Sky's Adventures Behind the CA Dem Party Curtain - Hey, we made New Yorker Mag!

Politics & News
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First session done. As I expected, there were some technical difficulties at first, but they got worked out and it was a decent, if not too heavy, conversation. The panel was in Spanish, and the live English translation didn’t get going until about 10 minutes in (I think they were trying to figure it out). I had to refresh several times.

One gripe: The English host started off right away using “Latinx” which bugs me to no end. Obviously none of the Spanish-speaking guests used it, because it’s stupid and lame and has no intelligible pronunciation in Spanish. And Dems wonder why people think we’re the party of faculty rooms and urban elites…

Fortunately, the people who spoke first in the intro segment were very conscious that the audience included non-native speakers, so they spoke very clearly and slowly enough (in relatively unaccented Spanish) for this stupid Castilian-trained gringa to understand most of it.

The panelists included our new Senator, Alex Padilla, Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, and most importantly, Dolores Huerta, who, as expected brought the real information and truth about organizing Latino communities.

Also fortunately, the translator kicked in for Dolores, who definitely didn’t try to suppress her accent, so I had more trouble understanding her. Thank goodness I got the translation, because as expected, she was obviously the smartest person in the room when it comes to organizing in Spanish-speaking communities. She wasn’t afraid to call out the party for their faults in this area, as well as offering suggestions:

  1. We wait too long to start. Latino communities (like many minority communities in this country) need to trust the people organizing them, and two weeks before an election is not enough time to build that trust.

  2. We don’t reach out to community members for help. Part and parcel with point 1 is that building trust requires help from “the inside”, so to speak. Finding people that are part of those communities who are willing to step up and be activists or super volunteers is a step that most Dem campaigns fail to do.

  3. Tactics that work for young/urban people often don’t work as well in these communities, because they just don’t have the same access/tech knowhow/time to participate. My own opinion here: I think this may be a big part of why dems got hammered in Latino communities in 2020. All-digital campaigning just isn’t as effective in these spaces as door to door and face to face campaigning

  4. Along with point 3, and from personal experience, house meetings are an incredibly effective organizing tool in these communities. It goes back to trust-building. That’s why we must start early. If we start 18 months out, that gives us time to organize and hold more house meetings to reach more people.

  5. Voter registration drives in Latino communities HAVE to be more than just filling out forms for as many people as possible. We have to slow down and spend time with each person we’re registering to explain the entire process and help them build trust in that process. Dolores sad that many Latinos are afraid they won’t do it correctly when their ballot comes, so they just don’t do it at all. If we take the time to teach them, once they vote successfully one time, many of these folks become voters FOR LIFE.

  6. Dolores also listed off a bunch of concrete things Democrats have done for Latinos throughout recent history. I really hope there’s a transcription or recording of this available because I didn’t get most of them and that would be a valuable tool to have when talking to these communities.

Anyway, short break now before I begin my JEDI training. Hopefully I learn that mind trick so I can tell people that Trump is not the droid they are looking for.

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Didn’t Stephen Houlihan actually win a seat?

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Yes, but he’s running for Congress.

We have zero declared democrats for our State Assembly seat, and no one is stepping up right now. That’s the race I was talking about that my friend is interested in, but can’t do much about right now.

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This afternoon was an exercise in frustration.

First, the opening session of the JEDI training had tech issues and had to be pushed back an hour.

Second, the terrible state of rural broadband and LTE was front and center for me as I tried to use my phone to log into the Convention app while I was out taking my dog to the vet. Let’s just say…it did NOT go well. I missed most of the sessions from 3:45-5 pm because the pages just wouldn’t load (not just the app, all data on my phone). This happens often out here, btw.

I am also once again reminded that most people are not “try-ers”, they are “askers” when it comes to tech stuff. Here’s what I mean. When I am presented with a new app or page or program, I try things on my own, look around the app for features, etc, and figure most of it out myself. MOST people are not like this. Most people immediately ask for hand-holding the first time they can’t do something. This usually results in me becoming an unofficial expert, and people start asking me the questions.

This bothers me, because what I WANT to say is, “OMFG just click some of the menus and it’s RIGHT FUCKING THERE!” Which I can’t say because that pisses them off.

