Court: Casino Caucuses Allowed

By Paul Kane
A federal judge in Las Vegas brushed aside a lawsuit trying to shut down nine casino precinct sites for the Nevada Democratic caucuses, handing an important victory to Sen. Barack Obama's bid in the Silver State Saturday.

U.S. District Judge James C. Mahan rejected the argument from a state teachers' union that participants in the at large casino precincts would be a "preferred class of voters" based on the delegates awarded at those sites vs. other neighborhood-based precincts. Mahan, siding with lawyers for the Democratic National Committee, said federal law "recognizes the parties have the right to determine how to apportion delegates," according to the Las Vegas Sun.

The DNC, working with Nevada Democratic officials, approved the plan last summer to include the unusual at-large precincts housed in ballrooms at casinos along Las Vegas's famed "Strip". The debate over the at-large sites intensified in the last week after the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 -- with 60,000 employees, mostly in the casinos -- endorsed Obama. While all shift workers on duty Saturday afternoon within a 2.5-mile radius of the Strip are allowed to participate, the casino caucus sites are expected to be dominated by the culinary union. That union's employees have organized in almost every hotel casino on the Strip, including all nine casinos hosting caucuses.

Those casino precincts will award up to 720 delegates, depending on turnout at the at-large sites, while the other precincts will award about 10,000 delegates to the state's presidential nominating convention later this year. If the at-large voters caucus overwhelmingly in Obama's favor, as the Clinton campaign privately suspects will occur, Obama could have a 5% to 6% edge in overall delegates just from the vote in those sites.

In public appearances this week, former president Bill Clinton has grown heated when discussing the issue. "The rules should be the same for everybody, and everybody's vote should count the same," Clinton told a San Francisco reporter yesterday.

The Nevada State Education Association, along with several individuals, filed its suit asking for the judge to shutter the casino sites shortly after the Obama endorsement. The suit contended that the delegates at the casino sites were weighted too heavily, violating the equal protection clause of the Constitution. But the DNC argued that it has the right, along with state parties, to establish rules for its nomination process, saying the suit was a last-minute effort designed to confuse the issue.

"If the door is opened to last-minute judicial challenges seeking to re-write the rules in state delegation selection plans, the entire nomination process could be thrown into confusion and chaos," the DNC lawyers argued.