Kaine sides with Sanders, calls for eliminating superdelegates

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee, is siding with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in advocating for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to end the use of superdelegates, saying that they have “undue influence” over the primary process. 

Kaine, who was Hillary Clinton’s running mate last year, sent a letter to the DNC Chairman Tom Perez on Wednesday pushing the party to no longer use the powerful, unelected delegates, who overwhelmingly sided with Clinton against primary rival Sanders. 

“I have long believed there should be no superdelegates. These positions are given undue influence in the popular nominating contest and make the process less democratic,” Kaine wrote in the letter, obtained first by Politico. 

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Superdelegates consist of powerful Democratic operatives and elected officials whose votes carry more weight than regularly elected delegates, sometimes trumping the winner of state primary votes. 

Sanders received 359 fewer delegates than Clinton in the Democratic primary, yet Clinton won the nomination with 602 superdelegates while Sanders took only 48.

The Vermont senator has been a vocal advocate of abolishing the rule, claiming that Clinton, an establishment candidate, won unfair support from longtime party operatives. 

Kaine, a former DNC chairman and superdelegate himself, urged the Unity Reform Commission, a group reviewing and recommending changes to the system, to do away with superdelegates altogether and said he would protest the rule by voting strictly in accordance with his home district in the future.