Sanders Supporters Get Their Day In Court Against Wasserman Schultz

[Jim Lane]

101. The issue of remedy is a big problem for the plaintiffs.

As you point out, no matter what the evidence shows about DNC violations and the electoral impact thereof, the court can't order a new election.

My general understanding from casual reading about the case is that the plaintiffs are seeking money damages on the fraud theory -- they were deceived into making donations. Their problem is the defendants' argument that their pro-Clinton bias was obvious. That's ethically repugnant but legally sound. A general principle in fraud cases is that the plaintiff must show that the defendant made a false representation AND that the plaintiff acted in reliance on that representation. In the case against DNC/DWS, the bias was obvious early on.

To my mind, the action that had the most impact on the outcome was the drastic curtailment of the debate schedule. That rules change was made by defendant Wasserman Schultz, a former Clinton campaign officer, and clearly benefited Clinton. How can anyone who contributed money thereafter plausibly claim to have relied on the party's published rule of neutrality, in the face of such clear evidence that the rule was not being followed? Can they convince anyone that they believed the stated explanations, even though just about everyone not in the Clinton camp considered those explanations pretextual?

If the case survives this motion to dismiss, the plaintiffs are very likely to lose anyway. It will just take longer.