Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

A bit of a scuffle is brewing between the Young Democrats of America and the Democratic National Committee. The YDA is asking the DNC to, gasp, follow their own charter when it comes to having a delegation that looks like the Democrats from the state that selected it.

A bit of background here: back in 1974, when the whole delegate selection process was revamped, the DNC adopted new language in their charter that set goals, but not quotas, for minorities and women. This language was later amended in 1976 to include youth. Chris Gallaway, YDA President, found this language in the charter when he was developing a plan to get more young people to the next convention. He also found out that unlike the other affirmitave action goals, the one regarding youth was never enforced and state parties were not directed to follow it.

So, Gallaway contacted the Democratic National Committee (his letter here) and made his case. The DNC responded that sure, we have that language in the charter (letter here), but it doesn’t count because in 1980, we passed a reolution on delegate selection that doesn’t include youth. Of course, a resolution doesn’t override the charter (and would in few organizations), especially just because of something that wasn’t included.

Gallaway rightly points out that the youth vote is critical to the Democratic party (John Kerry would have won overwelmingly if only people under 35 voted). Unsaid is that many Democratic campaigns would be unimaginable without younger activists (especially the 2004 campaign of current DNC Chairman Howard Dean). But, some states continue to elect delegations that don’t reflect this reality.

Gallaway and the YDA are calling for a e-mail campaign. You can visit a special web page they have set up with plenty of information on the dispute, contact details for the relevant DNC members, and an online petition.

We in Arizona have been lucky on this score. As long as I have been active, we have elected a pretty sizeable share of younger delegates. I was elected as a youngin’ (by YDA’s definition) three times, my youngest as a 26 year old (and I wasn’t the youngest in that delegation). Also, our last delegate selection rules were written by Alexis Tamerón, who is now Vice-President of the YDA. Needless to say, “youth” was included among the affirmative action goals. I can’t remember if it was 1996 or 2000, but in that year a reporter asked me about the number of younger delegates, and told me that the youngest Arizona delegate for the Republicans was 40.

The irony for me is that the very folks that this rule was written for, young activists that cut their teeth on the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 60’s and 70’s, are now the ones that don’t think it’s that important. The co-chairs of the Bylaws committee are, of course, boomers.

NB - Three NBs, actually.

In the past, when the enforcement of the “youth” provision has been in question, the response has sometimes been that it will interfere with other affirmative action goals. As if youth can’t fit into other “categories.” Our younger delegates have included Hispanics, Native Americans and African Americans. In fact, our youngest delegate in 2000 was an African American.

I always here complaints from older activists that we elect younger delegates and never see them again. This can also be said of older delegates that we elect as well, but somehow it’s more noticed with younger folks. I remember this one woman that we elected as our delegation chair back in 1992, 35 years old. What ever happened to her?

One disturbing trend I’ve seen in recent years is the free use of “strikes.” The campaigns are allowed to strike delegates if they don’t feel they represent the campaign. This was used sparingly until 2000 (I asked Martin Bacal about it once, and he only could remember one instance of a delegate candidate being struck). In 2000, the Al Gore campaign attempted to strike nearly all the delegate candidates, leaving only the number necessary to fill the slots. There was a revolt against this decision, and they relented. This was done by the Gore campaign in many states. In 2004, the Kerry campaign outsourced this right to state party staffers and once again, there were enough strikes that there was no actual vote for the Kerry delegates at the state convention that year (the state party asked to be able to do this to Clark delegation, and they Clark campaign refused). The 2004 strikes were done regardless of actual support for the candidates that these folks were supposed to represent. With this sort of thing going on, what is the point in recruiting younger people to run for delegate?