Does your senate district vote in block by county?

[johncoby2]

My Senate District has 3 counties, Harris, Galveston, and Brazoria. With 66, 67, and 42 delegates.

Harris and Galveston will make a deal to split up the nominations for positions between the counties. Therefore Brazoria will never get a National delegate position.

Then the counties vote in a block, as an agreement for the nominations.

Some of us don't think it is right. The best person regardless of the origin of county, should be elected to the positions, SDEC chair, committee positions, or National delegates. Instead of having pre arranged agreements.

We actually think it is against the party rules.

Anyone else do this?

[Gman]

1. Welcome to convention politics

While you are idealistically correct that the best person should be elected, that is hardly ever how it works. There are some undercurrents that you may not be aware of. Those are likely having to do with the three main caucuses of the Texas Democratic Party. They are, Labor, Rainbow Coalition and Hispanic Democrats (be they Mexican American Democrats or Tejano Democrats or what ever their name may be after the next fight).

All three of these want their people on the various committees and positions. I don't know but I highly suspect Brazoria County has very few members of these caucuses while I know for a fact Harris and Galveston counties do. I would actually expect labor and Rainbow Coalition to control your SD.

Each of these groups have their own agenda and thus their own reasons for wanting their people on these committees. Those reasons are compatible with the goals of the TDP.

Unfortunately if you don't have the votes, you don't have the votes. But also remember that even if you don't have all 47 delegates seated, you can always vote your delegation strength of 47 votes even if you only have 1 delegate present.

What can you do about it? Delegate numbers are determined according to the number of votes for the Democratic nominee for governor in a county in November. Turn out more people and you get more delegates. And, I know its not that that easy to do, especially in Brazoria County.

What is going on with your SD is common when smaller counties are paired with metro areas in Senate Districts.

I would suggest that you contact your SDEC persons fairly soon and tell them what you want. Maybe in the name of unity they will give you something that's not especially significant to them like Resolutions or Platform committee positions. Those two tend to be committees no one else wants. It will also give Harris and Galveston counties a reason to say they gave Brazoria something. As for the more important positions like Nominations, Rules or SDEC, rest assured Harris and/or Galveston counties will hold onto them real tight.

That's just the way convention politics works. Good luck and don't quit. Redistricting is coming up in 4 years and who knows what the lay of the land will be then. So, stick around and keep going to state conventions and people will start remembering your face. It also helps a lot to be associated with a group such as labor or one of the others. Join one of them.

[crispini]

3. ROFL! I was on R&P at our SD.

:rofl: I tend to agree.

I think getting on Credentials is a good way to work up to Nominiations, what do you think?

[Gman]

4. You never want to be on the Credentials Committee

unless you want to work your butt off.

As for it leading to Nominations, probably not. The person that is selected to Nominations is always someone everyone considers to be very tough and outspoken. You may be that person, but it has nothing to do with how you do on Credentials. This person usually already has a long reputation for being someone up to this job as described. Its a reputation you get not at the convention, but from your everyday work in labor or civil rights or whatever cause and being out there in the community all the time and fighting. The job of the Nominations person is to work, cajol, twist arms, harrass, threaten and anything else it takes to get their slate of people out and to the convention. As for who the Nominations committee votes out to the convention, in 04, the last female (any color) alternate delegate spot came down to a young 18 year old (and cute) first time convention goer and an older mid-40's woman who had a long record of accomplishment in organized labor as well as the Texas Democratic Party. Who did Nominations vote for? Of course, the young 18 year old.

Don't look for any rhyme or reason in convention politics and never look for "the right thing" to be done. The right thing is always relative depending on which group your associated with.

I say all this with over 30 years experience at these things because I've seen it all! I've been SDEC for 6 years as well as a Clinton Delegate in '92 and Kerry Delegate in '04.