Thus it has been this afternoon with the Convention app. I had to hide the chat area because it was getting so mad. I am not a patient person. Yes, it’s a flaw. I know it. I doubt I can change, so better to remove myself from the situation.

Anyway, Women’s caucus in 30 min.

BTW, if anyone is interested, I am reasonably sure most of the general/open sessions are free to view. just go here: http://cadem.vote/convention

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random note:

One downside of a virtual convention is that certain people are literally spamming chat with their pet issues/petitions/endorsement requests. It’s fucking annoying, and there’s no way to block specific people on chat. UGH.

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Had our New Delegate Orientation this morning. Went over party structure, etc, which I’ve already detailed ITT.

Also heard from several Party employees, like the head of training, the Org director, and the Comms team.

I am already frustrated.

The training team seems to be entirely focused on the JEDI stuff, which is fine, but there was nothing about candidate training, organizing, or anything that actually helps win elections. I hate to say it, but James Carville was right. We are too worried about being “woke” and not worried enough about being real.

The organizing director talked about my pet tool, relational organizing, but no plans on how to train state/county/local organizers on what that actually means.

Finally, the comms team. Oh god, the fucking comms team. They JUST hired a digital content director two weeks ago. The GOP kills us on this, and here we are, once again behind the curve.

Their messaging on the recall is “Stop the Republican Recall”

I cannot put a “Stop the Republican Recall” sign in my yard where I live. All it will do is remind all my neighbors to go out and vote FOR the recall. The toolkit they put out about it calls Republicans who support the recall a bunch of QAnon anti-vaxxers and other incendiary names. There have been countless studies showing that when you insult people, it just causes them to dig in further AND become energized.

Sure, that messaging works in SF and LA, but for fucks sake, once again the party has no concept of what it’s like to live in red districts.

I don’t give a fuck if all those things are true (they aren’t…I know plenty of Republicans who think QAnon is stupid and have been vaccinated. I also know democrats who signed the recall and those names would offend them too)…you can’t SAY it.

“Stop the Recall” is sufficient. Or just “Vote NO on Recall to save taxpayer $$”.

I need to eat lunch and cool off, before I send some fiery emails to these staffers.

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More Day 2 notes:

Yesterday afternoon I attended the “Voter Services Committee” meeting. I’m not a member of this committee yet, but this will be the one I apply for. Applications will open after Convention is over.

They are changing the bylaws of the party to reform this committee into an actual Organizing Committee. It amazes me that our Party just hired their first Organizing Director 4 weeks ago. Like…what the fuck have they been doing? However, I think they are finally waking up to the need for this function at the party level.

One of the caucuses I joined, the Computer and Internet Caucus, is apparently chaired by a complete moron. I had emailed her a week ago asking about the caucus meeting, which was supposed to be last night. Received nothing back, no email notice about the meeting, nothing. Turns out, the meeting was the night before, and many people didn’t know about it.

I am pissed about this. I paid dues and was never informed about the meeting. A few of us have been talking behind the scenes and we’re going to make some good trouble and send a protest to the chair to have the meeting declared invalid. I’m not normally a rules nit, but when I feel disenfranchised, you bet I’ll fight. Turns out the CDP bylaws require a 10 day notice prior to any caucus meeting.

So here I am, already pissing people off. LOL

So what I’ve learned after 2 days is that brand new delegates don’t actually start doing things until AFTER their first convention.

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Day 3 began at 7 AM as I dragged my ass out of bed like a fucking farmer to join the Rural Caucus meeting.

Fortunately, it was worth it. The meeting was focused, informative, and well-run. One upside of the virtual platform is that it allows people to observe caucus meetings they aren’t members of. There were almost 300 delegates at this meeting, which made me ecstatic. The chair said it was the most ever, and I hope that it brought visibility to the issues that rural folks face, like water access and rights issues, wildfire dangers, being dropped from homeowner’s insurance, and the big push right now: UNIVERSAL BROADBAND!

