Hola, Colorado Kosserians. I know it’s been awhile since I rapped at ya.
I miss Jim Anchower. But that’s neither here nor there.
Speaking of neither here nor there: these County Assemblies and Conventions, amirite? Wow, aren’t these fun. I guess I’m not being completely sarcastic; I did actually enjoy myself on Saturday at the Adams County Assembly, Convention, and Assembly Again. We had around a thousand attendees gather to cast votes, but also meet candidates and each other.
However, the disorganization of Caucus Night was well preserved for a full day of general disorganization of and for our precinct Assembly and Convention Delegates.
For those of y’all who aren’t blessed with a caucus as your form of primary election contest, I’ll provide a brief synopsis of our Colorado situation. On Caucus Night, we elected delegates from our precincts to both Assembly and Convention at the County level. At the County Assembly & Convention, delegates are elected to Congressional District Assembly & Convention, as well as State Assembly & Convention.
Convention = the Presidential Preference Poll—what is normally called a Vote, if you use one o’ them fancypants newfangled contraptions called a BALLOT.
Assembly = all other races other than Presidential; State Senate & House, DA, County Commish, CU Regent, etc.
And you have to know this so you can be a delegate at one, or ideally BOTH, because Convention & Assembly are held at the same place on the same day, just one after the other, or potentially, each being held a couple of times.
ADD TO THIS the option of a County being able to conduct business in its own way, within the rules set by the state party. Adams is one such very special county. On Caucus Night, we had the option to elect delegates straight to CD and State (and Judicial, we have our own special assembly just for the DA race), but that, like soooo many things, was not every well explained ahead of time.
In fact, the procedure on Caucus Night was SUPPOSED to be this:
Convention delegates were supposed to be elected by the results of the Presidential preference poll, and this was very largely understood and done correctly. Yay. BUT, the ASSEMBLY delegates were SUPPOSED to have been elected based on the results of ANOTHER poll, based on a STATE race, which was supposed to have been, simply, Senator Michael Bennet V. Uncommitted (not a contested primary, but the highest level non-DA race in Adams County. Follow? I sure hope so.) In any case, that poll was, on Caucus Night, not on the agenda. Surprise! So what ended up happening was that the majority of precincts elected Convention Delegates (& Alternate Convention Delegates to cover people who would later be prevented from attending by unavoidable life circumstances) and then simply made those people the Assembly Delegates & Alternates as well. This is ideal, because it lowers the total number of people going through Registration at A&C.
HOWEVER—
Many, many people still did NOT know this. There was no basic info explaining the difference between Assembly and Convention. So the upshot was that people new to this whole process found out MINUTES before the Presidential Preference Poll--CONVENTION—that they had credentials for ASSEMBLY only, and were not entitled to a vote. You can imagine how they felt.
Thankfully, Adams County Credentialing was very flexible in credentialing people in the manner they desired, honoring voter intent, in full recognition of the chaos and uncertainty of Caucus Night. So people were still upset, after having shown up at 7am for registration, a 2 hour process that took 3.5 hours, and waiting through several hours of Assembly in order to participate in Convention. Many people left after Convention, and missed the remainder of Assembly, meaning their Senate District breakout, and Platform resolutions, during which about two hundred people approved by unanimous voice vote (not a single dissent) to resolve support for a countywide ban on fracking in the Adams County Democratic Party platform. How much better would that have been with several hundred more in attendance. Oh well.
I do not wish to rag hard on Adams County Dems, because like every other county party, they are doing this entirely on volunteer power, and have a dearth of committed volunteers. And while the event lasted about 3 hours longer than… planned is a strong word--hoped for, many people still stayed, despite other commitments or jobs or needs of their children, in order to vote in Convention. However, you can imagine the complaints about time and disorganization. New blood is required in these county party central and executive committees to bring in new concepts of organizational efficiency, on top of the basic need for new people of any type as Precinct Committee People, something we apparently accomplished to a good extent on Caucus Night.
So—if you, like me, have already had your County Assembly and Convention, please comment about how it went. And if you haven’t, here’s your advice, made simple:
* Show up early, and prepare to stay late. Cancel as much and as many of your other obligations as possible, except dinner.
* Check your credentials now, and be prepared to demand the ones you want, rather than the ones you ended up with as a result of confusion.
* Get the contact info of other delegates and alternates in your precinct now, and check with them to ensure they can and will stay. Stick together, become friends, because you will very likely have the time to do so.
* Try to encourage others to stay. Reset their expectations early. Bring a lunch and beverage, and if you can, bring extra food for those who didn’t plan for that.
* Pay attention to motions, especially from the floor. Things should be on the up & up, but just listen in case something weird is proposed. We suspended the rules to seat all alternates at once, rather than perpetuate a long and frustrating process of trying to individually seat alternates in Convention by precinct. It means we don’t know how things were going to go, but it was worth it to keep people more enfranchised than not.
* Remember, these meetings are essentially re-dos of Caucus Night. Those who show up can change the results a bit. Bernie picked up a few % in every County last Saturday; make sure people show up, especially alternates who may believe they don’t matter. Yes they do.
And if you are a delegate or alternate, and need info on your meetings:
Schedule for County Assembly and Convention
Schedule for Congressional Districts & State Assembly and Convention
And, if you have any interest in being a DNC Delegate to Philadelphia, your deadline to apply to be an eligible candidate is imminent. You have until TOMORROW AT 5PM to complete and submit the application:
Run for DNC!
The reason that these applications are due so soon is that the applicants must be vetted by the State Party (and probably the Secret Service) before the first possible date of a Congressional District Convention, at which some of these DNC Delegates are elected, and that date is April 1. No joke.
So there you have it: a chaotic Caucus Night transitions into differently yet still chaotic Assembly and Convention Day. Be ready for your county this weekend, unless you’re in Denver and the small remainder that convenes and assembles on the 26th.