Post by Logan on May 9, 2016 7:07:08 GMT -6
California nurses union is all in for Sanders. But can it tilt the outcome on its home turf?
As Bernie Sanders prepares for the California presidential primary, he has a local ground force that he leans on as "one of the sponsors of my campaign": nurses.
They typically focus on healthcare policy. But when they weigh in on more purely political pursuits, they have gained a reputation as the mischief-makers of California politics. They have thrown all their might — and that of their affiliated super PAC — behind the Vermont senator's uphill presidential bid, despite Sanders' expressed disdain for such outside spending groups.
They are not as big or as wealthy as the political action committees or California unions backing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, but the nurses have proved adept at putting better-funded rivals on the defense.
Instantly recognizable in their pastel scrubs, they stalked then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger around the nation in 2005 to protest his effort to increase the patient-to-nurse ratios in state hospitals and emergency rooms. In 2010, they introduced the public to Meg Whitman's illegal-immigrant housekeeper. The billionaire abruptly fired her before running for governor as a staunch critic of employers who hire immigrants in the country illegally.
Read more: www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-sanders-nurses-20160508-story.html
As Bernie Sanders prepares for the California presidential primary, he has a local ground force that he leans on as "one of the sponsors of my campaign": nurses.
They typically focus on healthcare policy. But when they weigh in on more purely political pursuits, they have gained a reputation as the mischief-makers of California politics. They have thrown all their might — and that of their affiliated super PAC — behind the Vermont senator's uphill presidential bid, despite Sanders' expressed disdain for such outside spending groups.
They are not as big or as wealthy as the political action committees or California unions backing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, but the nurses have proved adept at putting better-funded rivals on the defense.
Instantly recognizable in their pastel scrubs, they stalked then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger around the nation in 2005 to protest his effort to increase the patient-to-nurse ratios in state hospitals and emergency rooms. In 2010, they introduced the public to Meg Whitman's illegal-immigrant housekeeper. The billionaire abruptly fired her before running for governor as a staunch critic of employers who hire immigrants in the country illegally.
Read more: www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-sanders-nurses-20160508-story.html