. This would be an abomination. No good progressive could possibly support this. But I believe Ms. Konst and her fellow Sanders delegates not only support it, but I believe they plan to make it a deal breaker. I believe they will walk out of the commission if they do not get their way. This is unacceptable.
I believe reasonable progressives can disagree on the merits of open and closed primaries. But I do not believe there can be a reasonable disagreement that ANY primary is superior to any caucus. Only someone who believes in voter disenfranchisement can support caucuses over primaries.
I suspect that is precisely what Ms. Konst and her fellow Sanders delegates have in mind.
I will vigorously oppose this and hope you join me in opposition.
P.S. You may ask why I am not linking to my exchange with Ms. Konst. I will explain — when I confronted her on these points she chose to block me rather than answer my queries. While in general I think blocking users is perfectly fine, I believe a Party official, like a public official, should not block users. We have a right to see what they have to say. It comes with the territory.
Mute if you do not want to hear me, but I have a right to hear what you are saying when you are a party official or a public official.
