I know there was a lot of bad blood coming out of how the CDP Convention wrapped up, but consider this: that controversy was over how we passed one resolution on Iraq and not another.  It’s not like it was about something like this:

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan’s minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty.

In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants “hate American people” and “are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won’t do.”

Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to “destroy Christian America” and replace it with “a godless new world order – and that is not extremism, that is fact,” Larsen said. […]

Republican officials then allowed speakers to defend and refute the resolution. One speaker, who was identified as “Joe,” said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the influence of the devil. Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald, said illegal immigrants should not be allowed because “they are not going to become Republicans….”

No matter what the intra-party squabbles are, let’s understand that the real whackadoos are in that other party.  We can resolve differences between ourselves as reasonable people.  We don’t think Satan is an undocumented immigrant.

Another thing to consider: one of the resolutions that the CDP passed yesterday was in support of high-speed rail, which we learned yesterday that the governor may be trying to defund and effectively stop.  One of the resolutions we DIDN’T pass was in support of Clean Money, which actually is moving through the legislative process, with a hearing in the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Wednesday.  So resolutions pale in comparison to what’s really happening in Sacramento.  Just a little perspective.

(Good, positive stuff. Thanks, Carl. Also at dKos – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Two and a half days, six presidential candidates, 2,264 delegates.  Fiery rhetoric, sloppy speechifying, backslapping.  Cheerleading.  Words and words and words.  Out of Iraq universal health care choice Darfur education impeachment toll road Katrina.  The best Democratic state party anywhere; the best primary slate ever; the great Chairman Art Torres.

Elections have consequences.  Not another nickle; not another dime.  Not another soldier; not this time.  Turn the page.

I signed up to be a delegate to make a difference.  I could watch the candidates give their speeches on teevee and I could read about their positions on the internets.  It’s not the same, certainly doesn’t entail anywhere near as much shouting and applause – doesn’t energize the base the way an event like this does – but it might make for more objectivism, might result in better choices.  The rah-rah doesn’t tell me who will be the better president, doesn’t tell me how we’re going to win the office, doesn’t tell me how to make a difference.

Politics is a selective force for people who want attention.  Not just at the top of the ticket, but all up and down the line people want to be heard, want thousands of people to attend to their words, want the spotlight.  Not everyone, of course – but most of the ones we see.  And it’s a way to reward people who value that, all the praise and applause and recognition – and there are a lot of people working very hard with very little or nothing in the way of thanks beyond their moment in the spotlight.  So maybe I shouldn’t complain; this is how it must be.

But I do complain.  I wanted something – a lot – of substance to emerge from this event, although I could not say in advance and cannot now say what that could have been.  I wanted to be an active participant in changing things – changing the party so it is more responsive to its liberal members, changing the state so it embraces more liberal principals, and change the nation to flush out the sewer that Republicans have made of our federal government.  I want not only for that to happen, but for me, myself, to participate in making that happen, and I had hoped that serving as a delegate to the CDP would give me a chance to do that.

Instead, I sat and listened and applauded and sometimes cheered as egomaniacs (any one of whom would of course be a far, far better president than the current occupant of the White House) said things I agreed with and sat on my hands as they said things I didn’t.  Sat on my hands, too, when they failed to say the things I thought they should have (like “I was wrong to vote for the War Powers Act and the PATRIOT Act and I apologize for those errors”; like “Single Payer”).  I talked some to fellow delegates.  Had a great time at the Blue House at the Brew House blograiser for Jerry McNerney and Charlie Brown on Friday and a great visit with fellow Kossacks and Caliticians at dinner on Saturday night.

Then came the resolutions.  My chance to participate, to contribute to defining our party’s values, to help steer it.  13 of them made it out of committee and onto the floor where we mere delegates could amend and vote on them.  We quickly worked our way through most of them – including one calling for full investigations of the administration and for “appropriate remedies and punishment, including impeachment”. 

