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naomikritzerWhen Ed and I caucused back in February, we signed up to be delegates to our Senate District Convention. Before I get into describing what happened and how it went, let me very briefly explain the process here:
1. On February 5th, 400 people went to our precinct caucus. Of those, about 50 could go on to the Senate District Convention. Fortunately, only about fifty wanted to go, and we all signed up to be delegates.
2. Yesterday, about 850 people from 26 different precincts showed up at the Senate District 62 Convention. Of those 850, only 28 could go on to the State Convention.
3. In early June, 1200 people drawn from all 67 Senate Districts will go to the State Convention in Rochester. They will endorse a candidate for U.S. Senate. Currently, three people are running -- Al Franken, Mike Ciresi, and Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer -- and all three have promised to abide by the endorsement in order to avoid a primary. So this really does count for a lot.
4. Back in Step 1, we voted for Presidential candidates using a Straw Poll. That poll was binding. So Step 2 and Step 3 are completely irrelevent to Obama and Clinton. It's all about the Senate candidates, at this point.
You'll note that back in Step One, all you had to do to be a delegate was raise your hand. However, of the 850 people who showed up for Step Two, approximately 841 would have liked to go to the State Convention. Failing that, everyone at least wanted to be sure that some of the 28 people going would stand fast for their favorite candidate, or if they didn't have a favorite candidate, that they would demand some support/pandering for their pet issue. The way you do THAT is with Walking Subcaucuses. Which I will explain in a moment. What you need to know from the outset is that THIS year, the walking subcaucuses were the reason why most of those 850 people were there. Prior to the walking subaucuses, we had to register, we had to convene, we had to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and we had to do a bunch of rubber-stamping of internal party business, like voting for party officers, and we had to endorse three unopposed (and very popular) incumbent elected officials.
The convention was supposed to convene at 10 a.m., and Ed and I had babysitting from a friend until 2:30 in the afternoon.
The convention was held at a local high school. It's one of those box-shaped classic brick high schools, with an interior hallway that runs around a central auditorium. The line for registration snaked from the entrance, down the hallway, around the corner, down a hallway, around the corner.....and all the way back to the entrance. We arrived at 9:45, and stood in line for 40 minutes just to register. I was kind of hoping they'd just go ahead and convene, because really, the first thirteen items on the agenda were all things I was OK with them doing without me. But that would have been un-democratic, so of course, they waited for us (and the other 500 people standing in line) and we convened, finally, at around 11.
The check-in process took time because they had to check on their computer and confirm that you really were a delegate. Then they gave you credentials, which consisted of a blue paper tag, and a packet that included a list of resolutions and a scan-tron ballot sheet.
If you went to a precinct caucus in Minnesota and stayed for the whole thing, you may remember a part where people stood up and proposed resolutions. All the resolutions that passed were checked for duplicates and then put on a big list. We voted for resolutions, and the top vote-getters for our district would be passed along for consideration by the platform committee for the State DFL.
So during most of the first 13 agenda items, I passed time by reading resolutions and filling in dots. We had resolutions that demanded medical coverage for acupuncturists and doulas, denounced the rape of Native American women, demanded that DFL candidates support the extension of Unemployment Insurance benefits specifically to unemployed electricians, and advocated for a 50% cut to the military budget. There were about 150 resolutions in all, so, you know, lots of little dots to fill in.
In between filling in dots, I checked my watch. It had really seemed to me that we ought to be able to get this wrapped up by 2:30, even with the speeches.
They called to order (agenda item #1), we pledged allegiance (#2), they welcomed us (#3), they read the affirmative action statement (#4), there was a credentials report (#5), we elected a convention chair (#6), and we got to the adoption of the rules and agenda, at which point, we amended the rules and there was some miscellaneous arguing about that but we did manage to get that done (#7), there was a place on the agenda for Officer Reports but if anyone reported anything I was too busy filling in dots to notice (#8), we elected the party officers (#9), we elected a slate of delegates to the State Senate Central Committee (#10), and we ratified Senate District 62 Central Committee Members (#11). All of this was straight-up rubber stamping. There's a committee that identifies people who are interested in doing this stuff, screens out any true whackjobs and sociopaths (hopefully), and presents a slate of recommendations, which then usually get endorsed on a voice vote.
