Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine has moved several former supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton off a key panel that will determine the party's rules for selecting a presidential nominee.In an e-mail to DNC members on Friday in advance of next week's committee meeting, Kaine announced his slate for DNC panels. The slate will be voted on, and likely ratified, when DNC members meet in Austin, Texas.
Kaine, President Barack Obama's choice to head the national party, replaced several Clinton supporters with those who backed Obama in the contentious primary.
At the height of the 2008 presidential primaries, the Rules and Bylaws Committee earned the national spotlight as party members squabbled over whether Michigan and Florida would earn delegates for holding primaries outside the allowed window. At the time, Clinton backers and Obama backers clashed over party rules in a decision that ended up helping Obama clinch the nomination.
Several of those who argued most strenuously on Clinton's side have now found themselves off the committee. Harold Ickes, the former top aide to President Bill Clinton, and Don Fowler, the former DNC chairman, will no longer serve on the committee. Meanwhile, Tina Flournoy, a top official at the American Federation of Teachers who served as an adviser to the Clinton campaign, left the DNC of her own accord.