There are like 5 broadband access bills in the CA legislature right now, so I was glad to learn about those. One of my favorites is one that requires CalTrans to “dig once” when doing road building and repair. This is such a great way to build out the actual physical infrastructure that we need to provide universal broadband. (Dig Once means that trenches/conduits be laid when roads are built…even if the providers aren’t ready to lay the wires)

Anyway, I’m now sitting through the first General Session, which is basically a bunch of pre-recorded speeches and comments from various dems/groups around the state, as well as Danica Roem and Jamie Harrison. It’s a little disappointing that they aren’t live, but with some of the tech issues the app has had, I can’t blame them. Can’t imagine how it would be if the feed cut out when one of these VIPs was speaking live.

The title was the first thing I thought of when I thought of “rural”

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Some day 3 wrap-up notes:

People are so, so, bad at tech. Democratic delegates are also impatient and would rather scream questions rather than actually listen to the speakers in these meetings…even when the speakers are answering the damned questions IN THEIR presentations!

ARGH.

Anyway, the second General session yesterday featured our governor taking about COVID and then the main event, a message from our VP. This also gives a look at the convention app. Chat is on the right side, but I hid it for privacy purposes. Yes, it’s that blurry.

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Last night was the Veterans caucus, which was full of tech issues and people not knowing how to manage basic instructions. Everyone was nice, though, and we elected new caucus officers. It was just a lot of sitting around in silence as people tried to figure out how to unmute themselves.

We are STILL sitting in our final general session that started at 10 am…I’ll post about that later. Yikes.

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OK

Here we go. This post will be some background. The next one will be lots of angry Skydiver raging…so stay tuned.

So, as an overview, on Friday and Saturday of the Convention, the standing committees conduct their business. The important ones for this conversation are the Resolutions Committee and the Legislation Committee.

This is the meat of party business, of which new delegates have no part because membership on these committees is not determined until AFTER Convention is over. So I will be applying for a standing committee sometime in the coming weeks, which will do work over the next year to be taken care of at the 2022 convention. I will not be applying for either of these, no matter how angry I am right now.

The job of the Resolutions Committee is to review every resolution submitted to the party by delegates over the past year and vote, using a ranked choice system, for the top 10-15 most popular to make it out of committee and presented to the entire delegation for approval. Apparently, there were over 100 resolutions submitted this year, because everyone was bored at home or something. Here’s an example of a resolution. This was the highest vote-getter out of committee this year:

1 RESOLUTION 21-04.001
2 Abolish the Filibuster
3 WHEREAS the Constitution doesn’t require a supermajority for passage of legislation and, in
4 fact, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton specifically argued for simple majority rule in
5 Federalists 10, 22, and 58; and
6 WHEREAS the genesis of the modern-day filibuster was the work of John C. Calhoun, infamous
7 slaveholding vice president and senator in the 1840s, and was utilized and enhanced during the
8 Jim Crow era by legislators bent on denying minorities and, in particular African American
9 citizens, their voting rights, up to today where it is used to essentially require a 60 percent
10 majority to pass legislation in the U.S. Senate; and
11 WHEREAS the urgent needs the American people want to see addressed in the 117th Congress,
12 such as the reestablishment of voting rights for all citizens, a livable wage for all American
13 workers, sensible gun legislation, affordable quality healthcare for all, effective greenhouse gas
14 reductions, and more will require the abolition of the filibuster;
15 THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED the California Democratic Party strenuously urges all
16 Democratic Senators to vote to end the filibuster, a parliamentary procedure which makes the
17 Senate less productive and less democratic during one of our nation’s greatest times of need.
18 Author(s): Connie Sullivan, AD 66, Sergio Carillo, AD 70
19 Sponsored By: Connie Sullivan, AD 66, Sergio Carillo, AD 70, Riverside County Democratic Party,
20 Organization

The other committee relevant to this post is the Legislation Committee. Their job is to review every single piece of proposed legislation, both state and federal, and decide the CDP’s official position on those bills. The list of bills that the party decides to Support or take No Position on is sent out of committee to the general body. There were 111 bills sent out of committee this year.

The Legislation Committee met for 4 hours on Friday, then like 5 hours on Saturday to consider all of these bills. The Resolutions Committee had similarly long meetings.

