Clearly the presiding officials did not want to declare the obvious -- that the vote was official, appropriate, and now binding. They hemmed and hawed even with the Parliamentarian standing firm on her ruling -- backed by the clear rules as written and published.
Pryor clearly expected to prevail with the shenanigans but with the world watching on C-SPAN and the tensions in the room growing he entered a huddle at the front of the room. Shouts from the "peanut gallery" repeated in call and response fashion: "Tell me what democracy looks like" followed by the response, "This is not what democracy looks like."
The Clinton camp had lost, fair and square, for the first and only time during the process. It was not, in the end, the Sanders camp that had made the mistake referred to at the start by Malloy -- it was the Clintons. The whole team, now re-united with Sherman, sought to undo the vote.
Franklin returned to the microphone, nearly twenty minutes after the vote, to incredulously addressing the claimed issue that two members were denied their vote by not having the distributed clickers. "This is not a joke," she stated at one point -- instructing the delegates, after two days of voting and nearing the time the meeting was originally scheduled to end, on the voting procedure -- "I didn't know I'd have to make that announcement," and then turned the floor back to Pryor whose series of motions aimed at undoing the vote still had not been acted upon.
"We were very, very pleased with the 'unity' amendment," he stated misleadingly describing the outcome of the Drafting Committee's version of the platform created in St. Louis a few weeks before, "and it was our hope that we would maintain that unity." Deviation from the pre-determined script, while having a pretend debate for the C-SPAN cameras, was not anticipated. He then re-iterates his belief that the affirmative vote was due to the disenfranchisement of the two alleged but unidentified Hillary members due to the clicker issue -- but said the Hillary camp was willing to "let it slide" and then, trying to portray this as a noble act, declares that they were withdrawing their objection to the vote.
The resulting passage of the marijuana decriminalization amendment was the sole moment of actual unscripted and unplanned democratic discourse and deliberation in the whole weekend Platform Committee meeting -- and solely due to the absence of the overseers and the enforcement by Sherman's imperious thumb.
The Attempt to Nominate Clinton in the Platform
While the unanticipated passage of the marijuana amendment clearly demonstrated the need for authoritarian style observation and instruction of the Hillary members of the Committee it is the last amendment of the night that demonstrated that any claims of unity between the camps on the nomination of Clinton are mere wishful thinking without any foundation.
At 12:20 a.m. with all of the amendments to the many sections of the Platform completed, Congresswoman Maxine Waters takes the floor allegedly to address "how the process [the platform] has been reached and agreed to." She begins to string together a list of thanks and congratulations to all of the Party and Committee officials and then on to all of the staff and volunteers.
She has begun to try and conclude the process with a cheer-leading session. She states how proud she is to be a Democrat and that she wants to thank Bernie Sanders and thank Hillary Clinton in the typical platitudes of a politician.
She concludes by announcing that she "looks forward to electing the first woman president of the United States." Throughout a few Clinton backers clap and give the occasional whoop while the rest of the room remains relatively, and conspicuously, silent.
She is followed, as it appears all formal business has concluded, with a series of others stepping up to the mic to give their series of platitudes and self-congratulations.
Then all of a sudden, but clearly having been scripted to follow, Malloy announces there is one last motion -- which has been perversely entitled a "Unity Motion."
The motion, in fact, was a final amendment to the platform -- listing seven specific references promoting Hillary Clinton, referencing her campaign slogans, and referring to her as President Clinton after which it instructs the final draft to include the name of Hillary Clinton effectively in each platform plank.
It was in no uncertain terms an unprecedented attempt to nominate Clinton via the platform. I assume the "unity" reference in the title came because, at the very end, it does instruct that somewhere appropriate the phrase should be added: "The Democratic Party commends Senator Sanders for running a campaign that mobilized over 13 million people, including young people and working people; that brought issues like income inequality to the fore; and that brought vital new energy to the Democratic Party."
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