Then there were a bunch of amendments to the SD62 DFL Constitution (#12), and after they'd been passed, someone who'd probably been busy filling in dots realized that he disagreed with something he'd just said "aye" to and spoke up to object. Except at that point it required a motion to reconsider, which would have required a 2/3rds majority. Nope. We moved on. It was, at that point, 12:25 p.m.
Item #13 was where we'd endorse our three incumbent elected people. Back when we amended the rules, someone had proposed that we switch from a 5-minute speech for each of them to a twenty-minute Q&A period for all of them together. Except for some reason, 20 minutes seemed a lot longer than 15 (or maybe someone thought the proposal was for a 20 minute Q&A for EACH of them) and an amendment to the amendment was proposed to change it to a five-minute Q&A. So, before we endorsed these three people, we had five minutes where we could ask all three of them questions. Then we endorsed our Senator, half of us endorsed one House Rep, and the other half endorsed the other House Rep.
Some years, THAT'S the exciting part and it goes for hours, but this year, we were done by 12:40.
At that point, we segued into miscellaneous BS for 20 minutes. One of the rules we adopted was that each candidate for Senate could have five minutes to speak, or else they could have a surrogate speak for five minutes. Jack was there, and Jack spoke early in the day -- I think it was at around 11:20, and I was out in the hall eating a tamale. (You weren't supposed to bring food into the auditorium, but they had food for sale in the hallway.) Mike Ciresi wasn't coming, but sent a spokesperson who gave a speech on his behalf. Al was coming, but he wasn't there yet, so one of things that happened during the miscellaneous BS was that a City Council rep who's working for Al's campaign gave a speech about how awesome Al was.
Now it was time for the real business of the day: agenda item #14, Election of State and 5th Congressional District Convention Delegates and Alternates.
This is how walking subcaucuses work.
A. People "nominate a subcaucus." For example, you might say, "I nominate the Al Franken subcaucus," or, if you don't want to commit to a candidate but want to gather a cluster of people with concerns similar to yours, you might say, "I nominate the Uncommitted for Education Issues subcaucus," which sounds kind of like you're uncommitted to education but actually means you're uncommitted to any particular candidate but very committed to education issues.
B. The convention chair splits up the room and sends everyone to a corner or area.
C. You count yourselves and see how many other people support your candidate / pet issue.
D. You find out the "viability" number, or, how many people need to be in your subcaucus in order to elect one delegate.
E. You get 15 minutes to mill around. If you're not viable, you find a compatible subcaucus to merge with. If you're just barely not viable, you try to persuade a couple of people to come join your group. If you are viable, you might try to round up some non-viable groups in the hopes of getting another delegate or two.
F. You count again.
G. You find out how many delegates you get.
H. You then elect delegates and alternates from the interested people in your subcaucus. The people you elect will go to Rochester and endorse a Senate candidate (see Step 3, above). They must be gender-balanced -- if you have an odd number, you reverse for your alternates.
In real life, it is far more confusing than this.
First of all, in Step A, no one ever just nominates the Al Franken subcaucus. There has to be the Al Franken End the War subcaucus, the Al Franken Support the Geneva Convention and Stop Torturing Detainees subcaucus, the Al Franken Fair Treatment for Immigrants subcaucus, the Al Franken for Kittens and Puppies subcaucus, the Al Franken for Kittens, Puppies, and Rainbows subcaucus, the Al Franken for Kittens, Puppies, Rainbows, and Unicorns subcaucus, etc., etc., etc. And while we were engaged in Step A, as it happened, Al Franken turned up.
Since his representative had already used his allocated five minutes, in order to allow Al to speak, we had to suspend the rules, which required a 2/3rds majority, and the chair refused to consider a motion to suspend the rules until the nomination of caucuses was completed. Which may have moved things along, actually. It was 1 p.m. when we started nominating subcaucuses, it was 1:25 when Al showed up, and it was 1:30 when we finished nominating the FIFTY-FOUR subcaucuses, 85% of which were variants on Al or Jack and the balance of which were mostly varieties of uncommitted. Ciresi was not well-represented in my district. I think he got one of the 28 delegates.
