Bernie Sanders warned Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Friday that if the DNC does not amend its “overtly partisan” convention rules favoring Hillary Clinton, his supporters would not hesitate to fight on the convention floor.
“If the process is set up to produce an unfair, one-sided result, we are prepared to mobilize our delegates to force as many votes as necessary to amend the platform and rules on the floor of the convention,” Sanders wrote in the letter to the DNC chair on Friday.
The Vermont senator’s frustrations result from the DNC only selecting three of the 40 people his campaign recommended for the convention’s standing committees. And none of those people were assigned to the crucial Rules Committee at the convention.
In contrast, many more of the Clinton campaign’s recommendations were put on important committees and two active Clinton surrogates, former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, were assigned as the chairs of the Rules Committee and the Platform Committee.
Sanders argued that both he and his supporters do “not have any confidence” that either of the committee chairs will conduct proceedings in an “even-handed manner,” and said these committees were selected as to “exclude the input of voters who have supported my candidacy.”
While Clinton has not won the Democratic nomination yet, she is 60 delegates away from securing the necessary 2,383 delegates, when superdelegates are included in the count. When superdelegates are removed from the totals, Sanders has 45 percent of the pledged delegates awarded, a number he believes “will go up in the coming weeks and, of course, we hope it will end up being a majority.”
