The Bernie Sanders campaign, Bernie 2016, Inc., has filed suit against the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for cutting off access to crucial voter information. Back in October, the two parties entered into an agreement that allowed the campaign to obtain the DNC’s voter data through a third party owned management system. The data includes information for registered voters like name, address, jurisdiction, email addresses, voter registration status, telephone numbers, vote history, ethnicity information, political party preference or affiliation, candidate preference, and any “other key metrics selected by the DNC.”

This is information that Bernie claims is worth up to $600,000 dollars per day to his campaign, so if true, prohibiting access to the information that is available to other candidates could severely cripple his campaign.

So why is Debbie Wassermann Schultz being so mean to Bernie? The justification is that one of Bernie’s staffers accessed Hillary’s confidential information through the third party site that manages this data. The staffer was able to do so through a bug in the system. Bernie’s suit acknowledges that several of his staffers saw Hillary’s private information, but it was only one who appears to have intentionally accessed it, and he was promptly fired. It does not appear that any of the most sensitive data was saved or downloaded. Victory Girls has more information on the data breach here.

According to the DNC licensing agreement, the DNC is supposed to give at least 10 days notice of intention to deny access, and at least give the campaign time to fix the problem before cutting off access to information. Since the provisions in the licensing agreement weren’t followed by the DNC, reasonable conclusions have been drawn that the DNC is unfairly boosting Hillary’s campaign by jumping to deny access to Bernie over a questionable breach. The DNC is supposed to remain neutral at this stage in the game and give no benefit to any candidate before a nominee is selected. But it is a commonly held belief that this is only the latest in DNC’s underhanded actions to bolster Hillary’s campaign. Almost 250,000 MoveOn.org voters agree – they are demanding that Debbie Wassermann Schultz give Bernie back his access. This unfair treatment has also been recognized by fellow politicians:

Good for Bernie. The DNC is nothing more than an arm for the Clinton campaign. https://t.co/nI0Ua2BPwE

— Jim Webb (@JimWebbUSA) December 18, 2015

It is absolutely outrageous how @BernieSanders is being treated by the @DNC. He should run as an independent. #FeelTheBern

— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) December 18, 2015

In the suit, Bernie is asking for an injunction to stop the DNC from prohibiting access, and then secondarily asserting hundreds of thousands of dollars in money damages. If Bernie’s court filings are correct, the DNC is likely in breach of contract for not allowing the required 10 day notice and opportunity to correct the problem before cutting off access. If this is as black and white as the filings indicate, it should be an easy decision for the judge.

However, Bernie’s campaign also makes the claim that the reason his staffer was able to view the confidential data was due to the negligence of the DNC and its third party vendor, but this is sort of an unsupportable claim because they are already mostly acknowledging that their guy intentionally viewed the information. It’s like saying, “Well, if your door wasn’t unlocked I would not have been able to walk through it.” That is not a defense to breaking and entering, and it’s not a valid cause of action here.

In bringing forth causes of action you can and should bring claims that might contradict each other – this is called alternative arguments and there is nothing legally or ethically wrong with it. Usually alternative arguments may rest upon the idea that a judge could validate either claim based on the same set of facts. Here, Bernie is essentially claiming that the behavior of his staffer should be overlooked because the DNC left the door open. He already fired the staffer so it’s hard to take seriously this claim which shifts all blame to DNC. This argument detracts from his primary claim, and risks weakening what looks like an open and shut case. I’m sure he wants to distance himself from the staffer’s actions, but it probably could have been done without bringing up negligence at all.

When deciding what claims to bring, it is usually better to err on the side of precision and clarity. By trying to blame the DNC for his own staffer’s ability to access the information, Bernie runs the risk of looking like he doesn’t have a good first claim and is just trying to throw up claims to see what sticks. The breach of contract claim looks like a strong argument. It is tempting to throw in back up arguments, but in this instance the claim for negligence could weaken his case overall. But, it’s also the only claim that would bring money damages, and he might get lucky!

The filing also should have done more to play up the fact that this same type of thing happened in 2008, and who do you think was the beneficiary of that data glitch? Yes, it was Hillary Clinton. Her campaign gained confidential information because of a software glitch that was managed by the same vendor being used today. Bernie points out that no action was taken against Hillary in that instance. This is a very strong argument to bring forth to show bias, but unfortunately it is buried in the facts where it will be overlooked, and it will be harder for a judge to draw the desired conclusion that the DNC’s action was harsh and unfair.

Debbie Wassermann Shultz and the DNC are about to Feel the Bern.

UPDATE 12/19/2015 9:21 am EST:

Bernie wins back access!

“The Democratic National Committee on Friday capitulated and agreed to reinstate Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign’s access to a critically-important voter database,” the Sanders campaign said in a statement.

“The Sanders campaign has now complied with the DNC’s request to provide the information that we have requested of them,” DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement.