Next week I’ll be in Philadelphia for the DNC to represent the great state of Michigan—America’s High Five—with 77 other delegates for Bernie Sanders. Bernie eked out a narrow win in Michigan’s primary, so we have a slight majority in delegates at the district level. I’m pleased and honored to be a Bernie delegate, even at this stage of the campaign season, and I’d like to explain why.
(After the jump, I’ll explain the composition of the whole delegation, along with some details about the delegate selection process, since it is too long and wonky to put at the start of this post.)
First, I will admit to deep fascination with the whole convention process. I am thrilled to be part of the group of people on the floor every night, a role I never anticipated filling. I can’t say that I began my local party activism with the expectation or even the ambition to be part of the delegation, but now that it has come to pass, I am delighted and grateful.
I also had no idea when I tossed my hat into the ring that there were so many meetings, caucuses, and parties to attend during Convention Week. Of course, I knew I’d be meeting a ton of people from around the country, but it simply didn’t occur to me that there would be quite this much hoopla involved. [Please note as well: If you are going to be in Philly next week—give a shout-out! We’re trying to organize a Daily Kos lunchtime meetup. In my post yesterday, I suggested Tuesday, but now Wednesday might be the day after all.]
I do know that I am in this delegation precisely because I have been a local party activist for some time, devoted to expanding the party by making it more inclusive, responsive, and constructive. I have supported Bernie in the primary all along, but it’s my party activism that’s getting me to Philadelphia this year.
Second, I am completely committed to the primary process. We had a Democratic primary in Michigan through which Bernie Sanders achieved a majority of votes and thus a majority of district-level delegates. Fulfillment of that process to the end is a worthwhile goal for us as a party.
Third, I believe we have an important purpose to serve, in encouraging people who might not have considered themselves eligible to be part of the political process to get involved. In my volunteer work as co-chair of precinct organizing, I collaborated with one of the local leaders of the Bernie campaign to recruit more precinct delegates. The new prospects constitute a substantial portion (close to 20%) of our delegates this time. That means not only more people participating in GOTV efforts this year and in preparation for our state-wide mid-term elections in 2018, but also more votes from Bernie supporters at the county party level. Engagement is key, and I’m grateful to have had this boost from members of the Bernie contingent who realize how vital local elections are to our overall effort.
Fourth, we still can make an impact on this election. There are several new organizations springing up to push the movement forward. Locally, there is “A Michigan to Believe In,” which has a Facebook page here. Its mission statement:
Proud progressives, we stand together to elect progressives in the Bernie Sanders tradition to all levels of Michigan government.
One of the SE Michigan leaders, Michelle Deatrick, is indeed running for local office, to become county commissioner from a section of the county that is currently represented by a Republican who would otherwise be unopposed. Michelle is a great organizer as well as an excellent candidate: she has solid canvassing skills and dedication and deep roots in the community. Those deep roots are literal, since she and her family own 80 acres in a northern section of the county. For more information about her campaign, including a donation page, please visit her website.
I participate with Michelle and several others in a closed FB group to discuss business for the Michigan Bernie DNC delegates. Recently, Michelle posted a passionate explanation about why our presence matters in Philadelphia. I asked her to reprise her statement in a form I could legitimately reprint here, protecting the confidentiality of our group’s discussion. She obliged:
The movement is more important now than ever. It was never about Bernie, as he said himself more than once. It was and IS about us, our country, our world. The issues and our goals remain the same: and the presence of Bernie supporters at the Convention is at least as important now as it was a few days ago. At the convention, we will connect: opportunities have already been set up to enable the connection of regional and statewide groups to the national effort.... And we will speak: the progressive voice needs to be strongly present in the dialogue of the Convention, in corridors and caucuses and demonstrations....
Our resolve and presence in strong numbers will be an undeniable statement--to the Party, the press, and our fellow Bernie supporters nationwide--that we are a force the Party must deal with, that we ARE the Party's future.
I've stepped a long way out of my life plan to work to elect Bernie, and now to run for office to help keep the movement going. ... I look forward to organizing with my fellow BERNers for years to come. We are just getting started.
I joined my local Democratic party in a serious way in 2015, stepping up my own activism from the GOTV and committee level to become a county party leader. I did so accepting an express invitation from our current county party chair, Chris Savage (Eclectablog), who is well known here as well as throughout the state and across the country as a strong and outspoken Democrat who is eager to pull the party to the left. Chris and I were not backing the same presidential candidate. But we are both DNC delegates, and we are both happy to work together, constructively, to grow the party and to make the Democratic party leadership and candidate roster more reflective of the true diversity of the party as a whole. Chris recently wrote a fine post discussing our county party’s ability to work well in real life, on the ground, which will continue to be accurate before, during, and after the convention.
On both sides of the presidential primary divide, for example, we are working hard to elect the first black woman to the Michigan Supreme Court: Judge Deborah Thomas, currently on the bench for the Third Circuit in Wayne County. The success of Judge Thomas’ campaign is vital to the prospects of the state, since the Michigan Supreme Court is dominated by Republicans who are indifferent (at best) to the implications of the law for all residents of the state, particularly for black Michiganders and for residents of our cities. If you would like to contribute, please go here.
The stakes are high this election, nationally and locally. Together, we can accomplish much. We do need all the help and all the dedication we can get. I am committed to the principles that Bernie has promoted, and also committed to the growth and success of the Democratic party. I see these as mutually supportive goals, and I hope that you all do, too.
Below the fold, I describe in more detail the delegate selection process as I observed it this spring and summer. My view is impressionistic in parts and should not be considered exhaustive, comprehensive, or official. But I hope that you find it interesting, especially if the process is new to you as it was to me. Fair warning, however: it is long.
The Michigan delegation to the 2016 DNC is comprised of 180 Democratic activists from Michigan: 85 delegates selected at the congressional district level; 28 at-large delegates (including me); 18 members of the three standing committees (Platform, Rules, Credentials); 17 party leaders and elected officials (PLEOs); 11 alternates; 4 delegation pages; and 1 delegation chair, who is also one of the 17 Automatic [super] delegates. The complete roster may be found here.
I was one of the 28 at-large delegates who were chosen on Saturday, June 11, at a State Central meeting of the MDP (Michigan Democratic Party). This State Central meeting, not surprisingly, was where several other general categories of delegates and representatives to the DNC were chosen and/or announced. One group of delegates appointed in June consists of the 17 Pledged Party Leaders and Elected Officials (PLEOs). The 18 DNC Committee members, for Rules, Credentials, and Platform—were also determined at the State Central gathering. Another category, the unpledged PLEOs, includes the 17 people who qualify automatically by virtue of the offices held. (They don't have to choose a candidate, that is, but most of them have.) Once all of these decisions were made, the delegation as a whole elected a Delegation Chair, who appoints 4 pages, customarily drawn from the MDP staff. This is usually a pro-forma selection, with the MDP Chair traditionally filling the role of Delegation Chair. As it happened, this year it was a little less automatic, but the conclusion eventually affirmed that pattern.
It’s important to know that the bulk of the decision-making to elect delegates took place at the district level three weeks earlier, on Saturday, May 25th. A total of 85 pledged delegates and 11 alternates were elected in the 14 US House districts of Michigan, according to a truly convoluted formula by which the delegates were apportioned by district and county. At the district level, ALL members of the Michigan Democratic Party were eligible to vote. They had to indicate which candidate to support, and then they were instructed which caucus to join. But that was the only requirement imposed. It is not necessary to pay money to join the MDP, so in this way there are relatively few barriers to involvement in this process.
Both parts of the delegate-selection process were very interesting to observe, though I had a lot more personal investment in the outcome of the later one. Since I have a few photos from the earlier one, I’ll devote a little time to describing the CD meeting I attended in May. But then I will describe what I observed from the State Central meeting before discussing what’s next. I figure this is, on top of everything else, a great opportunity to share some of the inner workings of the party operations (to the extent that I know them) with everyone else who may be interested.
District-Level Delegate Selection: What Happened in the 12th
Our 12th Congressional District meeting took place where it usually does, in a UAW hall in Taylor, MI. It would require a whole series of posts just to begin to analyze the current complex relationship between the MDP and the UAW. For now, I'll just say that the union presence is significant but no longer determinative. There are positive and negative implications arising from this state of affairs, as I assume you will appreciate.
The 12th includes parts of both Wayne and Washtenaw Counties, thus our delegate selection was not only allocated per candidate but also per county. That meant that each candidate’s supporters caucused separately, but within those caucuses we had to vote by county. (I shudder to think of the complexity involved in districts with many more counties.)
In some obscure way, the number of delegates we got to choose was determined by voter turnout in our district and county. In an even more obscure way, each one of us who came to vote did NOT have an equal vote; it was weighted by the number of people present relative to the number of delegates we got to pick. I think. Trust me, it was convoluted! However, for the most part, those fine distinctions were virtually meaningless, because the candidates had been pre-screened and in nearly all cases the proposed slates were elected.