If you’re interested, you can see all of the Resolutions and Bills presented to us here:

https://cadem.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-April-Convention-Floor-Report-f.pdf

Today’s general session was the presentation of these to the general body, where we voted on them. Obviously we didn’t vote on each individually. For Resolutions, the way they do it is if anyone wants to amend a resolution, they ask for it to be “pulled.” There were 5 resolutions that people presented amendments for. There’s time for pro and con arguments, then we first vote yea or nay on the amendment, then yea or nay on the resolution itself (as amended if the amendment passes). For the ones that aren’t pulled, we just vote to accept them all at once.

For Legislation, people can ask for certain bills to be “pulled” if they want the CDP to change their stance on that bill. Obviously we can’t amend the bills themselves. Then we go through the argument and voting process. There were 5 bills that were pulled, with an asterisk, which I’ll rant about in my next post.

Anyway, that’s the process post.

We were in this session for 6+ hours. I am still decompressing. Rant incoming soon…

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So. Six hour general session on Sunday of the CADEM Convention.

I learned a lot of things.

First, I learned that a lot of my fellow delegates do not know how to follow instructions. Because this session was for actual business, it was conducted via Zoom webinar. The previous general sessions had been pre-recorded messages shown over the convention app, like in the picture above. The party sent out about 10 different emails with the zoom link, explaining that delegates HAD to join Zoom in order to be able to vote, and that their link was a personal one.

This was done in order to control attendance and ensure that only actual delegates were able to vote.

Not rocket science, right? I mean, we’ve been stuck at home using zoom for over a year, and these delegates are, for the most part, Dem activists, organizers, and community leaders. And yet…it took two hours to get a quorum because people didn’t understand this concept.

Second, I learned that the CA Dem party schedules this session as a 2-hour session on Sunday every damned year…when all the seasoned delegates know that it will last 5-6 hours. Also, many delegates fuck off after a couple hours to catch flights home (in normal years). This often leads to shenanigans with quorum calls later in the day (in normal years).

THIS year, because the other general sessions were stupid pre-recorded rah rah speeches, a lot of new delegates didn’t bother to show for Sunday, because in our “new delegate training”, there was NO TRAINING about how the convention actually works (like all the info I posted above about committees…none of that was discussed), so a lot of people didn’t know that Sunday is the day when we actually need to be there to DO OUR JOBS. The other things that training could have covered was the actual procedure to use when pulling a resolution for amendment…we had a couple folks try to pull a resolution but didn’t know they had to have specific replacement language prepared.

So, the session started at 10 am, and what do you know, we didn’t have a quorum. 1706 was a quorum, and there were only 1200 people in zoom. CDP staff were desperately trying to communicate to people watching on the app to get into zoom, but we didn’t reach an actual quorum until 12:30.

So what does all this mean? According to parliamentary procedure, we had to change it from a convention to a “Committee of the Whole”. So we did that, which allowed us to move forward on the resolutions and stuff, but here’s the kicker: In this Committee of the Whole, none of our votes are actually binding until they are later reviewed by the executive board at their next meeting. Meaning, the e-board could just come in and reverse anything we might have changed.

Now, according to many long-time delegates, at an in-person convention, they never really check for quorum at the start like they did this year. They just look around the room and guess. It’s only later on in the day, as people start leaving for their flights, that someone (usually someone who disagrees with something that is coming up on the agenda) will ask for a quorum call. They do this so they can later try to influence the e-board to overturn whatever the general body did as a committee of the whole.

Now, when we did reach quorum, the parliamentarian then called for a vote to resume as a convention, then after that, a vote to ratify everything we did in the Committee of the Whole. Fine. No eboard shenanigans allowed. Of course, later on we dropped back below quorum, but that was after most of the tough stuff was done.

I spent most of the morning angry at idiot delegates who don’t read their emails, want everything handed to them, don’t listen to the speaker who is giving them answers to the very questions they are asking, and berating the staff who are very calmly telling them what to do.

I was also angry at some of the votes on resolution amendments, as well as one CA senate bill, but that’s another post.

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I can’t help but think you expect way too much from other human beings.

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Apparently so

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How is the party using the fact that CA is absolutely crushing the COVID numbers to fend off this ridiculous recall?

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Oh that’s going to be a huge part of the messaging.

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After the recall is over, will there be a movement to push for a change so that recalling a governor just leads to the lieutenant governor becoming governor, citing a desire to prevent another circus that becomes a national embarrassment? After all, they are elected separately and not on the same slate and have sometimes even been a member of a different in the past.

