How much does Glen Maxey want for TDP Chair?

[TexasLinda]

sonias said in a previous thread (Glen Maxey for Texas State Democratic Party Chair) that

"The bigger problem of course is making sure there is money for a salary. Glen can not take this position without a salary."

What are Glen's salary requirements? I've been to the Draft Maxey website and, while they ask for money I don't see where they say how much is enough. Does anybody know how this is supposed to work? Does Glen get all of the money pledged, or does he just get a base salary and anything received over that amount goes to the TDP? Glen would probably have to give up his political consulting business to be TDP Chair, so I can see where he might feel that he needs to be reimbursed for his loss of income, but how much are we talking here? If the pledges don't meet his salary requirement, does he expect to take the difference from other donations to TDP? I'm a sustaining donor to TDP and would have trouble agreeing to this unless there was money left over AFTER the salaries and health care of the office staff were paid. After all, Glen has a pension from his time with the Texas Legislature and could probably better handle any temporary funding shortfalls than low-paid staffers.

Making TDP Chair a paid position has some merit, as it can be more than a part-time job and some good people may not run because they just can't afford it. It appears that the pledges on the Draft Maxey website are only good if Maxey wins the TDP Chair race. Am I reading this right? Glen's a good Democrat and I can't see him going along with something like that. Of course, the Draft Maxey website isn't his and he probably wasn't consulted on this aspect.

So, what do you folks in DU think? Should TDP Chair be a salaried position? It's a big job with statewide responsibilites, and a salary would mean the Chair wouldn't also have to have a day job -- both freeing up time and eliminating potential ethics conflicts (a twofer!). Who would set the salary (and benefits?) and find the funding -- the SDEC?

[johncoby2]

1. Hell, we can barely keep our head above water right now....

How could be raise more money for a paid position.

By the way, has Maxey even thrown his hat in the ring?

I know there are two well qualified individuals also running who have said they are running.

[susanr516]

3. Who are the other two running?

I'm aware of Boyd Richie running, but haven't heard the name of the other individual.

[sonias]

8. Carlie Urbina-Jones from San Antonio

Is the only other candidate I know that had officially filed.

Sonia

[Gman]

11. Charlie would be the first state chair from west if I-35

by a few blocks, but still west of I-35.

Charlie has my support and endorsement.

[meg]

16. Tell us about Charlie

I'm not familiar with him. Please let us know why you support him and why he would be a good chair. Thanks!

[Gman]

22. Charlie is my good friend of many years now

Charlie has a heart as big as Dallas, maybe even Houston! He spent years as an attorney and picked up court appointed cases where he ended up being more a dad to the juvenile/young adult offender than his attorney. Charlie understands as well as anyone the socio-economic conditions that breed crime today. He understands these kids need guidance. Charlie lives in and offices in the same house he was born and raised in on San Antonio's near West Side of of W. Commerce St. He's as true to his roots as anyone. He's completely unpretentious. And, if Charlie gives you his word, you can take it to the bank.

But that's not all Charlie's about. With very little financing and while we were being told by the DCCC that they won't give us any money, Charlie twice ran against Henry Bonilla and did as well as could be expected, pulling around 35% of the vote. Charlie drove all over the (I think it's the) 26th Congressional district in his own car (keep in mind that this district is probably the size of New England) and met as many democrats (and a lot of republicans) as he could trying to win in November. He did it on a small "staff", and I use the term loosely! Charlie and I were down in Batesville, TX campaigning during the 1996 primary when we were approached by a "coyote" that promised to "deliver" all the votes in Bates ville to him for a price. We of course politely turned him down. Then we talked the for the next hour about how poor the people down in South Texas are and that they seldom have much opportunity to make any money. That's why we were propositioned. We really felt bad for the guy and his family.

One of the highlights of our South Texas trips would always be our visits to the WIC centers. Its there that you will find the poorest of the poor. Many of the young mothers are still children their selves. It always made us sad to see it. And the administraters were always so eager to talk to anyone that might could do something about their lack of funding.