The final resolution, supporting immediate safe and orderly withdrawal of troops, was the occasion of what felt like some very dirty gameplaying.  The resolution itself, submitted by Chairman Art Torres and Senator Don Perata, did not include language to cut funding.  Of four proposed amendments, one was to add such language.  The person at the podium (Chair of Rules or Resolutions, I think) “suspended the rules” to separate the amendments from the resolution itself.  He tried to explain what this meant, although this new delegate certainly didn’t understand it and I had the impression that the room as a whole was confused by it, but the suspension was granted assent.  We then voted on the resolution and prepared to vote on the amendments – which the guy behind the lectern re-explained now stood alone – and someone called as a point of order that we be counted to determine whether a quorum was present.  A quorum was not present, and the meeting was over.

So out of roughly 16 business hours at the Convention, about two were given to participation – and that was cut short by what felt like a very devious, carefully choreographed trick to deprive us of the opportunity to say something that many of us thought was very important to say.  Color me disappointed.  The one thing it says to me is that these resolutions are important to someone – important enough to be devious about getting the wording they want into them – and I had wondered whether the resolutions actually mattered at all.  I guess I still wonder – but they clearly matter to some people.

I see two ways forward here, and I think I know which one I’m likely to follow.  One is to say – if I want it to be better, I have to get more involved; study up on parliamentary procedure, join a Committee, grab some of that power for myself and my causes.  The other is to throw up my hands, call bullshit on it, and redirect my energies to places where I feel like what I’m doing matters.  I got that feeling with MoveOn last year, making calls; I got that feeling raising money on my ActBlue page; I get that feeling knocking on my neighbors’ doors and registering voters and collecting impeachment letters and delivering them to my Congressional representative.

These are all things I can do with a minimum of organizational involvement, a minimum of pomp, a minimum of bullshit.  Things with concrete, tangible, direct results.  Real, retail activism.  Far more satisfying things, for me.

I want to give a big shout-out to the Calitics community and everybody who contributed to this tremendous coverage of this year’s convention.  Juls, Brian, blogswarm, hekebolos, Lucas, atdleft, Todd, jra, da, midvalley, and I hope I’m not missing anybody else did an unbelievable job.  I’ve never seen a convention covered so thoroughly by a state blog since… the invention of state blogs.  We ran circles around traditional media at this event.  So we all should be very proud of ourselves.

Now we need to expand that role.  Obviously getting information out about the convention is vital, and I’ve had plenty of people say they were looking to Calitics for the latest news and perspective.  But if we want to help be a lever for change, we need to also  understand that there are things we can do as activists on the floor that can help bring that change about.  That means connecting with the grassroots progressives, preparing and planning for contingencies, and most important electing more officers and candidates and delegates who want to join us in this program for party reform and growth.

And let’s take up the gracious offer by Garry Shay to offer input into how the resolutions proecdure can be reviewed.  And by all means let’s those of us who are elected delegates try to get on standing committees.  Our ball has just inched off the top of the hill.  Let’s keep it rolling downward.

I thought I’d give a little bit more detail about what happened at the end of the convention, which ended with a quorum call and an abrupt close to business.

Let me first say that I do not have this inflated sense about the importance of CDP resolutions.  They reflect the spirit and the passion of the activist community of delegates, but they are not pieces of legislation that can be enforced.  They are a nice endorsement for certain issues, and the delegates can feel like they have done something.  But they are not binding.  It has to amuse me, in a cynical way, that this entire brouhaha is over a nonbinding resolution on Iraq, brought to you by many of the same people who decried the Congress’ nonbinding resolution on Iraq.

That said, I do think it’s a serious issue from the standpoint of small-d democracy and the ability for the will of the delegation to be expressed, as well as what it bodes for the real structural reforms that are needed in the party.

On the flip…

The facts of the situation are this.  There were 13 resolutions voted on at the convention on the final day.  This was the very last business done on the floor, and this is fairly typical in an off-year (endorsements, I believe, sometimes come after the resolutions).  We’ve gone over how the resolutions committee did a lot of the work on resolutions before anyone ever got to the convention, making rulings on the 104 resolutions submitted, and in some cases tabling, referring, or directing resolutions as out of order.  Eventually the 104 were whittled down to the 13 that went to the floor, the result of many meetings and compromises.

