Nicole Gaudiano

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- One is a climate activist who has led major acts of civil disobedience. Another is a civil rights leader who was arrested as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

There are no shrinking violets among the supporters Sen. Bernie Sanders chose to represent him on the committee that will draft the platform at the Democratic Party's national convention in July. But even as Sanders says the convention could be “messy" -- as he says democracy often is -- his backers vow they will find ways to work with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton to have a significant impact on the platform.

“There still are deep differences,” said Jim Zogby, a Palestinian rights activist and DNC official who will represent Sanders on the drafting committee. “I think that they’re all bridgeable.”

Sanders: 'Messy' convention comments were taken out of context

Clinton declines another debate with Sanders

Representation on convention committees has been a flashpoint for Sanders, who says that representation should reflect his delegate count. To make the process inclusive, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced Monday that she allowed Sanders to choose five members of the 15-member drafting committee, just one fewer than Clinton. The panel sends its draft to the Platform Committee, one of the three standing convention committees

Wasserman Schultz herself appointed four members, including Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., a Clinton supporter, as the drafting panel's chairman.

Along with Zogby, Sanders’ supporters on the panel include Bill McKibben, the climate activist and Vermont author; Cornel West, the civil rights activist and author; Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim member of Congress; and Deborah Parker, a Native American rights activist.

Tad Devine, one of Sanders’ top strategists, called the arrangement “pretty fair” and “a step in the right direction.”

“We need to start moving in a much better direction in terms of the way the campaign and the party are going to interact with one another,” Devine said.

So far, that interaction hasn't been positive. On Sunday, the day before he won his concession on drafting committee membership, Sanders said that if he's elected president, he would make sure Wasserman Schultz isn't reappointed as head of the DNC. That same day, he released a fundraising letter on behalf of her primary challenger, Tim Canova.

Some of Sanders' issues with the DNC chairwoman are still unresolved. He's unhappy, for example, with her appointments to the convention's full Credentials, Rules and Platform committees. The Platform Committee, which must approve the document written by the drafting committee, will be co-chaired by Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, whom Sanders has described as an “aggressive attack surrogate” of Clinton’s.

A Sanders adviser said that could be the biggest source of discord at the convention.

Sanders gets more drafting committee representation

Sanders didn't get as many of his backers named to the drafting committee as he initially had wanted. Still, Wasserman Schultz's agreement to give him five members was significant, given that she would normally appoint all of the panel's members.

“Sanders put a lot of pressure on Debbie Wasserman Schultz,” said Clinton supporter Elaine Kamarck, author of Primary Politics and a DNC Rules Committee member. “He’s been beating her up pretty badly and I think the Hillary Clinton campaign probably said, 'Look, we want to make peace,' and it was a magnanimous gesture on their part because they certainly didn’t have to.”

Jim Roosevelt, co-chairman of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee, said Wasserman Schultz’s decision is an unusual break from tradition, in which chairs appoint their own members to convention committees or defer to the leading candidate, in this case Clinton.

“Historically at this point, the candidate that is projected to have enough delegates to win the convention is really dominating the whole process and this is very different from that,” Roosevelt said. “I think (Sanders) can have a very significant impact.”

Before the July convention, the drafting committee will hold a series of open forums and work sessions before voting on the draft that will go to the full Platform Committee. If enough of the full committee's Sanders supporters disagree with the committee's pro-Clinton members, they can write what's known as a minority report that would be debated on the convention floor.

Devine said there’s “a lot of common ground” between the two candidates. Clinton and Sanders may disagree on precisely which banking-related excesses are most in need of fixing, and that disagreement could produce a minority report, Devine said. But he said there’s no reason why the issues Sanders has raised on the campaign trail can’t be represented in some way in the platform.

“Does that mean that every single issue has to be 100 percent the way it is on the Web site?” he said. “No, this is a process where there’s a back and forth.”

Clinton’s senior policy adviser, Maya Harris, and Sanders’ policy director, Warren Gunnels, will represent their respective campaigns as official, non-voting members of the drafting committee.

Gunnels said Friday that the policy issues Sanders wants included in the platform isn't any secret: a $15 minimum wage, paid family leave, an expansion of Social Security, tuition-free public colleges and universities, and a breakup of large financial institutions.

“We’re going to continue to fight for the main issues that Sen. Sanders has been fighting for this entire campaign,” Gunnels said. “That’s not something that we’re going to give up on.”

Sanders isn’t the only one who wants to see a progressive Democratic platform, said Rep. Luis Gutiérrez of Illinois, one of the drafting committee's pro-Clinton members. He said Sanders hasn’t led on gun control or immigrant rights, and those issues must be a priority for a progressive agenda.

“Bernie Sanders will get better on guns, Bernie Sanders will get better on immigrants,” Gutierrez said. “I’m sure the party will get better on economic and wage disparity and taking on Wall Street. The drafting committee is going to give us that wonderful opportunity to ... mend, heal the party and say ‘here is our message.' ”