The Clinton team said it's "working very closely with the Sanders campaign on unity language that we can all get behind." | AP Photo After GOP convention turmoil, Clinton team works to fend off Dem squabbles On a Monday night conference call, the campaign worked to prevent any conflict over the party platform and rules.

When it comes to the opening of the Democratic National Convention, top officials for Hillary Clinton are leaving nothing to chance.

Against the backdrop of GOP convention floor unrest, Clinton's team is working behind-the-scenes to avoid any similar displays at their own convention and quiet any possibility of public dissent — either over the party’s policy platform or the slate of rules it’s preparing to adopt going forward.


Most of the big policy divides between her and Bernie Sanders have been closed. The Vermont senator has begun praising Clinton's recent policy rollouts, and top aides for both Sanders and Clinton say ongoing private negotiations over the platform have been friendly. But there are still some details to be hammered out.

On Monday night, aides for the former secretary of state held a private conference call with members of the Democratic National Committee's Rules Committee and laid out how the campaign would like those members to vote at an upcoming rules meeting in Philadelphia. The purpose of the conference call was to answer any questions and ensure that the Rules Committee members, picked by DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and by Clinton, remained in lockstep with the presumptive Democratic nominee.

The roughly 30-minute call was a glimpse into how Clinton officials have sought to shape the party platform and party rules with minimal public drama. Campaign officials have corresponded with members via text messages to direct them how to vote and counseled them to bring concerns directly to the campaign, rather than follow a process laid out by the DNC for submitting amendments and resolutions.

"I think as everyone saw in the memo that was shared by the DNC with all of you there was a process by which to submit resolutions or amendments," said Clinton delegate operations team deputy director Jed Ober said on the call. "They put forward an email address with a deadline. We're asking all of you not to submit amendments or resolutions and to work with us in the event that you have thoughts or opinions on any issues that you believe could come up in the Rules Committee meeting to call me or to call [delegate operations deputy director Kimberlyn Love] or call your regional coordinator who I know many of you have been in touch with consistently and just share them with us and discuss them with us."

The Clinton team is "working very closely with the Sanders campaign on unity language that we can all get behind, and we would like that to be inclusive of your thoughts,” Ober said. “But we would like to be able to understand what everyone's positions are and for you to not submit official amendments through the process that was suggested."

The plea to keep any policy disputes in-house, and off-camera, underscores the campaign’s determination to present a united front at the convention, and stave off any conflict between the Clinton-aligned committee members and Sanders members during the drafting process. A few months ago, Sanders was vowing to take his policy sticking points all the way to the convention floor.

Recently, Sanders has mostly come around. He's endorsed Clinton, heaped praise on her latest policy papers, and stopped vowing to fight for new language addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (Sanders supporters were defeated on that during a Platform Committee meeting earlier in July).

Throughout the entire drafting process, Sanders senior adviser Mark Longabaugh and Sanders policy director Warren Gunnels have been in constant negotiations with Clinton campaign counterparts Charlie Baker and Maya Harris on the platform draft.

Thus far, the backroom efforts have yielded success. There were no minority reports coming out of the platform committee meeting earlier this month, Ober noted, dramatically reducing the chance of a fight when Democrats vote on the platform at the convention. The Clinton campaign is hoping for similar success at the convention’s rules committee, which meets Saturday. The hope is to work out any rules challenges before or during that meeting, leaving the party controversy free when the full convention votes next week.

Republicans on Monday demonstrated the risk of entering the convention with rules turmoil. When the full GOP convention tried to vote through their proposed rules via a voice vote, a group of delegates critical of Donald Trump moved to block it, asking instead for a lengthy roll call vote. When party leaders denied that call, the delegates were irate, sparking a nationally televised shouting match and lingering bad feelings that threaten to spill over during Trump’s official nomination Tuesday.

Even with strong Clinton campaign discipline and most of the platform draft divisions resolved, DNC committee members still expect some dissent at the Rules Committee. "I think the Rules [Committee] is where something's going to happen," DNC Credentials Committee member Moses Mercado said of the upcoming meeting.

Sanders supporters are looking to follow through on the Vermont senator's call to try and change the superdelegate system in future elections, as well as to open up the Democratic primary process so that independents and Republicans can vote in caucuses and primaries. Both of those changes would likely have helped Sanders in his primary challenge to Clinton, during which many Sanders supporters insisted the deck was stacked against their candidate.

"It's the right discussion to have," former Massachusetts Sen. Paul G. Kirk, a prominent Sanders backer, said of debating a change to superdelegates at the Rules Committee. "It should be a robust discussion to have with all sides of the issue aired."

Efforts to scrap the superdelegate system and open party primaries have been met with stiff resistance, including by the Congressional Black Caucus. During a Q&A session during Monday night's conference call a Rules Committee member identified as Melvin from Michigan said he was "concerned" about the points the CBC brought up in arguing against those changes.

"There are a number of issues that I should have mentioned that we do expect will be part of the debate and that will definitely be one of them," Ober said, going on to say that's part of "our ongoing discourse and discussion with the Sanders campaign and that will be part of the debate on Saturday."

"There will be opportunities throughout whether it be the normal course of business that the Rules Committee takes on for every convention or whether it be specific amendments or resolutions that have been submitted to the committee for consideration," Ober said. "The campaign, as you might also expect, has very strong opinions about how its committee members should vote on those issues as they arise, and we want to make sure that all of you understand what the campaign's position is and how Secretary Clinton has instructed us to have her members vote within the committee. So we will be communicating with all of you very actively."

Later in the conference call, Ober once again urged members to closely follow directions from the campaign.

"So we would obviously would like to remain in solidarity throughout the entire meeting," Ober said. “It's really important to Secretary Clinton that all of the committee members that were appointed as a result of the primaries and caucuses reflect the will of the campaign, so we really appreciate you sticking with us through the meeting."