Since the Jack people would've vigorously voted down another five minutes for Al without equal time, someone proposed five more minutes for every candidate, and the motion was passed. So first Al got to speak. Then a Jack representative spoke, then a Ciresi representative. I wasn't paying much attention, because while this was happening, Ed and I realized that not only was there no way in hell that this was going to wrap up by 2:30, but also, at 2:30 we were going to be in the thick of Steps B and C. I tried calling various people to see if I could get them to go over to my house and take over babysitting, but no luck. So I ran out to the minivan, drove home, loaded up the girls, drove back, and hustled them into the school, where I looked rather frantically for Ed for a minute or two before spotting him just in time to be counted in Step C.
Ed's subcaucus -- the Uncommitted to End No Child Left Behind subcaucus (remember, this means, "uncommitted to any particular candidate and VERY INTERESTED in ending No Child Left Behind") -- had merged with the Uncommitted Justice for Palestinians and the Uncommitted Immigration Issues subcaucuses with possibly another subcaucus or two mixed in, I wasn't sure. I got counted, settled the girls in a spot nearby (I'd brought books for Molly, and I handed Kiera a notebook and a pen to keep her occupied. Have I mentioned recently that I have extremely well-behaved kids? We had about six people randomly come over to comment on how extraordinarily well-behaved our daughters were), and caught my breath.
We lacked the numbers for viability; we were going to have to merge with another group. So, we decided to hold our own little election for delegates first, pick one male and one female delegate, and then vote for those people as a block. Everyone gave a quick, speech, and we voted with a show of hands. Then we merged with a viable subcaucus, counted again, and waited.
It turned out that our Big Collective Uncommitted subcaucus would get two delegates and two alternates. All the people who hoped to go to the State Convention lined up -- almost twenty in all, including the two from our mini-subcaucus. Each person gave a quick speech. We voted, this time using paper ballots (scraps ripped out of a notebook). And the two people chosen by our mini-subcaucus got both delegate spots. The alternates were both drawn from the group we'd joined.
At that point, the convention as a whole had four agenda items left: #15 Resolutions Committee report (which was supposed to include up to an hour's discussion of resolutions), #16 Other business, #17 Election of 5th Congressional District Convention Committee members, and #18, Adjournment. However, the real business of the day had been accomplished, and nearly everyone packed up to go, including us. It was 4:30 p.m. when we got out of there.
As a final note, I am really curious what the Republican Senate District conventions are like. In particular, I'm curious whether they nominate subcaucuses the way Democrats do. Do they have the Norm Coleman Keep the War Going subcaucus, the Norm Coleman Pro-Waterboarding subcaucus, the Norm Coleman Build a Wall at the Mexican border subcaucus, the Norm Coleman for Eating Puppies, Kittens, and Unicorns subcaucus, etc., etc., etc., or do they just have a Norm Coleman subcaucus and call it good? Or do they allocate delegates by some entirely different method? I did find a website for the SD62 Republicans -- they had their convention yesterday, too -- and spotted one difference very quickly. They charge admission for their convention -- $5 in advance, $10 at the door. The Democrats pass a can for donations, because it's not like we get the space for free, but we don't sell tickets. Anyway, their website gives no information on what they do at their convention but one of these years, I swear I will see if I can get permission to go observe one. Even if I have to pay $5 in advance, or $10 at the door.
1. On February 5th, 400 people went to our precinct caucus. Of those, about 50 could go on to the Senate District Convention. Fortunately, only about fifty wanted to go, and we all signed up to be delegates.
2. Yesterday, about 850 people from 26 different precincts showed up at the Senate District 62 Convention. Of those 850, only 28 could go on to the State Convention.
3. In early June, 1200 people drawn from all 67 Senate Districts will go to the State Convention in Rochester. They will endorse a candidate for U.S. Senate. Currently, three people are running -- Al Franken, Mike Ciresi, and Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer -- and all three have promised to abide by the endorsement in order to avoid a primary. So this really does count for a lot.
