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As long as I'm sitting by the side of the
road here waiting for AAA, I
might
as well get a report written up so everybody can know what
happened
at the convention. By the way: Marty Martinez totally has me
&
Abi's votes since he's the sort of person who'll pull off the road
to help
you in your time of need (also Fred Berman, but he's not
running
for anything :-).
Anyway...
we found ourselves with an unexpected tough battle on our
hands
today, as there were a number of odious changes to the party
charter
that were proposed by the State Committee, hidden amongst the
innocuous
ones. Some of us started talking about it this morning,
being
concerned that everything would simply get voted in by people
who had
no idea what was in there. Frankly, this took all of us
sleeping,
despite the fact that some people had noticed it well in
advance,
and next year we need to organize to deal with whatever new
bullshit
the State Committee is going to throw at us. We lost the
battle
today, but I think the party leadership looked really bad and
fascist,
and I think a lot of people saw that clearly today.
We
ended up targetting a few of the most odious amendments to the
party
charter:
-
Supermajority resolutions, making things like the scorecard much
harder
to pass.
- The
Vinnie Ciampa clause, allowing the party leadership to oppose an
unexpected
winner like Carl in the general election.
- No
Accountability clause, which frees the State Committee from
responsibility
to obey resolutions at conventions, or even the party
charter.
-
Secret meetings, barring the public from drafting meetings, along
with
anything else the Committee feels like going to executive
session
for.
-
"We control Democratic" clause, requiring organizations calling
themselves
"democratic" to be approved by the State Committee
First,
a big thanks to all of the people who worked hard, at the drop
of a
hat, and in the midst of great confusion. I felt really proud of
PDS
today, and happy to be part of an organization capable of
mobilizing
at the drop of a hat for something like this. It was also
really
good to see all of the other people not affilited with us who
worked
with us on this, and who I think we worked quite well with,
particularly
the Cambridge folks and the DFA folks.
So
here's what went down, play by play:
We
spent a while this morning figuring out what our options in
opposing
the odious amendments were, and got help from a lot of
experienced
folks as well as sympathetic elected representatives.
Once
we'd figured that out, we went to the Sargeant at Arms to submit
a
Motion to Divide each of the odious amendments for separate
consideration.
He took our motion into the closed back room for
discussion,
and came back to tell us it was out of order. We kept
asking
questions, and eventually we were ruled in order since they
couldn't
confuse us into leaving, and Roberts Rules were on our side.
We then
tried to find out when we could sign up to speak on the
amendment,
and were told they didn't know, and that it would be
announced
sometime. We'd brought about a dozen people down by this
time,
all wanting to do something about the problem, and they were
getting
edgy and kept telling us to clear out and return to our seats.
Eventually
they told us it would be happening in "ten minutes" when
speeches
stopped and the Chair called for people to sign up.
At this
point, a contingent headed out to start creating a buzz and
getting
other delegates riled up about the amendments, while some of
us
remained down front waiting to sign up to discuss the amendment.
During
lunch we discovered that they'd surreptitiously put out the
paper,
and people started signing up to talk about particular
sections.
Finally,
after all other convention "business" was completed, the
Chair
brought up the charter amendments and then willfully
misinterpreted
our motion, saying, "Jacob Beal has moved to divide the
amendment
so every point is voted on separately, which will keep you
all
here another two hours." and proceeded to ask if people wanted to
stay
another two hours, which of course the delegates did not. Our
objections
were not heard.
He then
simply omitted debate and called the question, over our
objections.
The voice vote was unclear, though he tried to call it
for the
Ayes and was shouted down from the floor. The Chair then did
a most
unusual voting procedure, when he had people stand up for Aye,
then
stand up for Nay, ignoring the confusion, the people who were in
the
aisles who he could count however he wanted, and the people
(including
Somerville) who were up in the bleachers and invisible in
the
poor lighting.
Brian
Young, from Cambridge, had the microphone and called for a roll
call
vote, which the chair summarily deemed unnecessary, reading out
selecting
excerpts from the rules, then when pressed put it to a voice
vote
and called it for the Ayes.
The
convention hall was not happy with the Chair, by and large, and
there was
a lot of loud booing, calls for change of leadership, and
general
rowdiness and discontent --- and not just from us. They got
their
changes passed, and prevented us from speaking formally, but I
think
they ended up looking really bad to a lot of Massachusetts
Democrats.
Thanks,
-Jake
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