The Democratic Party relies too heavily on superdelegates to pick its presidential nominees, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday — though she downplayed the current dispute between party leaders and Sen. Bernard Sanders.
Mrs. Pelosi called the fight between Mr. Sanders and party leaders a “family disagreement” and insisted it won’t dent the eventual nominee in the general election. She also dismissed comparisons to the riot-fueled 1968 Democratic convention.
“This is an incident. That was a colossal … clash of people,” she said.
Some of Mr. Sanders’ supporters disrupted Nevada Democrats’ state convention over the weekend, objecting to the allocation of delegates to the national presidential nominating convention this summer. The chairwoman of the Nevada convention said she got death threats.
Mr. Sanders has said harassment is never acceptable, but his campaign has persisted in its challenge that the party is treating him badly.
The senator has won nearly two dozen primaries or caucuses, but still trails likely nominee Hillary Clinton in total states won, total votes cast, pledged delegates awarded and in support among the superdelegates.
Those superdelegates are the party leaders who are guaranteed votes at the convention, independent of how their states voted. Mrs. Clinton holds a lopsided 10-to-1 lead among them, according to The Associated Press tally, but Mr. Sanders’ supporters are trying to sway them.
Mrs. Pelosi said she’s long been an opponent of the superdelegates having so much sway.
“We should be revisiting the number of votes that superdelegates have,” she told reporters on Thursday, suggesting they should perhaps be cut in half.
Superdelegates make up 714 of the 4,765 total delegates to the convention.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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