4. Back in Step 1, we voted for Presidential candidates using a Straw Poll. That poll was binding. So Step 2 and Step 3 are completely irrelevent to Obama and Clinton. It's all about the Senate candidates, at this point.
You'll note that back in Step One, all you had to do to be a delegate was raise your hand. However, of the 850 people who showed up for Step Two, approximately 841 would have liked to go to the State Convention. Failing that, everyone at least wanted to be sure that some of the 28 people going would stand fast for their favorite candidate, or if they didn't have a favorite candidate, that they would demand some support/pandering for their pet issue. The way you do THAT is with Walking Subcaucuses. Which I will explain in a moment. What you need to know from the outset is that THIS year, the walking subcaucuses were the reason why most of those 850 people were there. Prior to the walking subaucuses, we had to register, we had to convene, we had to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and we had to do a bunch of rubber-stamping of internal party business, like voting for party officers, and we had to endorse three unopposed (and very popular) incumbent elected officials.
The convention was supposed to convene at 10 a.m., and Ed and I had babysitting from a friend until 2:30 in the afternoon.
The convention was held at a local high school. It's one of those box-shaped classic brick high schools, with an interior hallway that runs around a central auditorium. The line for registration snaked from the entrance, down the hallway, around the corner, down a hallway, around the corner.....and all the way back to the entrance. We arrived at 9:45, and stood in line for 40 minutes just to register. I was kind of hoping they'd just go ahead and convene, because really, the first thirteen items on the agenda were all things I was OK with them doing without me. But that would have been un-democratic, so of course, they waited for us (and the other 500 people standing in line) and we convened, finally, at around 11.
The check-in process took time because they had to check on their computer and confirm that you really were a delegate. Then they gave you credentials, which consisted of a blue paper tag, and a packet that included a list of resolutions and a scan-tron ballot sheet.
If you went to a precinct caucus in Minnesota and stayed for the whole thing, you may remember a part where people stood up and proposed resolutions. All the resolutions that passed were checked for duplicates and then put on a big list. We voted for resolutions, and the top vote-getters for our district would be passed along for consideration by the platform committee for the State DFL.
So during most of the first 13 agenda items, I passed time by reading resolutions and filling in dots. We had resolutions that demanded medical coverage for acupuncturists and doulas, denounced the rape of Native American women, demanded that DFL candidates support the extension of Unemployment Insurance benefits specifically to unemployed electricians, and advocated for a 50% cut to the military budget. There were about 150 resolutions in all, so, you know, lots of little dots to fill in.
In between filling in dots, I checked my watch. It had really seemed to me that we ought to be able to get this wrapped up by 2:30, even with the speeches.
They called to order (agenda item #1), we pledged allegiance (#2), they welcomed us (#3), they read the affirmative action statement (#4), there was a credentials report (#5), we elected a convention chair (#6), and we got to the adoption of the rules and agenda, at which point, we amended the rules and there was some miscellaneous arguing about that but we did manage to get that done (#7), there was a place on the agenda for Officer Reports but if anyone reported anything I was too busy filling in dots to notice (#8), we elected the party officers (#9), we elected a slate of delegates to the State Senate Central Committee (#10), and we ratified Senate District 62 Central Committee Members (#11). All of this was straight-up rubber stamping. There's a committee that identifies people who are interested in doing this stuff, screens out any true whackjobs and sociopaths (hopefully), and presents a slate of recommendations, which then usually get endorsed on a voice vote.
Then there were a bunch of amendments to the SD62 DFL Constitution (#12), and after they'd been passed, someone who'd probably been busy filling in dots realized that he disagreed with something he'd just said "aye" to and spoke up to object. Except at that point it required a motion to reconsider, which would have required a 2/3rds majority. Nope. We moved on. It was, at that point, 12:25 p.m.
Item #13 was where we'd endorse our three incumbent elected people. Back when we amended the rules, someone had proposed that we switch from a 5-minute speech for each of them to a twenty-minute Q&A period for all of them together. Except for some reason, 20 minutes seemed a lot longer than 15 (or maybe someone thought the proposal was for a 20 minute Q&A for EACH of them) and an amendment to the amendment was proposed to change it to a five-minute Q&A. So, before we endorsed these three people, we had five minutes where we could ask all three of them questions. Then we endorsed our Senator, half of us endorsed one House Rep, and the other half endorsed the other House Rep.
