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Showing Original Post only (View all)DNC rule change angers Sanders supporters [View all]
By DAVID SIDERS 06/08/2018 11:32 PM EDT
Democratic National Committee officials on Friday moved forward with a proposal to force the partys presidential candidates to identify as Democrats, a move that drew immediate criticism from a top official in Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign.
The prospective rule change, approved by the DNCs Rules and Bylaws Committee, would not necessarily impact Sanders, the independent Vermont senator who ran for president as a Democrat.
Sources familiar with the discussion said officials believed the rule change could help garner support for a separate bid to reduce the influence of superdelegates in the partys presidential nomination process a priority of Sanders supporters after the 2016 election. Both proposals are scheduled to be considered by the full DNC in August. Still, Mark Longabaugh, a senior adviser to Sanders 2016 presidential campaign, bristled at the DNC committees action.
I really dont get the motivation for the resolution at all, he said. You know, Bernie Sanders got 13 million votes in 2016. Thousands, if not millions, of those votes were young people and independents he brought into the Democratic Party. And Im just stunned that the Democratic Partys rules committee would want to try to make the Democratic Party an exclusive club, for which we want to exclude voters and large segments of the American electorate.
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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/08/dnc-rule-change-sanders-supporters-634998