Velma's State Convention Report

[VelmaD]

As requested (read ordered) by PDittie, here's my report and thoughts on the State Convention. Fair warning: I haven’t had a lot of sleep and this will probably get babbly. Oh, and there’s a lot of the personal mixed in with the political.

Thursday I left Austin too late to make it to the State Democratic Executive Committee meeting but I heard it wasn’t all that exciting anyway. Basically Thursday was a party. Crashed in the hotel room then got all dressed up, had drinks with the DUers in the Hyatt bar and hit the party at the Aquarium hosted by John Sharp. The Aquarium is really cool. Has great neon outside and the inside is a bit like being underwater. And they have some bizarre looking fish in the big central tank. The upside, free booze. The downside was that it was packed, you couldn’t hear a thing, and the big ferris wheel outside was closed. *pout*

Anyway, we went out to a fine little Mexican place with the yummiest margaritas. This would be the beginning of the long drinking binge we all went on at the convention. :evilgrin:

Friday it was down to business. Picked up my credentials and then wandered around looking for the caucus meetings. It was really annoying. The convention center is poorly laid out and there was no map provided to the delegates. *sigh*

I am a member of the Progressive Populist Caucus and we had a big day Friday. We were pushing an electronic voting resolution and had a wonderful speaker on the topic from Rice University. I got roped into helping get people signed into the caucus to vote and we must have signed up at least a couple hundred new members. Maybe more. Our room was PACKED. It was neat to see so many people wanting to publicly affirm that they are progressives and populists.

After that it was lunch. Thanks PDittie for picking the fine little Italian restaurant. Sorry I spent lunch so wigged out. I lost my driver’s license and was thrilled with the assistance I got from the Convention staff, the Houston PD officers, and the Security staff at the convention center. My license turned up and Security even brought it to an easy to find spot so I wouldn’t have to get lost looking for their office. :yourock:

Then it was off to the Senate District Caucus. I can only speak to SD14’s Caucus but it was typical in that we got started VERY late. But we managed to get to everything except electing out National delegates before we had to be downstairs for the opening of the convention. As you may have heard already I was elected out of my SD to the Credentials Committee. GO ME! :)

The opening of the convention was great. We got serenaded by the marching band from Thurgood Marshall High School. They ROCKED! Someone else is going to have to report on what the speakers said that night, particularly John Edwards, because I missed most of it because they had to convene the credentials committee to work out a fight in SD23. I heard Edwards was good though and that there was much excited squealing from the female delegates. :eyes:

The fight in Credentials was the reason I ran in the first place. I had been warned it was coming. Basically they broke the rules for elevating alternates to delegate status (because they didn’t like the race of the alternates in question) and the alternates and some delegates walked out of their caucus, called the Parliamentarian in and then held a rump caucus when they were unable to get their concerns addressed. We had to settle what to do about it in the Committee. Both sides go up and presented their cases and we asked questions and then the weird shit started. The Chair called a 5 minute recess and asked the “affected parties” to meet him in the hallway to talk about it. Well, it went on for way more than 5 minutes. I headed to the potty and when I got back they were still out in the hall arguing. I made a comment and the Chair tried to order everyone else but “the affected parties” back into the Committee room. Well, I didn’t take kindly to that and made a snarky comment about how we should be talking about it in Committee not in a hallway.

So, he drug everyone back inside. I found out later from a friend who was an “affected party” that the Chair was trying to broker a deal. That’s all fine and good but he shouldn’t have been doing it out in a hallway. Anyway, the Committee was having none of it. You could tell from the start what was going to end up being the resolution. We ordered the SD to elevate the alternates, completely redo their caucus, and required them to have the Parliamentarian present at all times to make sure they followed the Rules.

By the time we were done the general session was almost over. My SD had to reconvene its caucus to elect National delegates. It took forever as we proved yet again that Will Rogers was right, we’re “not members of an organized political party”. *sigh* I didn’t get elected but I’m pretty happy with the group we’re sending. One of the male delegates in particular was a real sweetie. I met him a couple of times and I think he’ll do just fine. He promised to have enough fun in Boston for the both of us. We’re also sending an Arab-American as a delegate, which is pretty cool.

After the SD caucus my night got bad. I was moving out of the hotel room I stayed in Thursday night and into a DUer’s place. I couldn’t find my friend who had the key to the hotel room, he was in the SD we made completely redo their caucus. I wandered around the convention center looking for him and finally had a blood sugar crash. It was awful. But slutticus picked me up and took me to Katz’s and fed me up. The funny part was while we were waiting for our table NoPasaran and sonias walked in. Serendipity. And there was Death By Chocolate which saved my evening. :)

Saturday was amazing. Dennis K was the big speaker on Saturday and he brought the house down. There was much yelling and cheering and my voice is still shot to hell. The Killer D’s also spoke and there was much adulation from the crowd. :yourock:

Things did get a little bogged down later on Saturday. I got bored with the interminable speakers and wandered around the exhibit hall. Got GOPisEvil a t-shirt for his birthday. Got myself lots of stickers and buttons and whatnot to decorate myself. I got a particularly lovely pin from the Muslim Democrats. I also joined Texas Democratic Veteran’s in honor of my brother and cousins who have served and my favorite DU veterans – DarkPhenyx, matcom, Skittles, and the rest of our gang of fine DU vets. Their speaker on Saturday morning was wonderful and he easily convinced me (along with hundreds of other folks) to go and support his caucus.