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Well, the right to recall elected officials and State supreme court justices is part of the CA constitution. The actual procedures were set by the legislature, so I’m not entirely sure if a constitutional amendment would be required, or if it could be done by passing legislation. It might actually be a combination of both.

I don’t know why they don’t at least attempt to change it.

Recalls :: California Secretary of State.

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Oh look! One of the amendments I was angry about actually made the news. To be clear, I was upset the amendment didn’t pass. Here’s the article.

Of course this piece doesn’t mention the rural/red district component, but whatever.

Now, here’s some Inside Baseball information about what went down.

This is the stuff you want to see in this thread, right?

First, here’s the Resolution as written (and passed). Please note the authors:

16 RESOLUTION 21-04.078
17 STOP THE REPUBLICAN RECALL OF GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM
18 Whereas, the effort to recall Governor Newsom is a partisan power grab spearheaded by Donald
19 Trump’s National Republican Party, the California Republican Party, and top Trump donors
20 advocating to overturn fair elections, having already worked to delegitimize the American
21 electoral process; and frivolously using California taxpayer dollars to fund this partisan ploy to
22 derail the progress Governor Newsom has made to save lives, provide a safety net for struggling
23 Californians as we are making significant strides returning our lives to normal; and
24 Whereas, the pro-recall ranks are filled with a coalition of anti-vaxxers, Q-Anon conspiracy
25 theorists, and militia groups whose aim is to disrupt and distract from California’s progress on
26 COVID-19 recovery, equitable mass vaccinations, and school reopening’s while their leaders
27 disseminate anti-vaccination and anti-immigration propaganda on social media sites, actively
28 work against public interest and advocate for the microchipping of immigrants, and
29 Whereas, by uniting, Democrats will prevent Trump’s Republican Party from taking over the
30 California government and will stand united against any candidate who seeks the office and
31 helps Republicans succeed.
32 Therefore, Be It Resolved, that the California Democratic Party opposes the recall of Governor
33 Gavin Newsom.
34 Author(s): Rusty Hicks, CDP Chair, Alex Padilla, U.S. Senate

Now, the amendment proposed by one of my fellow delegates from a rural, red district, was to remove 3 words in total. The word “Republican” in line 17, the word “partisan” in line 18, and the word “partisan” in line 21. That’s it.

So the speakers AGAINST amending this were Rusty Hicks himself, plus two other random delegates. The speakers for the amendment were the delegate who proposed it, Christine Pelosi, and a fellow San Diegan from Chula Vista.

So we have two party heavy hitters, both of whom this board would call “centrists,” arguing for and against this amendment. As the article states, the vote was very close. The closest of any taken that day.

I received this sticker in the mail with my convention badge:

image

I cannot put this anywhere public where I live. The party is going with this branding. There will be signs and stickers and buttons. All this would do is galvanize my neighbors to become louder and more determined to vote for the recall. All this would do is alienate the Dems I know who signed the petition and who might be brought around by less incendiary messaging.

Look, we all know that it is a Republican effort. Of course it is. This messaging is fine in Hillcrest. In Escondido or Ramona or Temecula, though, we need to be more inclusive if we want people to possibly change their minds about this.

What isn’t included in any of this is that the “toolkit” sent out by the party to clubs and grassroots leaders included a bunch of name-calling, hyperpartisan language referencing QAnon plots and MAGA terrorists, etc. Seriously. From the party.

Look, I don’t give a shit if it’s all true (it isn’t, like I said, I know dems who signed the recall and are neither of those things).

CALLING

PEOPLE

NAMES

MAKES

THEM

DIG

IN!

By the way, sending a big fat FUCK YOU into space to all the delegates sitting in that zoom meeting who couldn’t be fucked to click one button on their screen to vote. There were over 1800 people there when this vote happened.

Once again…this isn’t about facts, it’s about messaging. And once again, we suck at it.

I was even moved enough to write a twitter thread

https://twitter.com/AndiDealsPoker/status/1390039354802769921?s=20

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The conventional wisdom on Unstuck is that changing minds is worthless. I agree to the point that it’s the First Iron Law.

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Except that there are people who don’t pay attention or don’t care, who haven’t made a decision yet, or their decision was made cavalierly or without any thought.