El Paso lawyer Don Williams has filed a challenge to the El Paso County Democratic convention, citing rules he said were broken in order to send a disproportionate number of Hillary Clinton delegates to the state convention.
The challenge requests that the state party either change the mix of delegates from the current 9-1 for Clinton to a 3-1 advantage, which would more accurately reflect the makeup of delegates at the county convention, or unseat the El Paso delegation.
The issue has been simmering since the March 29 convention, with passions high on both sides of the debate. Numerous letter-writers to Newspaper Tree and callers to KHRO 1650 AM have made the argument that supporters of presidential candidate Barack Obama were disenfranchised by the actions at the convention, while others have dismissed the complaints as sour grapes and the complainants as "whiners."
Williams, an Obama supporter and member of the Nominations Committee at the March 29 convention, said Saturday on 1650 AM that he is presenting the challenge because of his belief that a basic tenet of democracy and the Democratic Party is that the majority is bound by rules to respect the minority.
In the case of El Paso, and of the convention, there is no question Clinton was the overwhelming victor, he said. But not by a 9-1 margin, which was achieved by a disregard for the rules, said Williams: "Just because you're the majority it doesn't give you the right to be oppressive. This procedure became oppressive."
Chairman Anchondo was gracious, but adamant that the Nominations Committee's 90-10 ratio was correct and would stand. The Nominations Committee Chair, Ken Sutherland, was also on the program, and explained that while the sign-in sheets were, indeed, 75-25 Clinton, countless hundreds of delegates were not issued credentials when they initially showed up, and that once those "pending" delegates got sorted out, after the Credentials Committee gave its report, there were in fact far more Clinton supporters than in the initial sign-in.
I have a hard time imagining how they are going to defend that stance at the state convention. But I know from my experience in 2004 that the El Paso County delegation is not exactly unknown to the TDP. (If you know or see a TDP convention volunteer or worker, thank them for their service!)
Mr. Williams disagreed, stating that the Rules clearly provide for the appointment of at large delegates to reflect the delegation as it is composed at the convention, i.e., the sign-in sheets. Mr. Sutherland said the Rules didn't just mean the ratios in support of the candidates, but also the make-up of the convention: men to women; whites/blacks/Asians/Native Americans; young/old, etc. While that may be true, I don't know what it has to do with the 90/10 delegate split decision.
The El Paso delegation story just keeps going on! |