Now, the progressive grassroots, led by PDA (Progressive Democrats of America), really focused their attention on an impeachment resolution.  They would maybe say otherwise, but it is undeniable.  They worked their tails off and mobilized dozens of supporters to carry banners, flyers, signs, to sit in every committee meeting.  They whipped their people up into a frenzy over it.  Added to this outside strategy was an inside strategy, using former members of the Resolutions Committee as a liaison to hammer out compromise language that could get the resolution to the floor.  They succeeded on their main goal; an “investigations toward impeachment” resolution passed.  This was really something of a small miracle, and the result of hard work and serious grassroots action.

But there was a price.  All of the energy put into the impeachment resolution took away from many of the other priorities of the Progressive Slate, priorities on which I ran – single-payer health care, clean money, election protection, net neutrality.  None of these made it out of committee.  Privately, some high-profile PDA members were very angry about this series of events.  They considered it wrong to ditch these other important proposals to put all the eggs in the impeachment basket.  I would add the 58-county strategy and the Audit Committee proposals to that, which were remanded to a task force for study, despite the fact that a significant number of signatures were collected to bring it to the floor (it couldn’t because of that new rule about resolutions which are referred or tabled not allowed to go through that process).  Chairman Torres appointed some of the main leaders in creating the Audit Committee proposal to the task force, and seemed sincere in his vow to abide by the wish to look at how the CDP funds races.  Stay tuned on that.

Resolutions on Iraq fell somewhere in the middle.  The Chairman of the Party and Senate leader Perata had a vested interest in getting the delegates to endorse their language on the Out of Iraq initiative, scheduled to move through the legislative process and onto the February ballot.  Here’s the key text:

BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Party wholeheartedly supports the following statement: “The people of California, in support of the men and women serving in the Armed Forces of the United States, urge President Bush to end the US occupation of Iraq and immediately begin the safe and orderly withdrawal of all United States combat forces; and further urge President Bush and the United States Congress to provide the necessary diplomatic and non-military assistance to promote peace and stability in Iraq and the Middle East; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the California Democratic Party urges other states to follow suit unifying our country in its absolute desire to see an immediate end to the Iraq War and sending the strongest possible message to President Bush and the Republican presidential candidates.

Perata wants to take the resolution to other states as well.  And certainly there’s a benefit in forcing state Republicans and the Governor to have to take a position on Iraq before 2008 (if the state party uses those votes).  But the point is that the party leaders had a vested interest in keeping the Perata resolution clean, without amendments.

But four amendments were offered on the floor.  Any delegate can pull the resolution and move to amend, and those amendments are then voted on in turn.  It happened with a few of the other resolutions (all the amendments failed, I believe).  On this one, two amendments added more specific language; one to cut off funding totally for the occupation of Iraq, and another to de-authorize the legislation that took the country to war.  A third amendment changed “Republican presidential candidates” to “all Presidential candidates,” and a fourth tried to insert language abut Iran.  The fourth one was immediately ruled out of order and not germane.

On the others, the progressive grassroots and the Party leaders forged a compromise that, if it had succeeded, would have had everyone going home with a smile on their face.  The Perata bill would go forward without amendment; but then the two substantive amendments, on cutting funding and de-authorization, would become separate resolutions that could be debated and voted on immediately thereafter.  Chairman Torres had to suspend the normal rules regarding resolutions to make this happen, and it showed an effort to offer the best of both worlds.  Sen. Perata gets his bill endorsed by the Party, and the progressives get their resolutions the full force of passage.  A cheer went up in the crowd when this happened.  A lot of goodwill was gained in that moment.  PDA and their allies would have gone home meeting their goals on Iraq and impeachment, which would not have been expected.

And then, in a moment, it was gone.

Karen Wingard, a regional director from Southern California, in association with Ted Smith, a member of the Resolutions Committee, called for quorum.  The rest here:

Someone called for a quorum on the presumption that there wouldn’t be a quorum, so no more debate could be conducted and business would be over.  When the quorum call was made, they immediately started counting–I barely had time to run from the blogger table back to my region–much less anyone from the hallway.

A lot of people are upset about this–there are people who are saying they expect parliamentary crap like this to be pulled by the Republican party, not by Democrats.

