August, 18 2016, 11:00am EDT
A Day After the Announcement of Clinton's Salazar Pick, 269 Sanders Delegates Sign a Statement Denouncing It
Weighing in from around the country, 269 Democratic National Convention delegates for Bernie Sanders signed a statement on Wednesday condemning Hillary Clinton's selection of Ken Salazar to chair her transition team.
The day after the selection, the Sanders delegates blasted Clinton for choosing a strong proponent of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Clinton supported as secretary of state but shifted to say she opposes as a presidential candidate.
Weighing in from around the country, 269 Democratic National Convention delegates for Bernie Sanders signed a statement on Wednesday condemning Hillary Clinton's selection of Ken Salazar to chair her transition team.
The day after the selection, the Sanders delegates blasted Clinton for choosing a strong proponent of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Clinton supported as secretary of state but shifted to say she opposes as a presidential candidate.
"Hillary Clinton's selection of a vehement TPP advocate to head her transition team is reinforcing concerns that her actual solidarity is with Wall Street rather than with Main Street or working people," the statement said.
The statement added: "The choice of Ken Salazar gives further weight to deep suspicions that her election-year 'opposition' to the TPP is nothing more than a cynical and fleeting expedient. By choosing Salazar, she has fired a post-convention warning shot at the huge progressive base of the Democratic Party. Clinton's appointment of Salazar underscores why so many progressives distrust her."
The delegates concluded: "If the Democratic presidential nominee wants to set off a protracted war with progressives inside her own party, she is off to a great start."
The statement was released by the independent Bernie Delegates Network. The group's national coordinator, Norman Solomon, said Clinton's choice of Salazar "indicates that, rhetoric aside, she's tone deaf or contemptuous toward this country's groundswell of opposition to the inordinate power of corporate elites."
Donna Smith, the executive director of Progressive Democrats of America, voiced concern about what she called Salazar's "long-term devotion to the oil and gas industry."
"As a senator from my home state of Colorado, Salazar voted in 2006 to remove restrictions on off-shore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico," Smith said. "Then in 2007, he was among only a handful of Democrats who voted against requiring the Army Corps of Engineers to take global warming into account in their work to plan future water projects. It is an embarrassment to me as a Coloradan that Salazar works so intently to protect the oil and gas industry and other corporate interests that threaten the overall health and well-being of every living being on the planet."
Background:
Hillary Clinton Picks TPP and Fracking Advocate to Set Up Her White House
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