What do the Nevada teachers want?

The lawsuit claims that those voting in at-large precincts being held on the Strip would have too much weight compared with those voting at their polling places, violating the equal protection law of the U.S. Constitution. It also claims the at-large precincts violate state statute in the way they were drawn.

State Democratic Party officials disputed the lawsuit’s contentions.

"This has been a fully transparent process,” party spokeswoman Kirsten Searer said. “These rules have been approved by the Democratic National Committee and the campaigns have been fully informed throughout this process, which started in May.”

January 14, 2008

Ms. Lynn Warne

President

Nevada State Education Association

3511 East Harmon Avenue

Las Vegas, NV 89121

Dear President Warne:

As teachers in Nevada, and members of the Nevada State Education Association, we are deeply dismayed that our union is trying to stop our students’ parents from caucusing on Saturday. We urge them in the strongest terms to drop this lawsuit immediately.

Many of our students are Hispanic Americans and come from low-income families. Their parents are construction workers, McDonald’s employees, and other shift workers on the strip, who work around the clock, and won’t have time to travel to their caucus locations on Saturday. That’s why the state Democratic committee set up nine at-large precinct locations on the strip – to provide nearby caucus locations for Nevadans who otherwise wouldn’t be able to caucus.

These at-large locations were approved back in March of 2007, and no one raised any concerns about them for nearly a year. But now, our union is filing a lawsuit making the baseless charge that these at-large caucus locations are discriminatory, when the fact is they were set up to make sure as many Nevadans could caucus as possible.

This lawsuit is all about politics. It’s widely known that many of our union’s top officials support Senator Clinton and now that the Culinary Workers Union has endorsed Senator Obama, they’re using our union to stop Nevadans from caucusing for Senator Obama.

We never thought our union and Senator Clinton would put politics ahead of what’s right for our students, but that’s exactly what they’re doing. As teachers, and proud Democrats, we hope they will drop this undemocratic lawsuit and help all Nevadans caucus, no matter which candidate they support.

Sincerely,

Tamara Anderson, Elementary School Counselor

Monica Baldwin, 3rd grade teacher

Jodi Brant, Government teacher for 12th graders

Mari Calderon, Kindergarten teacher

Jessica Cohn, 3rd grade teacher

Ketica Guter, 3rd grade teacher

Sarah Irby, Kindergarten teacher

Padmini Jambulapati, 7th and 8th grade teacher

Tracy Kamhi, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade teacher

Jennifer Kehs, 4th grade teacher

Clara Munk, Primary Reading teacher

Matthew O’Keefe, 4th grade teacher

Frances Rabbitt, Special Education teacher

Chantae Readye, 5th grade teacher

Jessica Tolliver, 1st grade teacher