A quorum is 1155, and there are only 623 delegates.  No more business can be conducted.  The convention is over and we can only hear reports.

All of the goodwill of the previous several minutes was lost.  People predisposed to believe the worst about the Party leadership was given the excuse they needed to believe it.

But this didn’t appear to be an inside job.  Chairman Torres and the leadership wouldn’t have negotiated such a compromise in the first place knowing that it would be sabotaged, would he?  It made things so much worse, I cannot imagine why he would think to do that.  And people we talked to afterwards said that the Chairman was genuinely shocked by the turn of events.  Once quorum is called, counting must go on; he cannot overturn a bylaw, only a rule.  So the die was cast.

Anyone can make a quorum call.  The reasons for it can only be speculative on my part.  Calitics calls on those who pursued this divisive strategy to subvert small-d democracy and silence the will of the remaining delegates to come forward and explain exactly why they felt the need to do so.

The other thing that must be discussed here is that the underlying structure of the convention lends itself for this kind of thing to happen.  Resolutions are done last, and in this example, this was the last resolution discussed.  There were less reasons for delegates to stay as the day wore on.  If the resolutions are supposed to reflect the spirit of all the delegates, it seems to me that the Party could make a good-faith effort to not make them an afterthought by putting them dead last.

Like I said, resolutions aren’t bound with the force of law.  But they mean something on at least a spiritual level to a great many activists and people who bring so much energy and effort to the Party.  Furthermore, the suspicion that there isn’t enough transparency in how the Party does business is already there.  This “sour taste” allowed many progressives to believe everything they already wanted to believe.  We have an opportune moment in America, where new activists are interested and excited by the prospect of real progressive change, and are getting involved for the very first time.  The CDP needs to respect and honor that.

Our next steps in the progressive movement are to continue to work within the system, PRIORITIZE AND UNIFY, connect and communicate and grow, polish up on our Roberts Rules of Order, win more AD elections and County Committee slots, elect candidates that will appoint progressives, sit on the task force that can ensure a 58-county strategy and financial transparency, and make sure that those who would rather stifle debate than lead are held accountable.

(cross-posted from Courage Campaign)

On Friday, Raymond Lutz, intrepid President of the East County Democratic Club, presented a late resolution opposing Blackwater West to the resolutions committee at the California Democratic Convention. That committee meeting started at 3:30pm and didn't end until they got through all 104 timely resolutions and then finally got to the late ones. Raymond wasn't up until after 7pm. Unfortunately, after he presented his resolution, there was an objection from the committee, which rendered the resolution dead. They wouldn't even hear it. The committee member who objected cited the fact that California has dealings with Blackwater (do we now?) and he had an issue with the second resolved phrase of the resolution. The only reason we know the objector's reasoning was that Raymond got up after the objection and passionately pleaded to be able to take the resolution to the floor. The committee chair was moved enough to dig into it deeper but the objection stood. Join me…

That didn't stop Raymond's planned press conference the next morning, which featured the lone Potrero Planning Board member who opposes Blackwater West, Jan Hedlun and the congressman representing the area, Bob Filner. Remarkably, during the press conference, Congressman Filner promised to take the resolution and turn it into federal legislation. Here’s the video:

Raymond remarked to me in the aftermath of all of this that he had really underestimated the lack of knowledge about the issue among people at the convention. That's what we're trying to turn around with our petition. After sending it out on Thursday, in two days we had received almost 1,500 signatures. Please sign it today and let's get that number up over 2,000.

We'll follow the progress of the resolution as it hopefully at least gets debated on the floor of the House of Representatives. But in the meantime, the resolution Raymond wrote has been referred to the July e-board meeting up in Sacramento. 

Look forward to an upcoming post about the latest Potrero drama: the recall election of the 7 planning group members who are in favor of Blackwater West. A few of them reportedly were flown to North Carolina to see the main Blackwater training camp and apparently Filner was wined and dined on Blackwater's yacht in San Diego Harbor this weekend. The one planning group member who opposes the deal, Jan Hedlun, was at the protest as well and it was a pleasure to meet her. Watch her speak out here:

Blackwater is desperate to have this training camp pass through the Board of Supervisors and we're going to have some work to do in order to stop it.

