Clinton's Espaillat Makes a Case for Florida's Delegates

Not surprisingly, Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat of Manhattan, who is also Hillary Clinton delegate, wants to see Florida delegates seated at the national convention.

“If I was a Florida voter, I would feel pretty upset,” he told me just now. “And I would find it egregious that the party is telling me that my vote doesn’t count.“

He went on, “There has to be a solution. I would walk into court if I was a voter and try to get some relief there."

Espillate knows he's biased, but swears there's more to his position.

"Some people may say, ‘Well, you know, you’re a Hillary delegate. Obviously she won there,’" he told me. "But I think Florida, which is a big state and an emerging state with regards to their delegate count, is a growing state, cannot be left out of a convention. And voters in Florida must have an ability to feel that their vote counts. And if the party doesn’t do that, I think that’s a black eye for the party.”

This is more or less what the Clinton campaign, and the head of the N.A.A.C.P., has been saying since the Florida primary, where Democratic turnout was unprecedented. But there are also many Democrats who think that reversing the decision after the primary vote, without allowing a real campaign to take place there, is unfair and biased towards Clinton, who lead Florida polls from the beginning.

Espillat frames the situation (the results of a resolution introduced by an uncommitted New York superdelegate) as "an insider decision, a party decision " that "potentially, could disenfranchise millions of voters." He added, “You can’t have insiders or superdelegates deciding this whole thing.”

And that is a whole other issue.