Judge Rejects Clinton Gambit to Block Casino Workers from Voting

Hillary Clinton, who is proud of having stood up against the GOP's attack machine, appears to have borrowed a few vote-suppressing tricks from Karl Rove and his ilk, her critics charge. UPDATE: The latest tactic , the lawsuit by supporters of Hillary to block on-site voting by casino workers, was rejected today by a federal judge and may have backfired because of the sharp criticism of alleged vote suppression. Steve Rosenfeld, who co-authored a book chronicling GOP vote-denying schemes in Ohio in 2004, was one of the first to call her on the campaign's machinations in a story called "Hillary Clinton's Dirty Campaign Tactics":

The headlines say the latest schism among the top Democratic presidential candidates is over gender and race. But on the ground in the presidential season's opening states, there is a darker narrative: that Hillary Clinton will not just fight hard, but fight dirty, to win. And her tactic of choice is attempting to suppress the votes of her rival's supporters.

The latest example is from Nevada, where the Nevada State Education Association is widely seen as filing a suit on Clinton's behalf to stop Las Vegas' most powerful union, Culinary Workers Local 226, from caucusing inside downtown casinos after the union endorsed Barack Obama. The tactic foments a split along racial and class lines in arguably the strongest union city in America.

"It's horrible," said one longtime Nevada activist, who didn't want his name used. "It will cause fights and damage that will last for years."

But the Clinton campaign has made similar moves in New Hampshire and Iowa.

In the first primary state, her supporters -- backed by New Hampshire Democratic Party officials -- pressured poll workers to remove observers stationed by the Obama campaign. These volunteers had intended to track voters as part of their get-out-the-vote effort. That tactic came after the Clinton campaign sent a mailing targeting women that said Obama would not "stand up and protect" a women's right to choose because he had voted "present" -- but not yes -- on a few abortion-related bills in the Illinois legislature.

A judge ruled today on the last-minute lawsuit brought by allies of the Clinton campaign, including the Nevada State Education Association, that aims to block the heavily Hispanic membership of the Culinary Workers Union from voting in areas set aside for caucuses in the casinos.

The rules that were challenged were agreed to by all the campaigns as far back as March (including by four of the plaintiffs). But after Obama won the endorsement of that union, the Clinton team apparently turned to nominally "unalligned" Democrats and the teachers' union to block the casino workers' voting rights. At the same time, the Clinton campaign has offered its usual mix of ambiguous responses and a hands-off approach to the lawsuit itself ( just as it's claimed no prior knowledge of the drumbeat of comments about Obama's youthful drug use offered by such supporters as BET founder Bob Johnson, among others).

As the AP reports:

The Clinton campaign has denied any involvement in the lawsuit, but Obama noted it was filed two days after he was endorsed by the powerful Culinary Workers Union Local 226, which has organized many workers along the Strip. The union is the state's largest with 60,000 members, more than 40 percent Hispanic.

The Illinois senator drew cheers at a Culinary Union event Sunday when he said the rules were fine until the union decided, "I'm going to support the guy who's standing with the working people instead of the big shots."

By Monday, Bill Clinton was defending the lawsuit. "I think the rules ought to be the same for everybody," the former president told high school students near Las Vegas.

The Culinary Union circulated a less subtle message on fliers to members: "Backers of Hillary Clinton are suing in court to take away our right to vote in the caucus." It's airing the same message in Spanish-langauge radio ads.

While the Clintons are giving at least tacit support to the lawsuit, these tactics appear to be at odds with the spirit of the "Count Every Vote Act" she has championed in the Senate to restore integrity to our voting system -- and her support of the reauthorized Voting Rights Act. During a floor speech in 2006, she proclaimed:

When you deny a person his or her right to vote, you strip that individual of dignity and you weaken our democracy.

The endurance of our democracy requires constant vigilance -- a lesson that has been reinforced by the last two presidential elections, both of which were affected by widespread allegations of voter disenfranchisement.

It seems, though, that she hasn't been as eager to "Count Every Vote" if those votes might go to her chief opponent in the race, Sen. Barack Obama.

Update: You can read how the Culinary Union is responding with its own fliers here.

Comments

[BUSHsurvivor]

Clinton Gambit?

Gee, so Obama has denounced his supporter's attack ads..?

[standforpeace]

Any Democratic candidate who didn't take a very public stand against this effort to discourage American WORKERS from participating in the election is out of order. It's not enough to say that my campaign is not responsible for mounting this challenge. 35 years of working for change, my ass!

[feelfree]

I think it's unethical to involve the Clinton's name in something they had nothing to do with. If a Clinton supporter beats his wife it's not their fault. The teachers union has not endorsed Mrs. Clinton, yet the blogosphere continues to connect her campaign to the lawsuit.

