Free Republic

Controversy continues to roil this week’s upcoming Democratic presidential primary debate in Los Angeles amid an ongoing labor dispute, anger over the tightening qualification standards and discontent with Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez. The debate, which was originally slated to be held at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), was moved to Loyola Marymount University after AFSCME Local 3299 — the union representing more than 25,000 University of California service and patient technical care workers — and the state school forced UCLA to inform the Democrats and its media partners to abandon plans to host the debate at...

All of the Democratic presidential candidates who have qualified for next week’s debate say they will skip the event rather than cross a planned picket line at the venue. The seven candidates -- Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang -- all said Friday that they would not show up for the debate at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles next Thursday if the Unite Here Local 11 goes forward with its protest of food service contractor Sodexo SA. The union, which represents about 150 Sodexo employees at the LMU campus, reached...

All of the presidential candidates who qualified for next week’s Democratic debate are threatening to skip the event in response to a labor dispute taking place at the debate venue, Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), businessman Andrew Yang, former vice president Joe Biden, billionaire activist Tom Steyer, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg said Friday they would refuse to cross picket lines in solidarity with Unite Here Local 11, which represents food service workers at the university who have been negotiating for a collective bargaining agreement....