Finally ran into BlueCollar while I was walking around outside to get some air. He yelled at me for not eating again and made me go have some red beans and rice at the concession stand. Had to hold a gun to my head and everything. ;) We talked for a bit and wandered back to the main hall in time to start voting on resolutions.

We passed all sorts of resolutions. The Texas Democrats came out opposed to electronic voting machines that don’t provide the voter a paper ballot showing who they voted for. Hooray! :party: We’re in favor of medical marijuana and a moratorium on the death penalty. We’re in favor of a Department of Peace – this one had a little floor fight because the resolution came out of committee without the “be it resolved” that included the Department of Peace specifically, but it got added back in on the floor and passed. If anyone can think of any other resolutions that passed feel free to add to the list.

We also voted on the platform and I read most of it but I really didn’t pay much attention while they were talking about it because I was talking with a bunch of people from my SD. I met some of the most fabulous people and everywhere I went people were stopping me to ask about what happened in the Credentials Committee. It was so neat to have people recognize me and know my name. :)

Anyway, after the voting we adjourned and democracy was officially saved. :toast:

And then we PARTIED. Me and slutticus and PDittie and his wife and BlueCollar and Lisa0825 ate and then wandered through various and sundry bars getting hammered. Thanks to everyone who stood a round that night. :beer: *big smooches* There was a lot of booze and not much sleep Saturday night. So we were all a little bleary at brunch on Sunday but it was yummmmmmmmy.

A few thanks are in order. First and foremost to PDittie and his wife for all the planning they did. I highly endorse PDittie as your tour guide when in Houston. Everywhere we went the food was amazing.

Thanks to slutticus too for putting me up when my best friend’s family got to be too much for me at the hotel. You may be the only person on earth whose car is messier than mine, but yes you were a good host.

And thanks to everyone who kept me company and made me eat and listened while I ranted about my Committee meeting and got me drunk. I had a fabulous time at this convention and it wouldn’t have been nearly so neat without everyone from DU.

[Lithos]

1. Sounds very productive

And a good time was had by all...

A true win-win!

Thanks for sharing this!

:)

L-

[Richardo]

2. "It is.....how it was."*

:)

* Purportedly said by Pope John Paul II after he saw Mel Gibson's "Bloodfest of the Christ". But in VelmaD's case, TRUE! :D

[sonias]

3. Great report Velma

And thanks for clearing up the problem with SD23, everyone heard about the fight but not the details. Thanks for helping out there. If anyone knows anymore about the Dallas representative and the Stonewall Democrat issue, please give us some details on that too. I asked a friend of mine in the Stonewall Dems although she's from Travis and she didn't hear what the fight was about except that it also had to do with support for delegates.

Short report on SD25 caucus. It was too damn long but Democracy can be messy, so you have to get a little dirty to play. For those of you not familiar with SD25 it covers parts of 6 counties from S/W Travis to parts Bexar in San Antonio. We thought we were being smart about how to vote for our National delegates and had to re-do our votes entirely after the convention on Friday. So it took us way past midnight. However the delegation was pretty impressive in the mix. We were to elect 4 delegates and 1 male alternate. We chose 3 Hispanic/Latinos/Latinas and 1 African American. The age mix covered the whole range. Our African American delegate from Hayes county was in her mid 70s. Our alternate delegate from Comal county was an 18 year old white male. Our two Latino men (one from Travis and one from Bexar) are both in their mid 20s. Our Latina woman from (Bexar) was in her 40s.

Also there was a regime change at the SDEC level in our SD, both of our SDEC committee people were changed with people who were backed the the PPC (progressive populist caucus). I heard quite a bit of that happened (regime change) in all SDs.

Sonia

[slutticus]

4. Thanks Velma!

Great report! I had a great time. If it wasn't for DU and all the awesome DUers I would have never gone to the convention and gotten involved.

:yourock:

[Gman]

5. I'm glad you guys had a great time, Velma

It looks like you guys had a blast! That's great. I knew you guys would enjoy it.

I wanted to go visit with you guys but I was up at the nominations commmittee meeting all day (all day) Saturday trying to get my wife out as a national delegate. (She lost out in a runoff for the last two alternate positions. Several of our votes on the committee left before the committee's work was done and a few that had commmitted to her flaked on us. All was not lost though, as she was appointed to the Resolutions/Platform committee for the national convention.) Then on Friday, we only sat in the convention for a little while after our Senate District caucus before we went and ate. When we came back, the convention had already adjourned.

I'm picking up information here at DU on things that happened as we weren't able to spend near as much time in the convention as we wanted to spend.

