Having flown home late last night from our Winter DNC meeting, held in Washington, DC, I was prepared for news stories about what did happen — like announcements of procedures for candidates, delegate selection plans for states — and a bit surprised at a few things that didn’t happen, like the announcement of the site for our 2020 convention.
Still, I’m never surprised when a news media outlet reporting on a DNC Meeting gets things wrong. Yesterday, Vox News reported that the DNC had “voted down” an attempt o ban corporate money. To be as blunt as possible: this did not happen. As one of the signors on resolution aimed to ban corporate money, the reality is more complicated and deserves a better discussion than provided by Vox. It is also problematic that within Vox news article, they mix in details regarding Convention sponsorships and elected officials, none of whom would have been impacted in any way by the resolution put forward by Christine Pelosi with several co-sponsors.
To help clarify this matter, I decided to write this morning about this one issue, though later I will write up most of the happenings at the DNC meeting for those who care to follow along.
Before the DNC meeting, a 14 day packet is provided to members regarding resolutions. These resolutions are designed to reflect the principles of the party. While they are not directly binding, they can encourage or help shape the policy of the party. You can see these resolutions in full, presented at this link in Adobe Acrobat format.
Because the resolutions are due 14 days in advance, several items, as an example the death of John Dingell, would have to be added through an agreement in the executive committee, which of course occurred.
Resolutions can tackle any issue facing the party, and any member can advance a resolution, provided you can get support with others and are prepared to defend it being accepted to party staff and the Resolutions Committee when it comes up for debate.
For the last few months, a small group that works as the Party Reform Workgroup (“bird caucus” to some) has worked on issues that they feel help improve and build the party going forward to 2020.
Under President Obama, the DNC did not accept corporate PAC money of any kind — and it was a successful narrative for us. The amount of actual corporate giving of this kind to the party is minimal, in a report we were provided, around $144k, which is such a small portion of the overall budgeting that giving it up in a public sign would be seen as having more value as a point of public relations than the monetary value it provides.
With that in mind, Christine Pelosi began work on revising the resolution from our prior meetings, where we had successfully banned accepting money from donors who are contrary to our Democratic values — so, we do not accept money from the gun lobby, predatory lenders, etc.
With numerous presidential campaigns said they would not take corporate PAC money, among them Warren, Harris, Klobuchar, Castro and should he enter, Sanders, the question was also raised: if the party raises money from corporate givers while a candidate has said they will not accept, how do we “untwist” that at a convention? How can the candidate dispose of, or not accept that corporate money or is it a question they have to answer?
This is something that was pushed by those in favor of full removal of the funds and presented a complication to those who did not want change.
In the DNC Resolutions Committee, two proposals were submitted. While Pelosi had submitted her resolution very early, in the weeks that followed, Chairman Perez presented an alternate proposal. While Pelosi’s resolution looked only at the DNC, Perez went a step farther and called for a look into our state organizations, caucus, and other entities and their acceptance of corporate money, and asked for an 18 month long study, basically, with a committee to be named by the chair who would investigate the matter and report to the body within a week of the Democratic convention of 2020.
Here is where problems began. While I truly appreciate the concerns of Chairman Perez, and his willingness to think about the issue, the creation of a new 9 member committee tasked with investigating the impact of corporate giving felt to many as though it was designed to “blow off” the isssue and kick the can down the road so far people would forget — but instead, in phone calls with our officers, I continually restated my greatest concern: the creation of a committee tasked with investigating this would become the subject of internet lore. It would be The Unity Commission 2 around a single, solitary issue.
Because the two resolutions were of similar subject matter, the Resolutions committee voted to move forward on Chairman Perez resolution, while effectively tabling the resolution which featured a full ban.
Negotiating a path forward
In order to understand what happens next, a few things need to be made clear up front, which inside of the Vox article and several others are not made clear in any way.
