Sen. Bernie Sanders was given unprecedented say over the Democratic Party platform Monday in a move party leaders hope will soothe a bitter split with backers of the longshot challenger to Hillary Clinton — and Sanders immediately used his new power to name a well-known advocate for Palestinian rights to help draft Democratic policy.
The senator from Vermont was allowed to choose nearly as many members of the Democratic Party platform-writing body as Clinton, who is expected to clinch the nomination next month. That influence resulted from an agreement worked out this month between the two candidates and party officials, the party announced Monday.
Clinton has picked six members of the 15-member committee that writes the platform, and Sanders has named five, the Democrats said Monday ahead of an expected announcement by the Democratic National Committee.
The math is based on the number of popular votes each has received to date, one official said. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the DNC, will name four. The candidates’ choices were selected in consultation with the campaigns and the DNC from larger slates of 12 and 10 suggested by the campaigns.
With reporters in California after a rally Monday, Sanders celebrated the arrangement.
“With five good members on the platform-drafting committee,” Sanders said, “we will be in a very strong position to fight for an economy that works for all of our people, not just the one percent; to fight to break up the large banks on Wall Street, who in my view now have much too much economic and political power. We will be in a position to fight for a carbon tax, so that this nation can begin to lead the world in aggressively addressing climate change. We will be in a position to fight to have the United States join the rest of the industrialized world in guaranteed health care as a right.”
The Clinton campaign’s choices are Wendy Sherman, a former top State Department official and Clinton surrogate; Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and a longtime Clinton confidante; Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez of Illinois; Carol Browner, a former director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy and former head of the Environmental Protection Agency; Ohio state Rep. Alicia Reece; and Paul Booth of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union.
Wasserman Schultz also named former congressman Howard Berman of California; Rep. Barbara Lee of California; and executive Bonnie Schaefer.
Each campaign also has a non-voting representative at committee meetings.
“We’re pleased that the upcoming Democratic convention will ensure supporters of Senator Sanders are well represented in the drafting of the party’s platform,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon said. “The Democratic Party historically has been a big tent, representing a diverse coalition, and Hillary Clinton is committed to continue welcoming different perspectives and ideas.”
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