Walking to the caucus
Apr. 17th, 2013 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamsharkNo, not a walking sub-caucus. R and I walked to our DFL precinct caucus, as we usually do. It was more difficult this year because for some reason the Minneapolis DFL had decided to combine precincts into larger meetings. This meant that instead of being 3 blocks away (Minneapolis precincts being small) our meeting was a mile away at Lyndale School. This is an innovation that totally deserves to die, IMHO.
So we got there at 7:30, just missing the part of the meeting that consists of pleas for volunteers to serve as precinct officers and join city DFL committees (I was okay with missing that). Just as we arrived they were breaking the larger group up into its 3 component precincts, sending each precinct to a different corner of the gymnasium. Maybe this worked in the neighborhoods where nobody attends caucuses, but Kingfield is not that neighborhood. There were at least 100 people in the room, resulting in an untenable amount of noise when 3 simultaneous meetings started up. Ridiculous.
Our precinct had 37 attendees, plus a pile of "letters" from people who couldn't make it to the meeting but were still hot to be chosen as delegates. We had 24 delegate slots to each of 2 conventions. My precinct is so enthusiastic that we actually filled most of the slots to the Ward Convention. This is noteworthy because all the Ward Convention does is endorse a candidate for Council Member, and our Council Member (Elizabeth Glidden) is running unopposed. I did not volunteer for this one.
Then we got to the City Convention, which actually promises to be interesting this year because of the wide-open mayoral race. The sweet, soft-voiced woman who was chairing our precinct asked for a show of hands of people interested in being delegates, and was obviously distressed when too many people raised their hands. Now what? The usual procedure is to have all the candidates give short speeches, then do a written vote. That was obviously going to take a long time, and the poor woman was already starting to lose her voice trying to shout above the ambient noise in the gym. Then somebody remembered the DFL Gender Equity Rule, and there was much shuffling about as the potential delegates split up - "boys over here, girls over there." To everybody's relief, there were exactly 12 male volunteers, so their election was done. There were also 12 women - until someone remembered the dreaded "letters," all of which were from women. After a moment or two of panic, our gallant chair came up with a plan. First she asked if there was anyone who would be just as happy to be an alternate - eventually coming up with 3 volunteers. Then she proposed that we randomly pick 3 "letters" to be full delegates, leaving the other 2 as alternates. There was no objection from the pile of "letters," so that's what we did. And that's how I became a delegate.
Meanwhile, Richard was quietly accepting plaudits and compliments from neighbors who recognized him as the proprietor of that house with all the lights. This made him happy.
Amazingly, it looked like our caucus was over at 8:15! Blessedly, the DFL has decided to accept Resolutions only in even-numbered years! Halleluia! But wait. An earnest looking woman who hadn't got the memo on that still wanted to present her resolution, even though it was pointed out that there was no procedure in place for doing anything with proposals in odd-numbered years. It was something about asking the city of Minneapolis to become its own electrical utility. It seemed silly to bother voting on a proposal that was just going to disappear into a procedural black hole, so this seemed like a good time to leave.
So we got there at 7:30, just missing the part of the meeting that consists of pleas for volunteers to serve as precinct officers and join city DFL committees (I was okay with missing that). Just as we arrived they were breaking the larger group up into its 3 component precincts, sending each precinct to a different corner of the gymnasium. Maybe this worked in the neighborhoods where nobody attends caucuses, but Kingfield is not that neighborhood. There were at least 100 people in the room, resulting in an untenable amount of noise when 3 simultaneous meetings started up. Ridiculous.
Our precinct had 37 attendees, plus a pile of "letters" from people who couldn't make it to the meeting but were still hot to be chosen as delegates. We had 24 delegate slots to each of 2 conventions. My precinct is so enthusiastic that we actually filled most of the slots to the Ward Convention. This is noteworthy because all the Ward Convention does is endorse a candidate for Council Member, and our Council Member (Elizabeth Glidden) is running unopposed. I did not volunteer for this one.
Then we got to the City Convention, which actually promises to be interesting this year because of the wide-open mayoral race. The sweet, soft-voiced woman who was chairing our precinct asked for a show of hands of people interested in being delegates, and was obviously distressed when too many people raised their hands. Now what? The usual procedure is to have all the candidates give short speeches, then do a written vote. That was obviously going to take a long time, and the poor woman was already starting to lose her voice trying to shout above the ambient noise in the gym. Then somebody remembered the DFL Gender Equity Rule, and there was much shuffling about as the potential delegates split up - "boys over here, girls over there." To everybody's relief, there were exactly 12 male volunteers, so their election was done. There were also 12 women - until someone remembered the dreaded "letters," all of which were from women. After a moment or two of panic, our gallant chair came up with a plan. First she asked if there was anyone who would be just as happy to be an alternate - eventually coming up with 3 volunteers. Then she proposed that we randomly pick 3 "letters" to be full delegates, leaving the other 2 as alternates. There was no objection from the pile of "letters," so that's what we did. And that's how I became a delegate.
Meanwhile, Richard was quietly accepting plaudits and compliments from neighbors who recognized him as the proprietor of that house with all the lights. This made him happy.
Amazingly, it looked like our caucus was over at 8:15! Blessedly, the DFL has decided to accept Resolutions only in even-numbered years! Halleluia! But wait. An earnest looking woman who hadn't got the memo on that still wanted to present her resolution, even though it was pointed out that there was no procedure in place for doing anything with proposals in odd-numbered years. It was something about asking the city of Minneapolis to become its own electrical utility. It seemed silly to bother voting on a proposal that was just going to disappear into a procedural black hole, so this seemed like a good time to leave.
