Top Dem: Sanders’s platform role ‘pretty unusual’

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) says that Bernie Sanders’s role in shaping the Democratic Party’s platform is far from ordinary. 

{mosads}“That’s pretty unusual for a person in Sanders’s position in the campaign now with the voting and the way it’s come out so far to have many people on the drafting committee,” Cummings said Monday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”  

Reports emerged on Monday that Sanders will pick one-third of the seats on the committee drafting the Democratic Party’s platform. Cummings will lead that committee.

Sanders is naming five members on the 15-person committee, while Hillary Clinton, the party’s front-runner for the nomination, is selecting six. Their appointments are based on the number of popular votes each White House hopeful has received so far.

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is picking the remaining four individuals. 

Sanders’s role in the proceedings is an attempt at giving the Vermont senator a voice in how the final Democratic platform looks, The Washington Post reported, noting that Wasserman Schultz could have designated all 15 committee members.

Cummings, who has endorsed Clinton, on Monday said that he hopes the platform committee’s makeup eases tensions ahead of the Democratic National Convention in July.

“It’s going to be a very open process,” he said. “Hopefully it will be a unifying process. This is something that Debbie Wasserman Schultz has insisted upon. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“After all, I don’t want to be distracted by the Donald Trump show,” Cummings added, referencing the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee. “I’m looking forward to hearing the views of all Americans. I want to concentrate on the things that go to the center of people’s lives.”

Sanders has repeatedly accused Wasserman Schultz of tilting the Democratic presidential primary in favor of Clinton, who holds a wide delegate lead. 

Sanders swore last Friday that he will battle all the way to the convention in Philadelphia this summer.

“Let me tell you also, so there is no mistake about it, we are in this fight until the last ballot is cast,” he said during a campaign rally in Albuquerque, N.M.