Who votes for DNC chair?

[KamaAina]

That is, who are the DNC members? Democratic congressional reps and Senators? Dem state party chairs? Dem state legislators, etc? Any clues?

[Robbien]

1. Rosenburg did a very good blog entry describing the process

http://64.78.28.17/blog/archives/2005/01/how_the_process.html

[KamaAina]

2. How are those 200 delegates selected?

(200) Delegates allocated based equally on state population and on Democratic vote for President, with weighting for women and minority groups

Similar to delegates to the Dem convention?

What I'm getting at here is "How stacked is this process in favor of the party regulars, particularly the DLC, and thus against Dean?" The answer appears to be "Pretty heavily stacked", depending on what happens with the huge blocs of 200 (above) and 75 additional at-large delegates.

[SheilaT]

3. The state party chairs

were all elected at least two years ago.

I was speaking with our state party chair (Kansas) recently, and he said that at a recent get-together of those who'll be doing the electing of the new DNC chair, there was clearly strong sentiment in favor of Dean, although he's certainly not a shoo-in at this point. He (KS chair) said that the Midwesterners feel very strongly that they need a DNC chair not from inside the Beltway, and Dean's main drawback is that he is from the east coast.

[MaineDem]

5. Here in Maine our state party chair was elected last Sunday

I don't think most chairs were elected 2 years ago. Most are elected following the biennial election.

[SheilaT]

7. Oops. What I should have said

was that the current Kansas chair was elected 2 years ago. I'd forgotten, until you just reminded me, that all the chairs are re-elected every two years. Our state convention is coming up. The Congressional district caucus is in a week or so, and I'm actually a delegate to it, so I should have been remembering. I'm also hoping to continue to be a delegate through this process, and become one at the state level so I can have input at the national level.

It is somewhat like the process of becoming a delegate to the national convention, especially in a caucus state.

[MaineDem]

4. Each state elects its DNC members, usually at the convention

Plus the Chair and Vice Chair of each state party is a voting member of the DNC.

[Robbien]

6. A DUer just went to their state's election of delegates

see this thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1486891&mesg_id=1486891

for an exciting example of how we can change things at a local level.