The pre-screening process took place ahead of time, involving (I presume) representatives from each campaign, the MDP, and the unions. Delegate slots were allocated by gender as well, so that in the case of Sanders supporters in Washtenaw County, we had to select two female delegates, one male delegate, and one male alternate. (Wayne County got one male delegate for Sanders.) On the Clinton side, they had one male and two females; one of the females comes from Washtenaw. In sum: the 12th district was entitled to seven delegates and one alternate, and 4 delegates plus the alternate are for Sanders.
I chose to complicate the process a little on the Bernie side, by nominating a male delegate for Washtenaw who was not on the original slate. He’s a long-time activist and Bernie supporter as well, but he’s been less prominent locally for a variety of understandable reasons. He was not chosen in the end, which he accepted with good grace.
Interestingly enough, the slate of female candidates proposed to the Clinton side of the meeting was *not* approved. At least one of the women who was eventually chosen to be a delegate, the one from Washtenaw, made an effective case to the room that as a strong Clinton campaign activist she deserved a delegate slot. It took a while, with several different votes, but eventually she did prevail.
These two wonderful women in the photo here are the two female Bernie delegates from Washtenaw County, Hedieh Briggs and Christina Montague. I did not stay long enough to get a photo of any of the Hillary delegates, and I lost my chance to get a photo of the male Bernie delegates. Sorry!
At-Large Delegate Selection: Michigan State Central Meeting, June 11, Lansing
Those of you who have done party politicking for a while will appreciate this observation: meetings are always long, and there is always some team-building involved.
Our team-building started with our ride up. To be conscientious commuters, several of us carpooled up together, arriving early enough before the official start of the meeting to chat up those who would actually be voting. You see, the people who made the decisions there about the At-Large and Standing Committee members at the State Central meeting in June were those who (surprise!) belong to the State Central Committee [of the Michigan Democratic Party]. How does one get to be on the State Central Committee, you may ask? Some positions go to elected officials by right of their offices. But others are elected at the county level—by Precinct Delegates, hint, hint—which is yet another reason for getting involved locally and for building strong county-based networks.
I did do some politicking, I admit, both at the event itself and in advance. I printed up little campaign sheets, quarter-page short bios. I look decent enough on paper as a party activist, I have to say. In addition to my current involvement, I have union membership and engagement going back for decades, both as a volunteer and as a staffer, so that also matters in Michigan. Some people were really ambitious, producing big glossy candidate-style handouts. I suspect that kind of investment might have been counter-productive.
But the advance work was key. At the MDP annual fundraising dinner about three weeks earlier, I introduced myself to as many people as I could. I asked those who were involved in the decision-making, or those who knew people involved in the decision-making, to put in a good word for me. That’s not a bad thing, mind you: politics does entail the ability to make connections. And, bottom line, who you know is a direct outgrowth of what you do. If I hadn’t already been doing effective organizing at home, then all my contacts would have meant squat.
The State Central approved 28 at-large delegates, 14 for each candidate. The Bernie group has 8 women and 6 men in it. (I must say I’m pleased about the party’s efforts to reach gender parity in the delegation. The racial diversity goals are important, too, but I don’t think they were achieved quite as completely.) Similar to the process at the district level, each candidate’s supporters on the State Central committee constituted a caucus, and each caucus voted separately on the 14 delegate slots, although—again, similar to the district-level delegate meeting—pre-screened slates of candidates were presented to each caucus. The Labor Caucus of the MDP had some input about the composition of the slates, as did the candidates’ campaigns and the state party as a whole.
There were about 42 members of the State Central Committee who were eligible to vote on the at-large Sanders candidates. I was fortunate enough to be named on the endorsed slate, and the voting members elected each member of the slate without dissent.
What It All Means
The take-away: It IS possible for a relative newcomer (like me!) to become part of a delegation. I got involved in my county party as a volunteer above and beyond GOTV season only four years ago, and became a county party leader only 1.5 years ago. There is more than a little work to be done in any number of arenas within your state and local parties. Get involved in precinct organizing, or social media strategy, or fundraising. Bring your skills in community-building and outreach. Join us in making sure that this election is a rout of Republicans and all they stand for. We welcome people who are reliable, dedicated, and sincere. It’s too late to qualify for this year’s DNC—but it is never too late to make a difference. We are counting on you to step forward.