Democrats took new steps to soothe the Bern today, announcing a new process for setting the party platform that is designed to create a spirit of inclusion. The Democratic National Committee unveiled a new web site to allow ordinary voters to submit comments on the platform, and established a schedule of platform hearings across the country that will be open to the public.
The obvious aim is to try to ensure as smooth a resolution to the nomination process as possible, at a time when Bernie Sanders is still castigating elements of that process as rigged and vowing to press for concessions on the process and the platform all the way to the floor of the convention in Philadelphia.
In an interview with me today, Rep. Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the Democratic convention’s Platform Drafting Committee, stressed that he understood the imperative of reassuring voters about the legitimacy the process, but vowed a level of openness, inclusiveness, and integrity that would succeed at that goal.
Cummings said that he had had private conversations with Sanders, in which the Vermont Senator laid out his hopes for how this all will unfold.
“I have talked to Bernie,” Cummings said. “I told him that the process would be a fair one. He said, ‘Elijah, with you being the chairman, I know that’s what is going to happen. And I’m satisfied that that’s going to happen.'”
“He has not asked for any particular thing,” Cummings continued, speaking about his conversations with Sanders. “What he has said is, ‘I want an open process. I want it to be fair. I want my people to be heard.’ And he said, ‘I believe that you will make sure that this is an open and fair process.'”
Sanders has five representatives on the 15-member Platform Drafting Committee, to six for Hillary Clinton, and four for DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, as a result of a compromise announced recently by the DNC. The DNC argues that, by giving 75 percent of the committee’s seats to the campaigns, as opposed to the party, it opens up the process to voters.
It’s unclear precisely what sort of policy concessions Sanders might demand, but his aides are pushing for the inclusion of things like firm opposition to a vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership in this Congress; requirements to break up too-big-to-fail financial institutions; more in infrastructure spending; a $15-per-hour minimum wage; tuition-free public college, and, possibly, a carbon tax.
I asked Cummings what concrete policy concessions to Sanders might look like at the end of the day, but he declined to make any specific predictions. “For me to try to predict what’s going to come out of it I think is very unfair to the other 14 members of the drafting committee,” Cummings said. “But I can assure that the process will have the highest amount of transparency, openness, and integrity.”
Sanders’s representatives on the committee include Dem Rep. Keith Ellison, climate activist Bill McKibben (which could push the platform towards ambitious climate measures), Palestinian rights activist James Zogby (potentially signaling a fight over how to approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) and author Cornel West (whose criticism of Obama has led some Obama supporters to be angered by his inclusion).
Cummings allowed that he faced a major challenge, in persuading rank-and-file Democrats to accept the legitimacy of the process and the outcome.
“These people have legitimate concerns,” he said of voters who attend rallies. “They do not feel like government is including them…they want to have a sense of inclusion. They want to know that our government and our party are addressing issues that affect their lives.…The last thing I want is for people not to feel included.”
I asked Cummings whether he could assure us that the campaign of Hillary Clinton — should she be the nominee, who historically exerts great influence — would not have a role over the process and the outcome that some Sanders supporters might view as an outsize one.
“There will be differing views,” Cummings allowed. But he insisted that neither Clinton nor Sanders would be allowed to exert more influence over the outcome. “There’s going to be a fair process,” he said. “It’s not going to go towards one person or another. It’s going to go to the needs and concerns of the American people, particularly those who are supportive of the Democratic Party, and those who may be thinking about being supportive — independents and anybody else who wants to move our country forward.”
“It will not bear towards Bernie,” Cummings said. “It will not bear towards Hillary. It will bear towards what’s right for the American people.”
Party platforms, of course, are not binding on nominees. It’s hard to know how much they matter, though the argument over the platform could end up being a much broader one over the future of the Democratic Party’s agenda, both in the fall campaign and beyond. Cummings insisted that he would push hard for the eventual nominee to adhere to the basic policy compromise reached as part of the platform process.
“I want this platform committee to act in some way as a unifying vehicle. And I think we can do that,” Cummings said. “I want to make sure that whatever we come up with — and I know it will be a good product — that it is something the candidate will adhere to and will move us forward.”
Cummings is trying to set a high bar. The question is whether the Democratic Party will clear it, whether that will be enough to get Sanders to do all he can to persuade his supporters that the outcome of the primary process was legitimate, and whether all of this will, in the end, be enough to get them on board.
