From: Brad Johnson <bgjohnson@...>  Date: Sun May 15, 2005  9:41 am  Subject: Re: [pdama] What happened?

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On 5/15/05 9:26 AM, "Jeff Boudreau" <jk_boudreau@...> wrote:

 

Ø       >> Can anyone give the 30,000 foot view what happened yesterday? A lot of > us on the floor were "WTF???????". This was NOT democracy in action! > > >

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Enough  signatures (over 500) were collected to bring to a vote the platform amendments  on ending the Iraq occupation and supporting hand-counted paper ballots. The DSC  threw out enough signature sheets on technicalities (missing SSDs,  usually--if one signature was "bad" they could throw out the entire  sheet of 10 signatures) to claim the voting integrity amendment wasn't properly submitted. They pushed through the Iraq occupation amendment, and then got the new platform accepted on voice vote.

 

Several people signed up to comment on the  charter amendments, but the DSC got  around that by first calling for a vote to extend the convention by two hours  (since the interminable speeches by the platform committee ate up all of the  working time), which as they intended, failed. So all discussion was closed  off.

 

The DSC then called a voice vote to approve  the charter amendments, which failed,  but the chair claimed it succeeded. Catcalls forced him to call for a  second vote. He called for a standing vote (which is not an acceptable method  of voting according to the rules) which he again claimed succeeded. A  motion  was made from the floor to call for a roll call vote. That vote failed, and the convention was adjourned.

 

The charter amendments are pretty bad. The  most significant changes the party's  open meetings rule ("All Party meetings at all levels shall be open to the  public") to a secret meetings rule (all meetings may be closed by a two-thirds  vote). The DSC members terms have been made 4 year instead of 2 year, they only  have to meet 4 times instead of 6 times, they don't have to do work if they  claim finances don't permit, opposition to their actions by convention  delegates now have to pass by a two-thirds majority, and other bad changes.

 

 

Again: the open meetings rule has been now  changed to a secret meetings rule.

 

I guess what's good for Dick Cheney is good  for the Massachusetts Democratic  Party.