Some years, THAT'S the exciting part and it goes for hours, but this year, we were done by 12:40.
At that point, we segued into miscellaneous BS for 20 minutes. One of the rules we adopted was that each candidate for Senate could have five minutes to speak, or else they could have a surrogate speak for five minutes. Jack was there, and Jack spoke early in the day -- I think it was at around 11:20, and I was out in the hall eating a tamale. (You weren't supposed to bring food into the auditorium, but they had food for sale in the hallway.) Mike Ciresi wasn't coming, but sent a spokesperson who gave a speech on his behalf. Al was coming, but he wasn't there yet, so one of things that happened during the miscellaneous BS was that a City Council rep who's working for Al's campaign gave a speech about how awesome Al was.
Now it was time for the real business of the day: agenda item #14, Election of State and 5th Congressional District Convention Delegates and Alternates.
This is how walking subcaucuses work.
A. People "nominate a subcaucus." For example, you might say, "I nominate the Al Franken subcaucus," or, if you don't want to commit to a candidate but want to gather a cluster of people with concerns similar to yours, you might say, "I nominate the Uncommitted for Education Issues subcaucus," which sounds kind of like you're uncommitted to education but actually means you're uncommitted to any particular candidate but very committed to education issues.
B. The convention chair splits up the room and sends everyone to a corner or area.
C. You count yourselves and see how many other people support your candidate / pet issue.
D. You find out the "viability" number, or, how many people need to be in your subcaucus in order to elect one delegate.
E. You get 15 minutes to mill around. If you're not viable, you find a compatible subcaucus to merge with. If you're just barely not viable, you try to persuade a couple of people to come join your group. If you are viable, you might try to round up some non-viable groups in the hopes of getting another delegate or two.
F. You count again.
G. You find out how many delegates you get.
H. You then elect delegates and alternates from the interested people in your subcaucus. The people you elect will go to Rochester and endorse a Senate candidate (see Step 3, above). They must be gender-balanced -- if you have an odd number, you reverse for your alternates.
In real life, it is far more confusing than this.
First of all, in Step A, no one ever just nominates the Al Franken subcaucus. There has to be the Al Franken End the War subcaucus, the Al Franken Support the Geneva Convention and Stop Torturing Detainees subcaucus, the Al Franken Fair Treatment for Immigrants subcaucus, the Al Franken for Kittens and Puppies subcaucus, the Al Franken for Kittens, Puppies, and Rainbows subcaucus, the Al Franken for Kittens, Puppies, Rainbows, and Unicorns subcaucus, etc., etc., etc. And while we were engaged in Step A, as it happened, Al Franken turned up.
Since his representative had already used his allocated five minutes, in order to allow Al to speak, we had to suspend the rules, which required a 2/3rds majority, and the chair refused to consider a motion to suspend the rules until the nomination of caucuses was completed. Which may have moved things along, actually. It was 1 p.m. when we started nominating subcaucuses, it was 1:25 when Al showed up, and it was 1:30 when we finished nominating the FIFTY-FOUR subcaucuses, 85% of which were variants on Al or Jack and the balance of which were mostly varieties of uncommitted. Ciresi was not well-represented in my district. I think he got one of the 28 delegates.
Since the Jack people would've vigorously voted down another five minutes for Al without equal time, someone proposed five more minutes for every candidate, and the motion was passed. So first Al got to speak. Then a Jack representative spoke, then a Ciresi representative. I wasn't paying much attention, because while this was happening, Ed and I realized that not only was there no way in hell that this was going to wrap up by 2:30, but also, at 2:30 we were going to be in the thick of Steps B and C. I tried calling various people to see if I could get them to go over to my house and take over babysitting, but no luck. So I ran out to the minivan, drove home, loaded up the girls, drove back, and hustled them into the school, where I looked rather frantically for Ed for a minute or two before spotting him just in time to be counted in Step C.