It was on one of our South Texas trips that we went through the Border Patrol checkpoint on I35 north of Laredo. Charlie introduced his self to the agent that greeted us and said he was running for Congress. The agent said Charlie had his vote if he was running against Bonilla. The agent told us a story about the time Congressman Henry Bonilla went throught that checkpoint and this same agent talked to him. He told Bonilla he had written him a letter and asked if he received it. Bonilla replied with some kind of snide remark, drove down the road, then called back to the checkpoint to tell the guy's supervisor to do something about that agent. We were disgusted with Bonilla's arrogance.

Charlie has also been very instrumental in working behind the scenes in not only Bexar County Democratic politics but in the last 10 years or so on the state level. He has a knack for putting the deals together. But that does not mean Charlie's into cronyism. By no means. Charlie looks for the best person to do the job with an eye on how he/she will help people. If Charlie's about nothing else, he's about people.

I wouldn't call Charlie a "progressive" liberal. He's just a Westside guy that has never forgotten where he came from. But then again, if taking up for people that can't take up for their selves makes Charlie a "progressive" then so be it. Charlie is pro-choice and strong on women's issues. He always seems to have some little nugget of wise insight into a lot of these issues that makes me go, "You know what? You're right!"

Charlie is a Vietnam Vet and he has a special feeling for veterans. Last year he was one of the organizers of the Texas Veterans for Kerry tour of Texas, or whatever it was called. They made stops in quite a few cities for rallies. He's taken in more than a couple of Vietnam veterans that were down and out and helped them get the help they needed when they couldn't do it their self. Charlie's very compassionate.

And, Charlie's not a rich man. I suppose if he wanted to he could have been a high-dollar attorney and made his first million years ago. On the contrary, Charlie is just plain down to earth with an hilarious sense of humor.

I'm supporting Charlie as a grassroots Democrat and I'm also supporting him as a former member of the SDEC. I don't know much at all about the other person running except that I hear he has the support of another good friend, former State Chair Bob Slagle. Slagle is a good man and as good a Democrat as you will ever find. I find myself in one of the few times when I didn't support Slagle and who he is supporting. But we will remain friends.

If Charlie's going to have one fault as State Chair, its going to be that he will be too fair for his own good because Charlie feels everyone has a right to be heard. The SDEC is about as big a collection of strong and diverse personalities as any organization I've ever been affiliated with. But make no mistake, Charlie will also be a very strong Chair.

If anyone has any questions about Charlie they would like answered post them here. If they would like to meet Charlie, let me know and I'll see what can be done to arrange it. I flat don't know if he even knows about DU. We've never discussed it. He may, but I know he doesn't have a lot of time to spend somewhere like this.

Charlie is well aware of the financial problems the party is having and we have both cussed and discussed with righteously indignant outrage the way the Clinton-Gore, Gore-Lieberman and Kerry-Edwards campaigns used Texas as nothing but a bottomless money pit. Let me assure you that there is intense competition for these dollars but its a small group of well connected fund raiser individuals that intentionally compete with the state party for these dollars in order to ingratiate their selves to a new democratic president should it happen. We've all said for years that if we had that money here we could do a hell of a lot more to deliver Texas. We could probably make Texas blue. I've watched this bunch of gold-diggers since the Ann Richards campaigns do the same thing, except then they did it for Ann. I won't mention names, but they know who they are. I'm not digressing. Whoever is the next chair will have their hands full trying to keep that money in the state.

(On a side note: It was Charlie's relatively strong showing on a shoestring budget that encouraged Henry Cuellar to run against Bonilla in 02, but with a helluva lot more money. Cuellar lost by like 3,000 votes but proved what we had been saying that Bonilla was vulnerable with enough money. History has recorded that as a result of Cuellar's showing against Bonilla, Tom Delay had the legislature at the very last possible moment carve Webb (Laredo) and Zapata counties out of Bonilla's district and add them to Ciro Rodriguez' district so that Cuellar could run against Ciro. Cuellar won the election in Republican filled courts. I won't stoop to saying Cuellar beat Rodriguez as that election was filled with some atrocious irregularities in Webb and Zapata counties.)

