[Mpls] Mpls DFL constitutional amendment

Thu May 13 10:26:08 CDT 2004

Warning: Long winded Rant

List (especially DFL delegates),

I would like to speak against the proposed amendment to the Minneapolis
DFL Constitution which would abolish the reform of City Year Caucuses
before there is even a chance to allow it to work.

There are numerous good reasons to keep City Year Caucuses. Many of them
have been stated online: ranging from increasing participation, building
community, engaging more people in the process, understanding the
process and more. There is nothing I can add to the excellent comments
made by Fred, Loki, David or David.

But I will add one more. 

We need to keep City Year Caucuses so that the DFL endorsement is
relevant.

The DFL needs lots of reforms. We continue to lose ground on the
progressive issues that we care about. There are numerous conversations,
especially after the disastrous last election about how to reform the
party. Goals have been to ensure greater participation, involvement,
commitments and votes. Reforms have been suggested to governance issues,
organization structure, fundraising, mobilization and more. 

Most importantly reforms have been suggested a endorsement process which
has not resulted in a Statewide candidate election since Wellstone.

The Minneapolis DFL is in need of these type of reforms as well. It
needs to be more open, responsive and engaging in the real concerns of
community stakholders. Even in solid DFL areas the DFL endorsed
candidate has been defeated by Democrats running without without
endorsement or even against an endorsed candidate. From our current
mayor and many of the council members -- there was no endorsement, the
presumptive endorsee was not endorsed, or the candidate won over an DFL
endorsed candidate. 

If the party wants to remain (or become) relevent it needs to ensure
that there are as many opportunities for people who share our
progressive values to get involved. 

One way is to ensure that people who want to get involved in an
endorsemednt process have an opportunity to do so.  The City Year
Cacuses proposal which was passed by delegates during a City-wide
convention was initiated by grassroots party activists.  It ensures that
two groups of people who the DFL wants and need involved have that
opportunity:

1. People that are interested in City politics: The politics close to
home is one of the best ways to get people involved. New candidates turn
out new people; they get involved because someone they know through
neighborhood or issue politics inspired them. 

2. People who have moved: This is predominatly low-income people,
renters, students and people of color. This ensures that they will have
an opporutnnity to be full delegates in the neighborhood they live in
and fully participate in the endorsement process of their City Council
members. 

The previous rule ensured that Mayoral and City Council candidates asked
for endorsement from people who were chosen more then a year and a half
before the election. This made challenges to incumbants very difficult.
It ensure that viable candidates needed to decide they were going to run
at least 2 years prior to the election to ensure their friends, family
and neighbors participated in the process. Challegnes to incumbants is
good. It results in better candidates and better elected officiuals.
More people getting involved is good. It results in responsivness and
accountability. Going back to the old system would be thumbing our nose
at the very message the voters have given the DFL. It would be very bad.

Let's Give it A Try

We haven't even had a chance to see if this reform helps yet. The first
time this reform will have a chance to happen is next year. This year's
delegates were elected for school board, county, House, and federal
electitons.  They were elected by their caucus to one year terms. 

To retroactivly change their term to two years and deny people the
opportunity to come together next year and elected delegates to
represent them in the endorsement of Mayor and City Council members
would be a big mistake.

To reverse this reform will ensure that our next Council and Mayors
office will have even fewer candidates that were intially endorsed by
the DFL party and make the party process and values even less relevent.

And part of me still thinks that would be too bad.

Joseph Barisonzi
Willard-Hay

-----Original Message-----
From: mpls-bounces at mnforum.org [mailto:mpls-bounces at mnforum.org] On
Behalf Of David Weinlick
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 10:52 AM
To: mpls at mnforum.org
Subject: [Mpls] Mpls DFL constitutional amendment

> To respond to David Weinlick's concerns:
> > One problem with the Minneapolis system right now
> > is that we have caucuses that are completely tied to what city-wide
> > races are up for election in November, which means that they cycle
in
> > and out.  We do not necessarily have them every odd year.
> But is it really so confusing to say we elect delegates every election

> year?

Anyone who is involved in the process can easily say that it isn't 
confusing, but with the numbers of new people this year, I have found 
that many people are indeed confused.  I want a process that is most 
accessible to people who have never been involved.  You have not truly 
addressed the issue of the purpose of the caucuses.  If the caucuses 
are to be a great way to build civic involvement, then they ought to be 
EVERY year, not EVERY ELECTION year.  Focusing on elections is part of 
what alienates new people.  They may feel that once the election is 
over, they are no longer needed.  That is the impression that we need 
to fight.

> > I understand this argument when it comes to people moving into the
> > city, but otherwise, how does this limit the numbers of delegates?
>
> Because people get activated by city candidates, city issues - a whole

> raft
> of things that can happen in the 12 months between Caucus Day 2004 and
> Caucus Day 2005. (Think smoking bans, or the police chief's conduct,
or
> school closings - major issues no one was thinking about at this
year's
> caucuses.)

Then why would we only have caucuses in election years?  Those issues 
come up all the time--they are not tied to particular races.

> Changing the rules in mid-cycle is not fair.

That is why I mentioned this as a concern, in the part of my message 
that you didn't quote.  I have made it clear to Earl Netwal that I am 
concerned about people who get caught in the middle of any possible 
change.  Ironically, the people that would most hurt may be the 
die-hards who stepped aside for new blood this year.

> >Many people who attended this year assumed that
> > their delegate status would be good through next year's
convention--I
> > spent quite a bit of time explaining that to people on caucus night.
>
> But if they were going to show up next year anyway, no loss. The 
> city-year
> caucus lets them participate - and lets new people in.

Absolutely.  My point was that many new people are confused by the 
process.  You would be amazed at the amount of confusion this whole 
process generates.  We take a lot for granted because we have been 
involved in the process, but many new people are confused by even the 
language we use.

> One way to keep them interested is let people join the DFL endorsement
> process over the next several months - not "freeze" the list when many

> city
> candidates haven't even announced.

We need to develop some way to do so that prevents stacking the 
convention in some way, but that is a reasonable idea.  I would like to 
see some proposals of ways to implement such a plan.

> >   If we have city-only caucuses some odd years, but not others, I 
> think
> > we are apt to continue this kind of confusion.  That is why I
support
> > something regular that everyone can anticipate--either have caucuses
> > every single year, or every other year.
>
> It's not complicated: DFLers elect delegates every election year.

Now go out on the street and ask the average person which years those 
would be...

I would wager that some people don't know by March if an odd-numbered 
year is an election year--at least, that is, the new people whom we 
wish to attract.

David Weinlick
Armatage

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