Bill Clinton dressed down a San Francisco reporter Wednesday who asked him about a lawsuit filed by a teachers union aiming to stop polling at Las Vegas hotels during this Saturday's Nevada caucuses.

Using a familiar motion of making a fist and facing his thumb upward to tick off points of his argument, Clinton heatedly claimed that San Francisco's ABC7 political reporter Mark Matthews was supportive of a rule change approved last year that Clinton said would favor votes by Nevada's Strip workers over other Democrats living elsewhere in the state.

"You have asked the question in an accusatory way, so I will ask you back, do you really believe that all the Democrats understood that they had agreed to give people who worked in the casino a vote worth five times as much as people who voted in their own precinct?'' the former president said.

Click here to see the KGO-ABC7 interview with Bill Clinton.

Clinton also took issue with the reporters' suggestion that the teachers union, made up of many of Hillary Clinton's backers, only filed the suit after the 60,000-strong Culinary Workers Union endorsed Barack Obama.

''We had nothing to do with that lawsuit. I read about it in the newspaper," said Clinton, who was in Oakland, Calif., to speak on his wife's behalf about the home mortgage crisis.

''Get on your television station and say, ''I don't care about the home mortgage crisis. All I care is making sure that some voters have it easier than others, and that when they do vote -- when it's already easier for them -- that their votes should count five times as much.' If you want to take that position, get on the television and take it. Don't be accusatory with me. I had nothing to do with this lawsuit.''

Matthews noted the state party approved the set up, and repeated the question about the culinary workers' endorsement impacting the decision to file suit.

"I'm amazed nobody like you ... you should be offended by this," Clinton responded.

Nevada's caucuses come as Obama, Clinton and John Edwards are running neck and neck in state polling. The vote, which will for the first time this year involve a large cross-section of minority voters, is seen as a good indicator of where the tight Democratic presidential race could be going.

According to the plan approved last March by the Nevada Democratic Party and ratified by the Democratic National Committee in August, the at-large caucus sites would be at any one of nine of the Strip's hotels. The goal of the plan was said to give housekeepers, waitresses, bellhops, restaurant workers and thousands of others a chance to participate in the midday caucuses rather than take time off to return home to neighborhood precincts or skip the vote altogether.

But the lawsuit claims that the sites would give casino workers too much say in choosing the 10,000 delegates to the state's presidential nominating convention because of a formula that assigns one delegate to every 50 registered voters in Clark County, but uses a different ratio for those attending the at-large caucuses.

Click here to learn the mathematical formula.

Meanwhile, unsubstantiated reports have been flying about fears that culinary union workers were being intimidated to vote for Obama. One such allegation was made Tuesday night during a FOX News focus group with Frank Luntz following the Democratic debate in Nevada.

While the individual didn't elaborate, Edwards said Wednesday that he too had heard the accusations, and wanted the workers to know they wouldn't be threatened by his presidency.

"I heard some reports tonight about the possibility of there being some intimidation of union members to caucus for a particular candidate ... and I say to every union member, whether you’re a member of a union that has endorsed me or not, nobody will fight stronger for your rights, your right to organize, you’re right to decent health care, good workplace conditions, good pay, no one will fight stronger than I will and no one has fought stronger than I have for the rights of union members," Edwards said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.