Democrats reject proposal to force Bernie Sanders to join the party

[Donkees]

By David Weigel October 20 at 11:58 AM

Excerpt:

The resolution, introduced by three DNC members from California, attracted attention this week as one more skirmish between supporters of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Democratic Primary and supporters of Sanders. Bob Mulholland, the DNC member who pitched the resolution to the committee, argued that Democrats were losing potential votes by letting progressive voters work outside the party.

But the negative attention on the resolution helped sink it. Terry Anderson, a DNC member from Vermont, told the committee that the language had been sprung on them without warning and didn’t reflect Sanders’s alliance with his state’s Democrats.

“It’s really troubling when you get your resolution package and you find out your state’s been named in it without any prior consultation,” said Anderson. “We’ve come to a solution that works for us, and we don’t need external voices telling us how to solve our primaries. Next year, Bernie will run for and win the Democratic primary, and he will win reelection — as an independent.”

The resolution died with a quick voice vote.

Earlier in the day, Sanders supporters scored another win by passing language officially rejecting “corporate donors that conflict with our DNC platform.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/10/20/democrats-reject-proposal-to-force-bernie-sanders-to-join-the-party/

[Jim Lane]

1. That's a very misleading WaPo headline

The proposed resolution would not "force" Bernie to join the party, for the very good reason that it couldn't. It was merely urging him to do so.

The article is valuable, however, for adding the information about the reaction of the Democrats from Vermont. That they weren't even consulted is very revealing about the motivations of the proponents of the resolution.