Former Union Leader Defends Superdelegates

After Hillary Clinton’s victories last night in Ohio and Texas, many are now predicting that the undeclared superdelegates will fence-sit until Denver. Linda Chavez-Thompson, part of Texas’ superdelegate brigade of 35, is one of the undeclared.

As a vice-chair of the DNC, she’s bound by rules to remain neutral during the campaign, so can’t discuss her superdelegate vote. But this she will say.

“I know a lot of these superdelegates, having the opportunity to work with them during the last eight years as vice-chair of the party. These are not people who are going to be influenced easily by any one argument.

They’re very independent-minded people selected by different groups—women, people of color, labor organizations, a cross-spectrum of Democratic constituencies. They’re going to listen to the constituencies they believe they represent at the DNC and then make up their mind.”

Until last September, Chavez-Thompson served as executive vice-president of the AFL-CIO, where her many duties included leadership of the AFL-CIO's policy-making group on immigration reform.

A life-long Democrat, with deep roots in her town of San Antonio, she was “blown away” by last night in Ohio and Texas. “People were talking about how they’d never ever seen the kind of response to a Democratic race like the one we had yesterday.” People are also wondering, however, whether that excitement will last until the election in November. “Everyone is saying, ‘Is Texas ready to become a purple state?’ We’re not even talking blue.”

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