As I’ve noted, I’m backing Ilyse Hogue for the DNC Chairmanship for two big reasons: 1) as a Greenpeace and MoveOn alum (as well as her current gig running NARAL), Ilyse’s background in direct action and resistance, as well as innovative use of technology, would serve us well in the coming years; and 2) she’d focus full-time on a job that deserves full-time attention.
But that does not mean I oppose Rep. Keith Ellison, who is a personal hero of mine. That’s why I was disappointed to see his agenda. Given his personal background and alliance with Bernie Sanders, I was expecting something more … revolutionary. While there is a ton of great stuff in this platform, very little of it threatens the DC party establishment. Most of his platform could’ve been written by Terry McAuliffe.
First of all, the good: Ellison doesn’t shy away from the new Democratic coalition. Ours is a diverse party and we represent the future of America. We won the election based on actual votes. There’s no reason to turn our backs on that and try and co-opt the GOP’s dying coalition. This may be the single most important recognition our party can make, and of the two serious DNC candidates (Hogue and Ellison), both are on the right side of that equation.
Ellison also calls for fighting voter disenfranchisement, better working with organized labor, and the continued bolstering of technology. All of that is good and necessary to build a better party.
However, Ellison falls short in several areas, for example, his promise of help to the state parties. The overarching goal is one that everyone shares:
We must energize Democratic activists across the country and give them the tools to build the Party from the bottom up. Beyond a 50-state strategy, we need a 3,143-county strategy.
Sounds great! Yet to get there, Ellison only offers state parties $120,000 per year, with “additional dedicated funding available” for additional “core work.” That is likely an improvement over the current system of getting nothing if they’re not a battleground, but that’s not the kind of investment necessary to genuinely build those parties. That would cost in the order of millions per state, and funding state parties at that level, in 50 states, hasn’t proven realistic.
Or to be even more depressing, consider this: $120,000 times 50 state parties is $6 million. Divide that by 3,143 counties, and we’re down to $1,900 per county. Obviously, that’s not how that funding works. The $120,000 would likely be spent on two staffers (a state party chair and communications director, most likely). Again, that’s better than nothing, but a director with no budget only goes so far.
To be clear, Hogue also doesn’t have any realistic path toward that either. Every DNC chair proffers vague promises to build at the 50-state level, but they all fall apart because of money. I designed my own ambitious primary reform proposal in large part to give state parties the ability to fund themselves from small donors (and not nefarious corporate interests) precisely because that’s the holy grail of state-party building.
Finding meaningful resources for FIFTY state parties is not an easy problem to solve. I really want to hear from Ellison (and Hogue, for that matter), how they plan to find those scarce resources in amounts that would actually make a difference. Because ultimately, the health of our party is best measured by how many state legislatures we hold. Thus, the effectiveness of our next chair should be measured by that same metric.
Still, Ellison does promise a great deal of attention to those downballot races. That’s awesome and important. I’m just afraid the promises outstrip the resources necessary to make them happen.
More concerning to me is the lack of any attention to our broken primary system aside from a promise of neutrality. Other than that, Ellison ignores the Iowa-New Hampshire duopoly, the undemocratic caucus system, the unproductive control over the debate schedule, and the corrosive super-delegate system. (Don’t take away their role in party committees, just take away their ability to overturn the will of the party electorate.)
Running the presidential primary process is one of the highest-profile tasks for the national party. Doing nothing to address it is akin to approving of the establishment status quo. For a movement that is as anti-establishment as Sanders’, it’s shocking to me that he’s not looking to blow this shit up.
Seriously, I want this shit obliterated. If even Ellison is afraid or unwilling to go there, what hope do we have? And for someone who rightfully focuses his platform on diversity as a key party tenet, it’s weird seeing him ignore the problem of unrepresentative Iowa and New Hampshire unjustly winnowing our candidate field.
Furthermore, there isn’t enough focus on our rigged electoral system. There is rightful attention on the disenfranchisement of American voters and the importance of winning back state legislatures to redress gerrymandering, but there’s nothing on the electoral college or DC statehood. There’s nothing on supporting ballot initiatives to take redistricting out of the hands of partisans (where that happens, democracy wins).
And this is just a stylistic issue, but I want explicit acknowledgement that it’s the REPUBLICANS who are fighting to keep people from voting and engaging. It is imperative that we, as a party, bring to bear our entire message on righting this broken, GOP-supported rigged system—one that empowers a dying minority to retain control in the face of a growing majority. Ellison is diplomatic in his language. I want an explicit declaration of war against the GOP.
That’s not to say that Ellison is opposed to any of that stuff, but it would be great to have explicit confirmation. It’s not too late for him to address those important issues in his platform.
Ellison has made a career out of being courageous and bold. This platform is neither. It is cautious, makes few waves, and thus, changes little. If I’m an old-time establishment hand, I don’t see anything in this platform that would threaten my perch. Thus, it does not reflect the congressman as I know and I understand him. So hopefully, we see more fire in the January cattle calls and in subsequent platform updates, because odds are likely better than even that Ellison ends up with the job.