[muse]

6. My question is

Was the woman in her mid-40's not cute, also? I'm in my mid-40's and let's rally around me and my attempts at being cute! :)

No, my real comment is another issue, and you actually bring it up - is there a place for people with less experience? I was in a situation recently where a woman went on a diatribe about how those with less experience should basically "look up to their elders" and bow down to them and let them run the party. You know - stay out of their way, shut up, mind their manners and be good little children.

My point was that the party needs new blood. Maybe someone who is smart, sharp, with-it, but doesn't have the same old thinking. Of any age.

[Gman]

10. The woman in her mid-40's was drop dead gorgeous!

But then I'm a bit biased because she was (still is) my wife!

We had plenty of committments from nominations committee members to get her to the convention but as the day wore on, the committee lost a lot of people who were leaving to go home. We also lost several votes on people that just plain flaked out on us. It was still a close vote.

[muse]

12. OK, just checking!

I hope your wife reads this board. :)

[VelmaD]

7. Hey...I had fun on Credentials...

at the State convention in '04. :)

[NoPasaran]

8. Sounds like Credentials is in for another helping of fun in '06

[VelmaD]

9. yup...

and my current plan is to run again to be on credentials. We didn't let them get away with the same old bullshit last time and if we have to smack someone down again this time...well, we can do that. :)

[Gman]

11. Let me clarify...

You don't want to be on the Temporary Credentials Committee... they do the majority of the work of getting the convention up, organized and going. Bad thing is you end up spending as much as a few days getting things ready.

I say, "bad thing" only because it's not my thing.

The Permanent Credentials Committee can be a very powerful committee in the event of a challenge. I brought a challenge to the committee at the 1990 convention. Had a bunch of people added on as delegates after the Senatorial Convention nominations committee report was approved by the SD convention. At that time doing this was not allowed in the TDP rules. The folks that did it were going after me as I was running for reelection to SDEC at the time so I needed the credentials committee to rule these delegates were ineligible and not delegates. We didn't win it. I was urged to bring a minority report to the floor of the convention (had enough votes on the commmittee to do it). However, after a considering we would end up in a roll call vote on that Friday night and we would probably be getting out of there at 3 am at the earliest if we did the roll call vote, I pulled the challenge down. I also lost my SDEC seat by about 10 votes.

But, I won my SDEC seat back in 1992 and kept it until I decided not to run for reelection in 1996 and the TDP rules were changed later to make it OK to add fill delegate spots after the convention.

This is a good example of how important the Credentials Committee can be.

[VelmaD]

13. If you haven't heard about what happened in 2004...

drop me a pm and I'll tell you all about it. I think it's a story you might appreciate. :)

[crispini]

2. What? We're all in one county.

;) If it's annoying you maybe take it up with your SDEC chair?

I tend to agree w. your position btw. :hi:

[NoPasaran]

5. If all this upsets you

You probably shouldn't watch them making sausage either.

[meg]

14. There are backroom deals for our SDEC positions

The various clubs get together and decide. For SD20 this convention, these groups have picked the male to be from Nueces County and the female to be from the valley. The male is supposed to be Danny Noyola Jr.

We elected the next Nueces County Democratic Chair to be our delegation chair at our convention. I hope this stops some of the autocracy.

[muse]

15. Well, we must not have had the first damn clue what we were doing

in SD17 (the Fort Bend part of SD17). First off, the newbies (me included) casually voted off the temporary chair of the procedings (someone who has done this forever and a day) and voted in a new guy to be the permanent chair (totally new person with no clue). We almost voted out (one vote short) the guy who has been the delegatation chair forever. We had no clue about back room deals, who was in, who was out. Nobody seemed pissed off either. It was very open and sort of hilarious. Nobody seemed to be able to count the votes, so we had to literally stand up to be counted. So, it was very obvious who was voting for who.

[johncoby2]

16. Back room deals are made by back room people

When you have a group of newbies who are not invited to the back room, they put a wrench into the back rooms.

We are doing this in SD11. Slowly but surely.