---------------------------

(I just banged this out on the keyboard and I know I could write several pages about Charlie. So my apologies for any near-fatal grammar mistakes and spelling travesties.) Charlie's a good guy. The kind of guy you would like to sit down and have a few beers with and solve the problems of the world.

[sonias]

2. Yes, the chair should be a salaried position

And no I don't know what a Chair's salary should be. It certainly shouldn't be extravagant i.e. a 3 figure salary, but enough to live on. I expect that the first few years of building a base of sustaining membership, the party chair would not be a high paying job. The person would need to have a passion to build the party base and perhaps take a pay cut to do that. I agree wholeheartedly that a salaried chair should not work another day job, so as to devote full time to his or her duties and to avoid potential ethics conflicts.

I have no idea how the pledge thing on the draft Maxey site was designed to work i.e. how much for the salary and how much for the party. What I think is that with these pledges we are simply becoming sustaining members of the party primarily. And that the party will use those funds to build and strengthen our party. The hope is that the grassroots would pony up more $120 a year sustaining memberships that you got enough to provide for that.

Let's say that at least 835 new sustaining members signed on with these pledges, and it doesn't matter what candidate brings them in. That's 100,200 dollars more a year the party has, than it does today. I wouldn't have a problem using half of that to pay the party chair, and putting the rest into the party coffers. And let's even dream bigger, let's say that anyone of these candidates brings in 5,000 new sustaining members from throughout the state and that means an extra $600,000 into the party coffers a year. I still think that extra money goes into the coffers, for the first couple of years and that the party membership would decide the following convention on increasing the Chair's salary, based on their success. We as party members are really stakeholders of the party, and we should have a say how the party is run.

I have no idea how big the budget is at the state party, and I don't think 5,000 is that big a number for a state the size of Texas. I know the DNC sucked up millions of dollars from the state in the 2004 national races. We need to educate our Texas Democrats to give to our party first. $10/month is 33 cents a day. Less than the price of a soda and a heck of a lot less than a latte or expresso at a coffee shop.

If the candidate is a good grassroots candidate and a progressive I would work to get more sustaining pledges for that candidate, based on this model. I'm already a sustaining member of the State party, and I too would agree that a base salary for the pledge aspect of these candidacies should be set.

Our goal should not be raising money for the chair's salary - the goal is to raise money to support the party period.

Sonia

[meg]

4. Thanks for your post

You have good thoughts about a salaried chair's position - a decent wage, but not extravagant. And you said, out goal should not be raising money for the chair's salary - the goal is to raise money to support the party.

It does bother me that the draftmaxey site is raising money ONLY if Glen is chair. The navigation title says 'Pledge for the party' but the click yes line says 'YES-In the event that Representative Maxey is elected State Democratic Party Chair, I pledge to contribute:"

However, Glen already has a pension from the legistator. According to the Austin American Stateman formula, Glen gets $34,500. That is 12 years * .023 * $125,000 = $34,500. So, maybe Glen wouldn't need as much to live on.

[sonias]

6. Well lets not think of this for Glen only

If other candidates would accept the same concept of grassroots financing of the party, then we should set an even salary for anyone that wins. I don't think it would be fair to say the salary for the chair is $50,000, but if Glen wins it's only $15,500 since he gets a pension from the state. It should be an equal amount no matter who wins the election. For all I know some other candidate may come with a huge trust fund, and we're going to disqualify that person either, so long as they come with the grassroots support and can grow the party.

I think the point is to make the position a paid position, that pays a living wage. Frankly I don't even know that $50K is a living wage in Austin. That's for someone else to determine. I just support the idea of funding the position so that we have a full time commitment from that Chair to grow the party, to provide support for county chairs and candidates, and to do all the things necessary to make this party strong again.