Visit stopblackwater.net for more and as always, visit Terry at Terry Face Place, a great local blog. She’s been following this way longer than I have.

As expected, he is mostly playing up his diplomatic experience. He’s also laying out his priorities of what he’ll do as president. 1st day in office: out of Iraq, no residual troops. 2nd day in office: announce an Apollo energy program. 3rd day in office: plan to revitalize education. Minimum wage for teachers: $40,000/year. 4th day in office: universal healthcare. 5th day: jobs program.

More over the fold and in the comments…

“I would tear down that wall between America and Mexico!” He’s good on immigration. He’s calling for earned citizenship and compassion.

He just spoke out against the Supreme Court ruling and declared his support for a woman’s right to choose.

“I will be a president who promotes civil unions and domestic partnerships.”

“I love you all, not just because you’re important and you moved up your primary. I ask you California, vote on the basis of who has the most experience, not on who’s the biggest rock star or who has the most money. Vote on who can change America”

He’s making his case:

“I have experience. We tried someone who didn’t have experience…”

“I’m a governor. We elect governors in this country.”

John Edwards has just been introduced. As you might expect for a Sunday at 10am timeslot, the crowds and energy that accompanied Obama to the stage are not present for Edwards, but it also allows him to work the delegate crowd as Barack was not able to. He just took the stage and he’s being greeted by a standing ovation. This place loves this guy.

The place is now chanting “Edwards! Edwards!”

More over the flip…

UPDATE: Edwards called for a US-led global campaign to provide free primary education for every child…in the world.

And he said:

“When I am president of the United States, on the first day I’m in office, you have my word that Guantanamo will be closed!”

UPDATE2: You should see how quickly the press is running to the press conference. There’s the feeling that something important just happened here. Still have chills. Going to the press conference. And by the way, he left the stage to “There goes My Hero” by Foo Fighters. Indeed.

He is recognizing the loss of Rep. Millender-Macdonald.

Personal thank you from Elizabeth: “thank you for your support.”

What’s at stake in this election. “I have such a strong belief in what the Dem party is suppossed to represent. It is time for us to lead again…bravely, boldly to take AMerica where it needs to go.”

He referred to Iraq as a “bleeding sore” again. He just apologized for his vote. “I am speaking out with every fiber of my being to get out of Iraq.”

“WE OUGHT TO START PULLING OUT TODAY, NOT TWO MONTHS FROM NOW.”

Ahh, he used Barbara Boxer’s line: “And by the way, elections have consequences, don’t they?”

“If the president vetoes that bill, it’s George Bush not supporting the troops, not Congress. We need the Congress to stand strong and firm. If he vetoes that they should send the bill bakc to him again!”

“We have to show strength and courage, this is about life and death, this is about war and WE HAVE TO BE STRONG!”

He’s talking about restoring America’s moral standing in the world.

“The president needs to travel the world…he needs to say America is not just a place, it’s an idea.”

“The world needs to see our commitment to humanity.”

He says we need to address the Darfur genocide. “The world sees that the most powerful country in the world has declared that genocide is occuring and stepped aside and did nothing.”

“WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS BETTER THAN THIS.”

“I have no idea how popular this is politically but I stand for this…we need to launch a campaign to provide primary education to every child in the world!”

“When I am president of the United States, on the first day I’m in office, you have my word that Guantanamo will be closed!”

“We need the US to build fuel efficient cars with union workers.”

“We need the president of the United States to call on Americans to be patriotic about something other than war!”

“People say ‘Why do you keep talking about 37 million people in poverty? No one else is talking about it.’ I’ll tell you why:

“BECAUSE IT’S WRONG!”

“If my party can’t be the party of the poor, the elderly, the disenfranchised, why else do we exist?”

His repeated refrain: “WE’RE BETTER THAN THIS.”

He just called for a living wage in America.

“You want to know what movement built the American middle class: THE LABOR MOVEMENT.”

“I’m proud to have walked picket lines, I’m proud to help workers organize.”

