Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said the revelations that the Democratic National Committee rigged the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton underscores the need for an overhaul of campaign finance laws and a complete overhaul of the national party.
Mrs. Gabbard, Hawaii Democrat, resigned as vice chair of the DNC in 2016 to endorse Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont in the Democratic primary last year and has been outspoken in her criticism of the way the DNC handled the election.
“The DNC secretly chose their nominee over a year before the primary elections even occurred. This shines a light on how deeply broken our campaign finance laws are, and how they’ve weakened individual candidates while strengthening and empowering political parties and special interested,” Mrs. Gabbard says in a video she blasted out Friday. “These laws allowed the Clinton campaign to bypass individual campaign contribution limits by funneling millions of dollars through the DNC and state parties — taking control of the DNC in the process.”
The video comes after Donna Brazile, who took over as interim chair of the DNC on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, released a new book that reveals that the Clinton campaign helped the DNC retire debt leftover from 2012 in exchange for having significant control over the party.
In her video, Ms. Gabbard, who is considered a possible 2020 presidential candidate, called for the end of “superdelegates” and to open up the primary contests by adopting same-day voter registration.
“No more games, no more retaliation, no more picking of winners or losers — we must act now to take back our party,” she said.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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