Just my two cents.

Sonia

[TexasLinda]

5. Great post Sonia!

I especially liked your comment about the DNC sucking money out of Texas. I'm tired of these people swooping in with their fancy fundraisers and then leaving with all the loot. They may have written Texas off as a red state, but I haven't. It's more pink with tinges of blue, and I intend to help make it bluer by donating my time and money to local and state candidates directly (starting with Juan Garcia and the HD32 race). I became a sustaining donor to the TDP after hearing Boyd Richie speak at a TDW retreat last summer. He pointed out that the Party's money troubles were hurting the low-level staffers who were so important to day-to-day operations. He said that these people deserved a living wage and that, unlike the Republicans, the TDP felt very strongly about providing health benefits to their employees. I'm sure this sentiment is shared by the other candidates for TDP Chair.

[sonias]

7. Totally agree

If we can capture even 50% of what the DNC took out of Texas we would be solid. A lot of people don't know that when that money went to the DNC in 2004, none of it, not one cent came back into Texas. The DNC totally wrote off any perceived red states.

I also agree that again most of the real work is done by the staff, and they need a living wage with benefits so that we can retain the talent that we train. At some point those 4-5 staffers currently being paid by the DNC should be absorbed by our party budget. We should not lose those field coordinators in a year or two because the need is too great. That's in addition to the other highly crucial staff we could've even function without day to day.

While we can do a lot more to recruit volunteers to help, you need those full-time persons to plan and recruit and supervise and do all the pre-planning in advance. We need to be visible traveling across the state, organizing every day of the year. Election year or not.

Sonia

[nick_DFT]

10. here's my thoughts

I agree with Sonia that talk of making a salary available to the Chair shouldn't be limited to just Maxey. I think it is strange that the ED gets paid while the Chair does not. Who runs the party? I might be wrong, I just always pictured the ED being kinda like a chief of staff of sorts.

Do we want a Chair who just happens to be available for the role, or do we want someone to have the JOB of Chair? (I will note that for anyone who knows Maxey, you know he is always working)

A friend of mine once told me that the two things he most definitely never skimped on were attorneys and tattoos. But that essentially, "you get what you pay for."

I think of the Chair in a role where he is an organizer and builds the party through innovation and grassroots energy in partnership with some of the more influential donors as well as through a tight network of the party as a whole, with everyone working together to make the party the best it can be.

The current ED from what I have heard makes a salary of $84,000. The Chair makes zero. I also understand that this current salary of $84,000 is twice the one received by the previous ED. It's interesting.

I also think that a lack of funding, a lack of donors is directly tied to the job performance rating of whatever the organization in point may be. Just out of curiosity, how many sustaining members are there to the TDP and for how much? The party finances never seem to be stellar so I assume it isn't many.

The point of DraftMaxey.com is to see if there is support across the state for a Maxey run. If he has a lot of support, it will be interesting to see how much in pledges come in, right? I feel that there are a lot of disaffected Dems out there who would be excited and rejuvenated by a change of pace.

And something in common that we all share as Dems is that we all are somewhat in a bubble, whether it's on a very liberal or a more blue dog side of the blue spectrum-we are weirdos. We read blogs. We participate in community discussion and we love politics and try to make our communities better. Most people do not. That's why it';s out there.

Look at Dean. Everyone said that the big donors were gonna cut the flow and turn off the spigot and all. Yet reports have shown Dean has outraised McAuliffe by millions. I'm sure it's on kos, I wish I had the link. As a matter of fact, the last comparison I saw was Dean's first year after Presidential year #s and McAuliffe's year before a Presidential numbers, and Dean was still ahead. It's because he's exciting. And for a lot of people, he speaks the truth, tells it how it is, and that's that. And a lot of people want to see that in a Chair.

I hope that whoever the Chair is does receive some sort of salary. I would like to think that the Chair has a role, a task, a responsibility and is financially compensated for such.

It just makes sense. This is the Democratic Party of TEXAS!