We left Saturday evening back to San Antonio about 7 pm and got to I10 and Hwy 6 when I abruptly hit someone's spare tire laying in the middle of the I10 and had a blow out and also badly damaged another tire. So we spent another nite before limping back to SA Sunday. Thank goodness for full coverage insurance!

As for me, I got elected as a national delegate out of our Senate District. I'm looking forward to it as I haven't been to a national convention since 1992.

[Richardo]

6. Congratualations, Gman

Goin' to Boston! :thumbsup:

Sorry you missed the extracurricular activities, but sounds like you were fully engaged in the backroom. Glad you and your wife made it back to SA in one piece.

[Gman]

7. I get off on the "back room politics" stuff!

and enjoyed it when it was the proverbial "smokey back room" before they banned smoking in these buildings.

I talked with a lot of the young people including those in my SD and listened to how they thought many of the votes in the SD's were "prearranged". My probably perceived as blunt but intended as didactic response was that most times they are prearranged. That's how convention politics works. (And I know what its like to be young and have some old guy tell you something like that. When I was 20, no one had more attitude than me!) You start before the county/SD convention and you do your "lobbying" or politicing with your fellow delegates and get committments. At the state convention, if you're in an SD with more than one county, you try to get your county to vote as a block to preserve the full voting strength of your county. If everything falls into place (unlike the committed votes we had on the nomination committee that left the meeting early and the 3 or 4 that flaked on us), you can win. If you don't win, you've already laid the ground work for 2 years from now and even 4 years from now.

No, its not true "democracy" in the sense of everyone purely voting their conscience and their votes count equally. But its no different on the most grand scale, from what we are trying to do while trying to get Kerry elected. Putting together coalitions (labor, environmental groups, MoveOn.org, et al) and trying to sway or keep other groups (moderate Republicans conservative Democrats).

I missed it in the convention (I was there but talking and not paying attention) when they had all the first time attendees stand up. My wife said it was easily 70% of the convention. That often happen in presidential years. I'm sure many of them were upset/surprised/disappointed to find out that's how it works. Next time you guys go just "play the game" and you'll be surprised how far you can get.

As of this convention I've been going to conventions for 30 years so I guess I'm that "establishment" now! But I also used to enjoy being the maverick or rebel against the establishment as much as anyone!

[Richardo]

8. I'd really like to be a delegate next time around...

I've been a political 'lurker' for many years and have just taken the plunge this year to be at all active. (Bush is a motivator, not a divider :) )

Thanks for the reports, both Gman and VelmaD. It was a blast even from the sidelines.

[sonias]

11. Congratulations Gman!

Way to go, you give 'em hell in Boston for the Texas delegation. You will have to post your convention report about Boston on DU-Texas too.

Glad you and your wife both made it home safely.

Sonia

[Gman]

12. I'm already thinking about doing one or two reports a day

on what's going on, what the rumors are, what people are doing and saying (or not doing and saying) and that type thing. I'll post them to the Texas forum.

[Lisa0825]

9. Great report, VelmaD!

I had heard about that SD23 deal, and wondered what it was all about!!! Congrats to you on being on the credentials committee! It was great seeing you again, and meeting some other DUers. I was so wiped out from the late nights, early mornings, and busy days that it took me two days to recharge!LOL

[Gman]

13. Lisa, in your opinion,

does Morrison have a chance. Most people at the top levels of the party really don't give Morrison much of a chance. As one person put it to me (and I posted on another thread), "if Delay gets indicted AND gets caught in bed with a dead woman, or a live boy or maybe both, Morrison may get 45% of the vote."

Do you live in his district? I know the Sugarland/Rosenberg area is a solid lock for Delay. Seems to me Morrison has to turn out record numbers of people to the polls on election day in his areas (like Hitchcock, Santa Fe and others) in order to win because these areas are not as populous as Sugarland/Rosenberg.

Any thoughts?

[Lisa0825]

14. I am not in his district, but about 2 miles outside of it....

I am in Galveston county, half of which got redistricted into Delay's district. Galveston County is one of the most Democratic counties in Texas, and DeLay's approval rating is sinking like a rock (38% and falling). I don't know what Morrison's chances are, but I'd rather be optimistic than defeatist. If we will EVER take back Texas, people like Richard who are willing to take a stand have to run, whether they think they will win or not. We shouldn't let Republicans run unopposed! That's just a shame! Even if Richard loses this time, that's name recognition earned for the next run. Texans have to start fighting back, or we'll never break out of the repug stranglehold.

Morrison's volunteers are a very energetic and motivated group. I help out when I can, but there is a much more involved core group. One of their goals is to get 50,000 NEW Democratic voters. They have lots of registration drives and visibility events planned too. Hardly anyone had heard of this guy 6 months ago. He's come a LONG way already! Did you see him at the convention? His hospitality suite was PACKED, and he got a lot of attention everywhere he went. If his support keeps growing at this rate, I say nothing is impossible.

[ChickMagic]

10. I didn't realize you were in the Fighting 23rd!

My buddy that I was hanging out with all weekend is from that district! He gave me the lowdown on the whole thing. He was an alternate and never got credentialed as a delegate because of the mess, but still got an awesome seat.