WASHINGTON — If Bernie Sanders wants to upend the Democratic National Convention, he'll likely have all the tools he needs.
The Democratic nomination increasingly seems Hillary Clinton's for the taking. But the number of pledged delegates Sanders will have collected by the time the convention begins July 25 should give him a sizable presence on convention committees and a strong voice in shaping the Democratic Party's rules and platform to include some of his top priorities.
Tad Devine, one of Sanders' top advisers and a veteran of contentious convention battles, said he expects “good will” at the convention between Sanders and Clinton, and agreement on a number of issues. But he raised the possibility that Sanders will play hardball if negotiations fail.
Devine said Sanders should have enough committee votes to file “minority reports” — dissents from positions held by the majority of delegates at the convention. Using that tool could mire the proceedings in debate and votes if Clinton won't agree on issues important to Sanders.
Democratic Party rules allow for minority reports at the request of members representing 25% of total votes on the convention’s Platform, Credentials and Rules committees. Sanders has won about 45% of the pledged delegates awarded in state primaries and caucuses so far. Most committee members are awarded to candidates based on the results of those contests.
Sanders wants to leverage the support he's earned from "millions of people voting for him" to influence the Democratic Party platform and the convention's rules, Devine said.
Devine expressed concerns about two convention officials — Connecticut Gov. Daniel Malloy, co-chairman of the Platform Committee, and former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, co-chairman of the Rules Committee.
Frank and Malloy have endorsed Clinton and both, Devine said, have been “hostile” toward Sanders. Frank, for example, has sharply criticized Sanders’ positions on breaking up big banks. The two are among the committee officials appointed by Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Devine said Wednesday the campaign hasn’t formally objected to their appointments and hasn't decided how to proceed.
“Like a lot of these issues, we’ll deal with that in due course,” he said.
Frank has said he would step aside from his co-chairmanship if the Democratic nomination is still uncertain in June and if a Rules Committee decision could be the deciding factor. With Clinton's decisive lead in delegates, that appears unlikely.
A Connecticut Democratic Party spokesman said Thursday that Malloy, who has criticized Sanders on guns, agrees with Sanders on many issues.
“We are confident that the Platform Committee will come together behind a core set of values that unite us as Democrats and stand in stark contrast to the agenda of the Republican Party,” Leigh Appleby said.
“I don’t want to suggest that we have some big grand plan here,” Devine said of the convention. “We will do that in the weeks ahead.”Devine said Sanders hasn’t seriously thought through a convention strategy and is focused instead on winning upcoming primaries. Sanders also hopes to persuade unpledged superdelegates — who can vote for the candidate of their choice at the convention — to switch their allegiance to him if they've already stated their support for Clinton.
Sanders already has listed the issues that he wants to make part of the party platform, including a Medicare-for-all health care system, breaking up Wall Street financial institutions, a ban on fracking, and a tuition-free education at public colleges and universities. Devine said he expects Sanders will try to reform the superdelegate system and to open all Democratic primaries to independent voters.
Clinton told CNN on April 29 that she and Sanders "are going to talk” about his platform priorities. She also recalled that when she dropped out of the 2008 presidential race in June that year, she immediately endorsed Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination.
But she said she and Sanders have the same goals.
“We really are going to be unified and have a tremendous progressive agenda to run on in the fall,” she said.
The last major Democratic convention fight was in 1980, when the late Sen. Ted Kennedy — after winning state nominating contests late in the primary season — used rules and platform fights as part of an unsuccessful effort to deny the nomination to then-President Jimmy Carter.
Kennedy filed a blizzard of minority reports, which would have taken days to debate, as leverage to force a vote on rules changes and a decision to give him a prime-time speaking slot at the convention, said Elaine Kamarck, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and the author of “Primary Politics.”
Sanders will have a lot of power to propose changes and probably to bring minority reports, though it's doubtful he'll have the votes to win on the convention floor, Kamarck said. But she said many issues are resolved in negotiations before or at the convention.
“It’s in the interest of the nominee to have as peaceful a convention as possible and not to show the differences within the party,” she said.
Devine, who has represented winning Democratic nomination candidates at past conventions, said he was forced to make concessions at conventions in the 1980s or face “a really tough fight.” He said he hopes there will be agreement on Sanders’ proposals, and the campaign has no plans to pursue a Kennedy-like strategy.
"Can that change?" Devine said. "Well, sure. Anything can change ... But I don’t anticipate that. I think everyone is operating in good faith and that we all want to achieve the same goal, which is to make sure the next president is a Democrat.”
