Union gets to endorse candidate for president

Nevada members of the Service Employees International Union got together on Saturday to hear presentations from top Democratic presidential campaigns and take an informal straw poll.

That meeting has suddenly gained a lot of significance.

On Monday, the international union announced that rather than making a national endorsement, it would for the first time allow "local unions in each state (to) decide in a democratic process whether and/or whom to endorse." The state unions can make their endorsement decisions starting Monday.

That gives the state-level unions more clout than they previously had in the campaign, especially in the four states that are expected to host the earliest presidential nominating contests in January: Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Of those four states, Nevada has the largest SEIU membership, about 16,000.

The union has about 10,000 members in New Hampshire, about 3,000 in Iowa and none in South Carolina.

For now, the Nevada SEIU is not showing its hand. Results of Saturday's straw poll are not being disclosed.

"We're trying to keep everything in-house until Monday," SEIU Nevada spokeswoman Hilary Hancock said on Tuesday. "Right now we're taking the pulse of the union, talking to members and trying to figure out where we're going to go."

At Saturday's meeting of the union's Committee on Political Education, representatives of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama gave presentations and took questions.

Clinton was represented by two Clark County commissioners, Rory Reid and Chris Giunchigliani.

Edwards sent Assembly members Tick Segerblom and Peggy Pierce, along with staff and a union member who supports Edwards. The candidate also recorded a personalized video message to the Nevada union, Local 1107.

Obama's delegation consisted of state Sen. Steven Horsford, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Christine Boardman, president of the SEIU local in Chicago.

Presenters for all three candidates said their pitches focused on health care and were politely received. An Edwards representative said Pierce got a standing ovation.

The union's membership consists largely of health care workers. It also is backing a campaign to push universal health care as an issue in next year's election.

In March, the union brought all the major Democratic candidates to Las Vegas for a forum on health care.

Aside from the health care forum, the candidates have not wooed the SEIU when they've come to Nevada, even as they flattered the 60,000-member Culinary union with multiple visits, possibly because the local SEIU wasn't previously expected to make its own endorsement.

The announcement that the union wouldn't endorse at the top level was seen as a blow to Edwards, who has courted labor leaders the most intensively. Edwards reportedly couldn't get the 60 percent of the vote required due to members' enthusiasm for other candidates, especially Obama.

A spokesman in Nevada said Edwards would target the union state by state. "We hope we can get them. We feel good about it," Adam Bozzi said. "Senator Edwards has a great record of working with SEIU and supporting their issues."

Obama supporter Horsford, however, said he was also confident. "The fact that the international decided not to endorse speaks to the fact that Senator Obama's got a lot of momentum," Horsford said. "It sent a message that this race is very much competitive, and no one candidate should automatically get all the labor endorsements."

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or (702) 387-2919.