NEW YORK — Bernie Sanders is seeking to bar allies of Hillary Clinton from leading the powerful rules and platform committees of the Democratic National Convention in July, escalating his battle with party leaders.
In a letter sent Friday to party officials, lawyers for Sanders said that the appointments of Barney Frank, the former Massachusetts congressman, and Governor Dannel Malloy of Connecticut violated party rules. Frank is slated to co-lead the rules committee and Malloy the platform committee.
In the letter, Sanders’ lawyer Brad Deutsch said that both men have been “harsh, vocal critics of Senator Sanders, and equally active supporters of his challenger, Hillary Clinton.’’
Frank has called Sanders “outrageously McCarthyite’’ for his suggesting that Clinton would be influenced by her speaking fees from Wall Street; Malloy has led efforts among Clinton allies to attack Sanders’ record on gun control.
Under convention rules, Deutsch said in the letter, their open criticism of Sanders made them unfit to co-lead the committees.
“Their criticisms of Senator Sanders have gone beyond dispassionate ideological disagreement and have exposed a deeper professional, political, and personal hostility toward the senator and his campaign,’’ Deutsch wrote. “The chairs therefore cannot be relied upon to perform their convention duties fairly and capably while laboring under such deeply held bias.’’
Democratic officials replied Saturday morning with a letter from Jim Roosevelt, a retired health insurance executive, and Lorraine Miller, who head the party’s permanent rules and bylaws committee. They said the appointments did not violate party rules and Sanders had not demonstrated otherwise.
The question of Frank’s and Malloy’s qualifications had been settled in January, when they were first appointed, Miller and Roosevelt wrote, and there is no mechanism to revisit it.
“We are compelled to dismiss it,’’ they said.
Sanders’ efforts to disqualify the Clinton backers mark his latest bid to ensure that his ideas and supporters are well represented at the convention in July. And his battles with Clinton supporters have become increasingly bitter.
This month, Sanders supporters erupted in protest at a state party meeting in Nevada, with some threatening the party’s chairwoman there in a dispute over the selection of convention delegates.
Sanders is preparing a major push to influence the party’s formal platform, and Frank and Malloy will each wield substantial power over that process.
Deutsch’s letter indicates that if necessary, Sanders will take his battle over the credentials of Frank and Malloy to the convention in Philadelphia.
Both men were chosen in January by Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. Wasserman Schultz has clashed with Sanders over her scheduling of primary debates and, more recently, his supporters’ attacks on other Democratic leaders.