Yet not a single blogger can provide any evidence, proof, or name involvement of anyone on the Clinton campaign staff that helped initiate the lawsuit.

[ranger5]

I listened on NPR yesterday to Hillary denying any role in the lawsuit. "You'll have to ask the people who filed it". Hillary and Bill's capacity to dodge and weave and avoid telling the truth when the truth may damage their quest for power is disgusting. We already knew Bill could lie straightfaced. Obviously, Hillary can too, except she seems better at spinning than Bill. That's hardly what we need in the White House after 8 years of spinning and lying on a scale unprecedented in our history. If Hillary wins the presidency, we are in for more of the same.

[Independent voter]

Hillary is no better than Richard Nixon and the Republican dirty tricksters

[darthmaul]

I see with Clinton a continuous pushing of the envelope of ethical conduct with regards to the campaign. Many people have commented on this, including Democrats, so I just don't think we can call it "Hillary Bashing." The King-LBJ comments, Obama Drug use when he was a kid, and now the Nevada voter suppression issue.

Looked at in isolation, these events may seem trifling, or perhaps a little disturbing. Viewed in the aggregate, however, one can see a deliberate pattern of questionable tactics. The old saying "The ends justify the means" comes to mind.

[dsbsh]

Blah blah blah... yet another Clinton vs. Obama posting, followed by an endless stream of Clinton vs. Obama sniping.

The media ignored Biden, Dodd, Richardson. They continue to ignore Kucinich and Edwards-- who beat Hillary and narrowly lost to Obama in Iowa despite spending a fraction of the money they spent, and who consistently polling ahead of either of them against the Republicans. And yet the lemmings continue to buy into the Obama vs. Hillary narrative. Very. Very. Sad.

[Art Levine - Huffpost Blogger]

My posting acknowledges that the the Clinton team doesn't officially support the lawsuit, but if you click on some of the links you'll see that several of the plaintiffs, the leadership of the unalligned teacher's union and the attorney are all strong supporters of Clinton. That's why I termed it, in the headline, a "Clinton Gambit," and since Bill Clinton strongly supports the lawsuit, it's clear that the Clinton team gave it tacit support, while providing themselves enough plausible deniability regarding their involvement in the lawsuit -- in case it backfired on them in terms of bad PR and stoking some voter outrage against Hillary's campaign.

[blackstar22]

once we've gotten past the whole "disenfranching voters" issue of the suit (which, by the way, the Clinton campaign definitely defended and almost certainly orchestrated), there's another, possibly even more troubling aspect to this situation:

that as the author has noted, many people on the ground in Nevada, from the Culinary Worker's Union, state Democratic party and the Teacher's Union, have said that this suit and its circumstances will have far-reaching consequences in Nevada state Democratic politics for years to come. provide a great deal of vitriol and has caused bad blood between unions who should otherwise be working together, and ALL because the Clintons thought this was a way to block votes for an opponent.

either they are politically shortsighted to the point of idiocy for not seeing the possible consequences of their actions, or they just don't CARE what happens to their surrogates in the wake of this.

either way, it is indicative of the kind of politics we as Americans cannot take anymore.

[GoodwithWood]

This headline is a dirty trick.

[GoodwithWood]

I Haven’t seen in evidence that Clinton had anything to do with this?????

[teahead]

Face it. She doesn't want the black and brown people voting for Obama.

[frann]

As loudly as the Culinary Union and Obama supporters want to shout their propaganda, that just doesn't make it the truth.
It was and still is about the fact that one group of workers, by being given easier access to caucus and a disproportionate percentage of delegates, is going to have more of a say in Nevada's choice of a candidate than the rest of us.
No one is saying these workers can't caucus, just that their voices shouldn't count for more than anyone else's.
The truth is that it is the Culinary Union leadership that is trying to disenfranchise the rest of the voters of Nevada, including some of their own members. The national leadership chose Obama without listening to the local workers, the majority of whom support Edwards. Now those workers are being intimidated to support the national choice.
The hypocrisy of Obama's supporters is overwhelming because if the situation was reversed and the Culinary Union had supported Clinton, Obama supporters and this blogger would be screaming over the bullying tactics the Union is using and how unfair the delegate count for the at-large precincts is.

[dbredes]

I wonder what the odds makers say about the lawsuit...

and by the way...The nurses weren't a part of the lawsuit...and let me guess...how many teachers work on Saturday...


Dirty Tricks, voter suppression, all straight from the Rove Handbook..

How to win the presidency at any cost...

[Janco54]

I guarantee that if Hillary had gotten that endorsement from the Culinary workers, she'd be pushing for using the hotels as caucus sites HARD. She didn't, so now their only recourse is to not let them caucus.
It's pitiful.