Well, Royce West and Boyd Richie seem to have launched the Texas Democratic Party Railroad for continuing disenfranchisement of Texas Democrats.
With less than one week's notice, TDPRR has announced its first "public" hearing will convene at Austin Community College Health Science Building, Building 9000 in the Multi Purpose Hall room 8500 in Austin, Texas. There will be no public testimony, just the facts from the experts and party officials. Yup.
How much more "public" can you get?
It is Dallas State Sen. Royce West's job to pour oil over troubled waters to keep the party faithful happy and preserve the badly flawed and (in my lay mind) unconstitutional presidential primary selection system.
This is not a Clinton-Obama thing. My disgust for the system is born of seeing the party completely and totally clueless and ineffective on election night, despite every indication there was going to be a record turnout. Many people had to leave. Fewer more could even come to the conventions.
They are defended with palaver that it is "grassroots democracy". Hogwash! The stuff that was in the grassroots was not democracy. How many senior citizens could not attend or, worse yet, after making the effort had to leave as the chaos went late into the night? How many of the poor could not make it? How many of those who had to work could not make it?
Yes, if you are a white-collar, Highland Park liberal it was just too, too precious of a time, what with all those "little people" gathering there.
If you think I am wrong that the TDPRR is just to tweak the system to keep it serving so well, go to http://www.txdemocrats.org/... and take the survey yourself. See how much of it has to do with fairness and how much of it has to do with making it easier on our "leaders" and not discomforting the delegates.
The system is seriously flawed. Most voters in the Democratic Party are only given two-thirds of a vote in a primary. Those who do not know about the "secret handshake" of Texas presidential politics that is the precinct convention are left out. Those who cannot attend the conventions that begin the apportionment of one third of the state's delegates are not heard. Plus, those who are elected are not legally bound to cast their vote for the candidate they are chosen to represent. That is rank discrimination.
However the party loyalists who like this system that has a "safety valve" to guard against the masses making a decision appear determined to only make minor, cosmetic changes and still leave a large group of people disenfranchised. However from the looks of the poll, it does appear The Party and the TDPRR will try to make things more comfortable for the party loyalists who show up at the conventions.
If you want conventions, fine, have your conventions. Vote on resolutions. Decide who will be delegates based on the votes cast at the polls. Have hugs. Have doughnuts.
Just let the rest have a full and fair vote. You want a block party, have a block party. You want an election, give a full and fair franchise to each and every voter.
Who would have thought the Republican Party in Texas would be the leader when it comes to one-person, one-vote.
I suspect that once the smoke dies down (as is planned) the discrimination and the disenfranchisement will continue.