I've been accepting a lot from the Clinton camp. They self identify as fighters so you have to accept a lot of bizarre behavior. This though, is a new low.
They're filing a lawsuit about Florida. So what you say? Check out the grounds they're using.
Florida's history of discrimination against African Americans should force the national Democratic Party to count all of the state's delegates at its national convention, a federal lawsuit filed Thursday claims.
The suit, filed by state Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller and two other Democrats, claims that the federal Voting Rights Act prohibits the national party from stripping the state of its convention delegates.
The Civil Rights-era law requires the U.S. Justice Department to approve any significant voting change in Florida to make sure it doesn't disenfranchise minority voters. Geller argues that includes the Democratic National Committee's demand that Florida switch "from a state-run primary to party-run caucus system" to avoid losing its delegates.
Yes, you read that correctly. They're trying to take the nomination away from the first African American candidate to win a major party nomination by using the Voting Rights Act. That's a new and impressive low.
Not only is this cynical beyond measure, not only does the timing demonstrate that they don't care about the voters at all - the time to file this suit would have been before the election happened so the votes could matter after all - but it doesn't even demonstrate an understanding of the law.
The Voting Rights Act is designed to make sure that the balloting procedure doesn't discriminate against a minority group. To use a non-racial example, the state couldn't hold a primary on Yom Kippur because it would discriminate against Jews. If you're suing based on the Voting Rights Act, what you're saying is that the election wasn't legitimate. They're trying to do just the opposite, but there's no provision there that says that you can force a party to accept the results after the fact.
Parties have the right to decide their nomination process. The courts have said that again and again. Florida held an election. By all accounts it didn't have any racial discrimination to it. However, it doesn't mean that the Democratic Party has to issue any particular number of delegates as a result of it.
This suit is likely to be dismissed immediately, but the chutzpah of using those grounds to try to steal it away isn't going to be forgotten.