[johncoby2]

9. What is the party rules on salary?

[crispini]

12. I don't think there are any.

I looked through the TDP bylaws and this is the closest bit I could find about the TDP chair's role:

D. State Democratic Executive Committee
1. Officers.
(a) Election. In compliance with Chapter 171 of
the Texas Election Code, the State Convention
in June of even-numbered years shall elect a
State Chair. The Convention also shall elect a
First Vice Chair of opposite sex from the State
Chair, a Vice Chair for Finance, a Secretary, and
a Treasurer. These shall be the officers of the
SDEC, and they shall serve for two years or
until their successors are elected.
(b) Voting. On statutory matters, only the State
Chair and First Vice Chair may vote; otherwise,
on all other matters all officers may vote.
(c) State Chair. The State Chair shall be the principal
and presiding officer of the SDEC, shall
have all of the authority and duties implied by
such title and expressed and implied by these
Rules, and shall have the authority to establish
and to appoint committees with the advice and
consent of the SDEC and deal with the affairs
of the Party.

[crispini]

13. I do think that having the chair have a salary is a good idea, BUT,

it then opens up a can of worms as far as having our COUNTY PARTY chairs be salaried. Which is worth thinking about as well, especially in very large and very busy counties.

[sonias]

14. I'm pretty sure ours gets paid

I think if they have more of a vested interest in raising money for the county or state party because their work is valued, then it's a good thing all around.

Sonia

[crispini]

15. Really? Ours doesn't get paid.

Velly interesting.

[nick_DFT]

17. hmm

I would imagine that's a state vs. local issue.

I think another item about it is the terminology. Some "Party Chairs" get paid while others don't. Others, like Texas, pay the ED and not the Chair. It's all different. So I mean, I don't think it's the state party's obligation to pay any county chairs..the STATE party chair is responsible for a major major part of the STATE party, has a daily role, etc....counties are local. That's my opinion.

Sonia, I don't think Chris gets paid for his position but I could be totally wrong.

[crispini]

19. Oh, yeah, the county party would definitely have to come up

with the scratch to pay the county party chair.

I have to admit, I don't see that the state party adds a lot of value in terms of winning elections locally, but I could be wrong. And I certainly don't see that the state party has done an awful lot to help out with winning statewide elections either. Maybe Glen could change that?

[sonias]

20. Well if he doesn't , he should

Chris does a great job, and his job is a lot like the state party chair for the county level. I'm a sustaining member of the Travis County Dems too and we should do the same kind of pledge system to raise some money for Chris too if he's not paid. How about it you techies? Nick you and your techie friends could set up a model for counties too. Start with Travis.

I think of the Executive Director as the person that handles the day to day operations. Those are things that are set policy and there's a lot involved in operations. I'm not trying to minimize what that person does. It is a full time job. The Chair on the other hand is the Chairman of the Board so to speak, their job is to insure the future growth of the party, and to make sure money comes in to pay for operations and to provide vision and leadership to get that growth. And they are also the public face of the party. They do press conferences and interviews etc. Very, very important job.

Sonia

[susanr516]

23. County chairs get a stipend

but it's from the TX Secretary of State. I work at a county Dem headquarters, and both parties receive funding from the state in order to run the Primary and runoff elections. Generally, there's a maximum amount a chair can receive from the state--always under $10,000--and if there are any budget overruns or shortage of state funds, the County Chair's stipend is the first thing cut. Two years ago, the max was $8000, but our chair ended up only receiving a little more than half that amount. Bummer, less than $5000 for 2 years of hard work.

[meg]

18. I think ours only gets 4,000 or something like that

Certainly a token.

[sonias]

21. OK maybe not a full time salary yet

But the recognition is there, that the work is valued. I know a lot of people take these positions as prestige positions but I firmly believe that people should earn a living wage performing these important duties for the party. We would have more involvement and more grassroots participation if these were real jobs. Plus you would have more accountability to the county party if people expected more of you i.e. knowing you were paid for your work.

Sonia