Ed's subcaucus -- the Uncommitted to End No Child Left Behind subcaucus (remember, this means, "uncommitted to any particular candidate and VERY INTERESTED in ending No Child Left Behind") -- had merged with the Uncommitted Justice for Palestinians and the Uncommitted Immigration Issues subcaucuses with possibly another subcaucus or two mixed in, I wasn't sure. I got counted, settled the girls in a spot nearby (I'd brought books for Molly, and I handed Kiera a notebook and a pen to keep her occupied. Have I mentioned recently that I have extremely well-behaved kids? We had about six people randomly come over to comment on how extraordinarily well-behaved our daughters were), and caught my breath.
We lacked the numbers for viability; we were going to have to merge with another group. So, we decided to hold our own little election for delegates first, pick one male and one female delegate, and then vote for those people as a block. Everyone gave a quick, speech, and we voted with a show of hands. Then we merged with a viable subcaucus, counted again, and waited.
It turned out that our Big Collective Uncommitted subcaucus would get two delegates and two alternates. All the people who hoped to go to the State Convention lined up -- almost twenty in all, including the two from our mini-subcaucus. Each person gave a quick speech. We voted, this time using paper ballots (scraps ripped out of a notebook). And the two people chosen by our mini-subcaucus got both delegate spots. The alternates were both drawn from the group we'd joined.
At that point, the convention as a whole had four agenda items left: #15 Resolutions Committee report (which was supposed to include up to an hour's discussion of resolutions), #16 Other business, #17 Election of 5th Congressional District Convention Committee members, and #18, Adjournment. However, the real business of the day had been accomplished, and nearly everyone packed up to go, including us. It was 4:30 p.m. when we got out of there.
As a final note, I am really curious what the Republican Senate District conventions are like. In particular, I'm curious whether they nominate subcaucuses the way Democrats do. Do they have the Norm Coleman Keep the War Going subcaucus, the Norm Coleman Pro-Waterboarding subcaucus, the Norm Coleman Build a Wall at the Mexican border subcaucus, the Norm Coleman for Eating Puppies, Kittens, and Unicorns subcaucus, etc., etc., etc., or do they just have a Norm Coleman subcaucus and call it good? Or do they allocate delegates by some entirely different method? I did find a website for the SD62 Republicans -- they had their convention yesterday, too -- and spotted one difference very quickly. They charge admission for their convention -- $5 in advance, $10 at the door. The Democrats pass a can for donations, because it's not like we get the space for free, but we don't sell tickets. Anyway, their website gives no information on what they do at their convention but one of these years, I swear I will see if I can get permission to go observe one. Even if I have to pay $5 in advance, or $10 at the door.
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DFL over by 2:30?
Date: 2008-03-10 03:11 am (UTC)Re: DFL over by 2:30?
Date: 2008-03-10 03:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 03:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 04:06 am (UTC)I was keeping my eyes open for Magenta and Martin; I usually run into them at these things. But I didn't see them yesterday.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 03:54 am (UTC)(Found this post through
no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 12:19 pm (UTC)Also, your kids are very well-behaved.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 03:22 pm (UTC)Probably better for her mental health that I didn't, but I regret not making it over.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 03:25 pm (UTC)Rhode Island held its primaries last week.
In R.I. if you are unaffiliated with a party as of primary day, you can sign up to join a party (and then disaffiliate after voting in their primary). If you are enrolled in a particular party as of primary day, you can only vote in that party's primary.
I like that system -- unlike New York (where we used to live) where you can only vote in a primary if you were enrolled in that party in advance.
Showed up at the polling spot with my daughter -- "Which do you want, Republican or Democrat?" -- we both enrolled as Democrats, both voted for Obama, and then both disaffiliated on the way out. I would estimate that at least half of the voters at my polling place (in the ice skating arena on URI campus) were unaffiliated, as is common outside of the R.I. urban core (that is filled with straight party ticket voting Democrats). Later on my wife went to the polls and did the same process except she voted for Hillary. Younger son did not vote in primary -- has a strong libertarian slant and liked Ron Paul who was such an obvious lost cause that he saw no point in taking part.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 04:17 pm (UTC)Thank you again,
Susan
no subject
Date: 2008-03-10 05:41 pm (UTC)I want to know what resolutions passed.
the tamales were really good.