- Resolutions or proposals by the DNC are not binding on other organizations, like DCCC, DLCC, DSCC, DMO, State Parties or Candidates.
- The Platform is a binding document for the party itself, but not necessarily for the candidates, who often want to have some ground to “go farther” than a platform to show what makes them unique, or to vary from it a bit to again, show their issues, though a contrary conflict can cause issues** (Further explain in footnotes)
- The Democratic Convention is run through a Convention Host Committee, and that is largely up to the city, arenas, venues, etc. So, anything we do wouldn’t stop a Democratic Party from, let’s say, playing in the Nestle Quik auditorium or holding a function in the Snickers Bar lounge. Host committees represent their cities, communities and those welcoming a party; and their corporate sponsors are proudly announced, more to show support for that community or whatever than to influence anything in the party, as at that point, we already have a candidate.
Ok, with these items established, we can move on to how the process works. While the resolutions committee can complete their meeting, negotiations can continue between the parties to come to a resolution on their own; which was recommended in that committee. DNC staff met with members of the group who were sponsors of the change, and we discussed issues with Tom Perez resolution.
On one side, DNC members and Chair Perez believed — with no malice at all — that this solution would be seen by those of us who wanted reform as a means by which to explore and explain the problem, providing guidance to the committee.
Even those of us who wanted reform worried, however, that this procedure would force our presidential candidates to talk about inside baseball “who’s on this committee” “who approved the people on this committee” “do you know people on this committee” “do you support these people”. No matter what the committee concluded, there would also be internet doubt about why it was taking so long, the moral standing of the members, and so on. In other words: while reformers want reform, the creation of a new committee struck all of us in private conversations as potentially risky to our one real goal: electing a president and defeating Donald J Trump in 2020.
As a result, reformers and others — numerous members — made it known that, should Tom’s resolution come up for a vote on the floor, it would be voted down. This is not the message anyone wanted to send, because it would complicate how we talk about the issue.
The Compromise
During the discussion, one thing continued to come up: our presidential candidates would need/want a say; but there were DNC members who felt that by passing a resolution on a full corporate ban might amount to an endorsement of Harris, Warren, Castro, Sanders, while pushing others who have not yet made public statements (but we know who are supportive) to jump on the boat after the fact, damaging their campaigns.
So, a compromise was reached: allow the Platform committee to take this on, to make it a permanent part of the platform. Candidates can tout their own position on this issue, and, as candidates get members of the rules committee, people know that if candidates supportive win, they will have enough members on the platform committee to institute this rule; allowing those candidates to campaign from the convention on that they are reformers and that they “walk the talk”.
This compromise also means that delegates at the convention get to feel involved with such a major decision, as they would vote on the acceptance of a platform that includes language that binds the party to this as a means of operation.
Conclusion
Reformers made it clear from the beginning that we would withdraw all proposals for one simple statement by the Perez in a press statement saying: “I will not recruit corporate PAC money into the DNC”. That simple statement would have ended all resolutions or a move to the platform committee unless a campaign pushed it.
Still, the solution that was reached is one that allows us to frame this as an issue where our candidates can find differences with each other, promote party reform, and yet, it doesn’t box them in where they are forced into a position early or late by the adoption of the party. This is likely good for our process.
Finally, we were able to avoid the creation of a long term committee that I, and many others, were concerned would create harmful drama at a time where we need our candidates, not the party, to be center stage.
The agreement was adopted by the body of voters unanimously with no dissent, and we moved forward.
This was the ONLY vote of the entire DNC body. Anything you read that contends the “body voted down” anything is simply untrue.
The meeting certainly had other news, especially for Alabama, our credentials and handling of minority representation, the creation of the DNC Poverty Council, and many other items that I think deserve attention. I will address those later today. But, if you run into anyone who says we voted in favor of taking corporate money, that just didn’t happen. Take it from someone who was a listed sponsor of the resolution to do away with corporate money, again, visible in the packet.