This weekend at the California Democratic Party (CDP) Executive Board Meeting several hundred board members unanimously passed this resolution:
Majority Vote BRG09.08
WHEREAS, the California Constitution requires certain bills making appropriations from the General Fund, for changes in state taxes for the purpose of raising revenue, to be passed in each house of the Legislature by a two-third vote; and
WHEREAS, this requirement amounts to minority rule by one third, plus one and has brought the State of California to a revenue crisis and a situation of paralysis because of a vocal minority of conservative Republicans; and
WHEREAS, the people of California deserve urgently to have a functional, effective and balanced government, able to respond and adjust to economic downturns and upswings for the benefit of the majority of its citizens, rather than be held hostage by the ideologies of the few;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party supports a change to only require a simple majority (like the U.S. Congress and 80% of states) for revenue bills, thus restoring majority rule and representative democracy to California's government.
This resolution combined with a similar resolution for majority rule for budget put the CDP in the position of favoring majority rule for both budget and revenue related legislation.
You wouldn't know this unless you follow these things closely, but this coming Sunday, June 15, is very significant in the future of Democratic politics. On that day at the California Democratic Party executive board meeting in Burlingame, 19 men and women from throughout the state will be voted in as DNC members. Those elected will take their positions after the Democratic National Convention in August, and will serve through the DNC in 2012. Here's the list (it's a PDF) of names who will appear on the ballot - 9 men, 9 women and the 19th-highest vote-getter regardless of gender will win the election.
Now, why is this important? These 19 DNC members will be part of the organization that will need to decide how to reform our completely broken primary process that almost turned a historic nomination season into utter chaos. There is no other issue - not the war, not poverty, not the economy, not health care, nothing - where DNC members will make any kind of a difference compared to primary reform. I know a lot of party members read this site, so let this be a jumping off point for discussion. No California e-board member should vote to elect any of these candidates without knowing their plans for primary reform. And on the flip, here are a few ideas.
I would say that the mood of participants coming out of the executive board meeting of the CDP in Sacramento was a 180 from the mood coming out of the Convention. Clearly there was a lot of upset over the way the final session of the Convention ended, and many felt that the small-d democratic process was not being respected. That was most certainly not the case this weekend, which shows to me that the message was received by the leadership in the party. There were debates and issues raised and passionate sentiments about various matters, but in the end everyone had their say, votes were held, and the system worked. That's about the most you can ask for.
Progressives hold far slimmer numbers at an executive board meeting than they do at a convention. Yet the work that came out of this meeting, in particular on resolutions, was far more progressive, because they are the most organized group in the party and they take the process seriously, and in addition are prepared to work within it to arrive at the desired results. A very strong antiwar resolution, an impressive resolution supporting parole and sentencing reform, and finally the breakthrough on net neutrality are all successes to be lauded. They were diligent, tireless and skillful at understanding the system, and that bore fruit. Ultimately, those resolutions have little more than symbolic value. The attempt to restore pre-primary delegate caucuses failed, but there was a concession on opening the filing process, and most important, small-d democratic processes were respected and seen through. That the Party Chair felt the need to make several statements regarding a 58-county strategy and financial matters shows that there is an understanding that members have some serious concerns about resource allocation. This is a major victory for those who would like to see their spot on the map receive the care and attention they feel it needs. The Finance Chair, Erik Bradley, made every effort to welcome new voices into the process. He is seeking people in every county for low-donor events and input on spending money in those counties, and everyone should take him up on it instead of privately grumbling.
I think everyone should be pleased with the way in which the CDP is better reflecting the views and concerns of its constituents, and how Democrats of all stripes are getting involved from inside the tent to make the party more effective and responsive. Aside from one ill-timed comment from the Chairman about "the blogs," I'm pleased with how things went.
Let me just say that I think this resolutions thing is a much ado about nothing. More than anything it is instructive for how the party responds to its rank-and-file. Nevertheless, I'm here, and so your intrepid blogger will follow it for you.