“If you can join the Republican Party by putting your name on a card, you should be able to join a union by doing the same thing.”

“We ought to ban the hiring of permanent replacements for strikers and make that the law of the land.”

“We ought to make it easier for kids to go to college.”

College for everyone: kids get through high school, eligible for college, commit to working 10 hours a week while there and college is free.

Now he’s on Healthcare:

“It’s not enough to say you’re for universal healthcare without laying out how you’re going to do it.”

He’s talking about his plan and says “it may end up with single payer if that’s what the country wants.”

The whole place is chanting “EDWARDS!”.

“We know what needs to be done. Getting out of Iraq, universal healthcare, lifting millions of famililes out of poverty…WE JUST NEED TO DO IT!”

“The one thing we need to face up to is that race plays an enormous role in the growing economic inequality.”

“Those pictures coming out of the ninth ward in New Orleans…that is not OK.”

“All these things that we want to do will not happen unless and until we have a Democrat in the White House in 2008.”

The place is chanting his name again. The energy is growing.

“All my brothers and sisters here in California who can campaign and compete hard in CA and NY, but also New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, Georgia…all over the country.”

“All the good we want to do requires that Nancy Pelosi remains Speaker of the House.”

He’s talking about the importance of winning even more congressional and senate seats. He’s  essentially endorsing the 50-state strategy. Challenging EVERYWHERE.

“What are YOU willing to do? The great movements in our history didn’t start in Washington DC, they started right here. We need you again, we need you to speak out and change this country.”

Net neutrality, as a resolution for this convention, is in effect dead.  The resolution has been referred to the Labor Caucus, and that ruling will stand.

Now there is some good news.  Brad Parker, a member of PDA and a staunch supporter of Net Neutrality, is on the Labor Caucus.  He has spoken to people on that caucus and people on the Resolutions Committee, and he believes that he can get a strong resolution to the floor by the next convention.  So it’s a waiting game.

What has not been resolved is the idea that you can refer a resolution to a caucus, which as I said is unprecedented.  Parker intends to take it up in the Resolutions Committee happening right now, and if not there then in the Rules Committee.  The shenanigans pulled here were unconscionable.

About the impeachment resolution: there is no doubt in my mind that the new substitute language will become one of the top 10 resolutions brought to the floor tomorrow.  The Resolutions Committee members would not be able to leave that room if they didn’t place it in the top 10.

No word on getting the Audit Committee to a floor vote, I’ll check on that.

And the Calitics staff did an exclusive interview with Sen. Christopher Dodd, we should have something on that (with pics) soon.

From a CDP press release:
California Democratic Party Sets New Delegate Attendance Record

San Diego - The California Democratic Party (CDP) today announced their 2007 state convention in San Diego set an all-time delegate attendance record.

Demonstrating a tremendous surge in energy and enthusiasm, 2,264 of the 2,801 CDP delegates registered for attendance at the Party's annual gathering.

In addition, the CDP registered 450 guests and 700 volunteers for a total of 3,414 attendees.
The CDP also registered more than 400 applications for press credentials.

The CDP created a new rule with regard to resolutions in this convention.  In order to be able to bring a resolution to a floor vote, it either has to make it through the Resolutions committee or be outright rejected.  If it is referred or tabled, it cannot be brought to the floor.  This is a brand new rule that nobody anticipated, that was not voted on by the delegates, and that seems, dare I say, undemocratic.

And this is exactly what was done with the Net Neutrality resolution at the convention.  Worse, they referred it to the Labor Caucus.  Now, there is absolutely no precedent for referring a resolution to a caucus.  It’s never been done before.  There’s no mechanism for the Labor Caucus to do anything with it.  This was simply a way to push aside the Net Neutrality resolution in order to hope it is forgotten.  We in the netroots cannot let this happen.  It’s antithetical to the notion of democracy and a free & open Internet.

(BTW, this was also done with respect to other resolutions, including impeachment, Iraq, and Iran resolutions put forward by Progressive Democrats of America.  I spoke with Marcy Winograd about this earlier, and there will be some fireworks at the next resolutions committee meeting at 5pm PT.)