Democratic Process
Last weekend John and I had the opportunity to be delegates at the DFL Minnesota Senate District 65 Caucus. For those of you that haven't experienced the democratic process at this level, here's how it ran on March 1.
We arrived at Humbolt HS at about 8:30a in order to register and get ready for the start time of 9a. Of course, like all other parts of this process, it seems that the lines were longer and slower this year due to an increase in volume of participation. We got special tags to identify which precinct section we were to sit in, and entered the auditorium.
We had a large packet of resolutions to read and vote on whether they would be passed on to our Congressional District and State Caucuses - 109 of them. Many were very similar, so you needed to select which wording you preferred.
Although this sounds daunting, it was a nice distraction while the usual business of the Senate District was going on. It took 3 hours from the time we started (10a) to when we got through all of the standard business of electing secretary, treasurer, judges, etc. for our little section of the DFL. All of this was passed with auditory voting of "yes" or "no".
The really fun part of the day was the sub-caucuses. Thirty or so people lined up at microphones and announced the issues that they cared most about - "Hillary for Women" "Jack N-P for Peace" "Al Franken for the Middle Class" and on and on. At the end of all of the registering, spaces were identified for each, and we all had 15 mins to run around, listen to the sub-caucus person talk about their issues, and then attach ourselves to one. At the end of 15 mins, the sub-caucuses that did not have a viable number (I think ours was 25 people - a certain % of attendees), were dissolved.
On the 2nd round of 15 mins, some sub-caucuses negotiated with others to absorb more people, and thus earn more delegates to the CD 4 and State Conventions. This was particularly important for electing a DFL Senate Candidate - our presidential delegates have already been decided from the precinct caucuses. Once the delegates were distributed to sub-caucuses, each group had to elect gender balanced delegates and alternates to each convention. My group had those that were interested say a few words as to why they should go, and then we voted on paper. John tried to get elected in his group, but was not successful. Maybe next time...
We arrived at Humbolt HS at about 8:30a in order to register and get ready for the start time of 9a. Of course, like all other parts of this process, it seems that the lines were longer and slower this year due to an increase in volume of participation. We got special tags to identify which precinct section we were to sit in, and entered the auditorium.
We had a large packet of resolutions to read and vote on whether they would be passed on to our Congressional District and State Caucuses - 109 of them. Many were very similar, so you needed to select which wording you preferred.
Although this sounds daunting, it was a nice distraction while the usual business of the Senate District was going on. It took 3 hours from the time we started (10a) to when we got through all of the standard business of electing secretary, treasurer, judges, etc. for our little section of the DFL. All of this was passed with auditory voting of "yes" or "no".
The really fun part of the day was the sub-caucuses. Thirty or so people lined up at microphones and announced the issues that they cared most about - "Hillary for Women" "Jack N-P for Peace" "Al Franken for the Middle Class" and on and on. At the end of all of the registering, spaces were identified for each, and we all had 15 mins to run around, listen to the sub-caucus person talk about their issues, and then attach ourselves to one. At the end of 15 mins, the sub-caucuses that did not have a viable number (I think ours was 25 people - a certain % of attendees), were dissolved.
On the 2nd round of 15 mins, some sub-caucuses negotiated with others to absorb more people, and thus earn more delegates to the CD 4 and State Conventions. This was particularly important for electing a DFL Senate Candidate - our presidential delegates have already been decided from the precinct caucuses. Once the delegates were distributed to sub-caucuses, each group had to elect gender balanced delegates and alternates to each convention. My group had those that were interested say a few words as to why they should go, and then we voted on paper. John tried to get elected in his group, but was not successful. Maybe next time...
posted by The Newlyweds | 1:25 PM
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