But first of all, let me make a couple remarks about Art Torres' comments in the general session. I'm disappointed and annoyed that he resorted to blaming "the blogs" for criticism that the Party received after the last convention, as part of some comments that he made justifying the CDP’s efforts to compete statewide. It's an unfair and deliberately vague characterization. What blogs? Which bloggers? Is there anything specific? And can you say with a straight face that the ONLY or even the main people to take issue with various matters that happened at the convention are bloggers? The rank-and-file grassroots wrote those resolutions. The rank-and-file grassroots had the problems with how they were handled in the resolutions committee. They had the issues with the quorum call. They led the fight to create an Audit Committee and the resultant fallout.
We REPORTED it. And I stand behind my belief that reporting the facts and making opinions on policies and events are NOT personal attacks. It's a convenient excuse to blame "mean dirty hippie bloggers" for every criticism ever leveled at the Party. People have substantive questions, and blogs are one way, and really one of the smaller ways, for people to express those questions. I think that, at least on this site, there was an extremely healthy debate about the convention fallout, and it's simply unfair for Torres to lash out in that way.
I will add that the fact that Torres felt the need to defend himself, and defend the Party's goal of electing Democrats statewide and implementing a 58-county strategy, is a win in itself. I think we all want to work to that end; it's certainly a major part of what we do here at Calitics. You can quote me on that, Art. By name.
I'll toss some notes about the Resolutions Committee in the extended entry.
Back at our hotel in Sacramento with hekebolos after the first day of the executive board meeting of the CDP. I spent most of my time in the Progressive Caucus, and since Donald Lathbury of the California Majority Report had his laptop with him and I didn't, I'll outsource the running commentary to him.
I will say that the caucus was once again the most well-attended, most organized group in the CDP, and I sense that people there are growing more confident in their ability to make real change happen within the party. There have been setbacks, no doubt, but they continue on.
I will say something about the net neutrality debate tomorrow. Brad Parker from PDA (Progressive Democrats of America), as I mentioned, will be debating Jim Gordon, chair of the Labor Caucus and a member of CWA (Communications Workers of America), tomorrow morning. I'll be liveblogging. But the outcome of that debate, while entertaining, is irrelevant to what will happen tomorrow. There will be two resolutions in the Resolutions Committee - one by Brad Parker, and one by Jim Gordon. I haven't seen the text of either, but I can safely assume that Parker's supports the principle of a free and open Internet without discriminating against any content provider, no matter how big or small, while Gordon's talks about "building out broadband access" and implicitly endorses the telecoms getting additional revenue streams by forcing content providers to pay them for high-speed access. As Parker put it today, "broadband for the haves, and dial-up for the never-wills" is what the telecoms want.
So this will play out tomorow in resolutions, and Brian will have the inside scoop, I assume. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Edwards will address the general session at 9:30 am tomorrow.
And on an unrelated note, our hotel is hosting the largest anime convention in Sacramento. I'm the only one here without an oversized sword and a lion costume. Hekebolos has his on right now.
UPDATE: I should mention that there was an informal and highly unscientific Presidential straw poll at the Progressive Caucus, and Edwards won overwhelmingly.
The results: Gravel 0, Dodd 0, Biden 1, Clinton 2, Undecided 6, Richardson 10, Obama 12, Kucinich 17, Gore 27, and Edwards 47.
Just a quick note: I will be attending this weekend's California Democratic Party Executive Board meeting at the Radisson Hotel in Sacramento and posting occasional updates on the proceedings on Calitics. The main issue that everyone seems to be talking about is the process for picking delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in the state, whether those delegate caucuses will be held before the California primary (as is typically the case) or afterwards. Frankly, I think it's an inside baseball kind of deal, and while both sides have passionate arguments in favor of or against it, I'm a bit unmoved by them (Pre-primary advocates want a more diverse slate of delegates going to the convention to impact the platform, I believe, to which I say, how many people actually read and ingest and make decisions based on the party platform, and is that number in triple digits or not?). But I'll be up there to let you know about them.
The two things I want to see, and will report back about, are the Progressive Caucus on Friday night at 8pm, and a debate on Saturday morning at 8:30am about net neutrality, between Brad Parker of Progressive Democrats of America, and Jim Gordon, the chair of the Labor Caucus (and a member of Communications Workers of America, who are resistant to the principle of net neutrality, to put it mildly). That should be very fun. I'll post the agenda of the meeting on the flip, in case anyone is in Sacramento and would like to attend (apparently observer passes will be available on-site for a nominal fee, I think $15).
