Hello San Juan County Democrats,

The San Juan County Democrats invite you to a timely presentation entitled “A republic, if you can keep it”, (a quote by Benjamin Franklin), followed by Q&A, by Pulitzer Prize winning historian and Stanford professor David Kennedy, a resident of San Juan Island. On Thursday, August 8 from 5:30 to 7 pm at Grange Hall in Friday Harbor. In a wide-ranging discussion, Professor Kennedy will explore the complicated historical dynamics that have brought our republic to its present pass.

The event is also a fundraiser for the SJCDs. Suggested donation at door is $20 per person.

Thanks,

David Turnoy
Chair, SJC Democrats
360-376-4165
davidgeri@centurylink.net

David Turnoy
Chair, SJC Democrats
360-376-4165
davidgeri@centurylink.net

Thanks,
David Turnoy
Chair, SJC Democrats
360-376-4165
davidgeri@centurylink.net

Thanks,
David Turnoy
Chair, SJC Democrats
360-376-4165
davidgeri@centurylink.net

We discussed the recent decision by our county councilors to appoint Liz Lovelett to the vacant state senate position.  While Liz looks to be doing a very good job so far, what concerns us is the fact that our county councilors ignored the wishes of their constituents in voting for Liz rather than Kris Lytton.  The councilors technically have the right to vote for whomever of the three nominees they choose, but our county clearly heavily favored Kris, as did the PCO votes at the meeting to nominate the three candidates.  As yet there has been no public statement by the councilors on this matter, though we have strongly encouraged them to do so.
Ken Crawbuck’s resolution on wealth and income tax was discussed.  Everyone present supports the idea in theory, which is to significantly raise income tax on the wealthiest and to tax wealth.  The debate was over whether we want to see this oriented toward setting rates at the level that would generate the most revenue, toward fighting inequality, or toward doing whatever best furthers democracy.  These goals are not necessarily mutually exclusive.  A committee of people will continue to try to refine this and distill it down to one page, as it may end up being a model for the state party.
Stephanie Buffum of Shaw Island, whom you probably know better as the director of Friends of the San Juans, has been confirmed as PCO from Shaw.  Welcome, Stephanie, and thanks for being willing to join us and help us.
We are debating whether to have an entry in the 4^th of July Parade this year and also whether to have a booth at the county fair.  If you are interested in helping to coordinate either of these, please let me know.  Without volunteers, these events will not happen for us.
Liz Smith, newly arrived from Maine, joined us for the first time.  In Maine she was in the position of participating in elections with Ranked Choice Voting, a system that allows one to rank their choices for a particular office so that if their first choice doesn’t survive, their second choice then gets their vote.  Washington state is considering this in the legislature this year for local elections.  The system promotes democracy and promotes more positive campaigns, two things we could use more of.  The city of Vancouver, WA, uses this for their elections.
Geri reported on the 40^th LD.  Tomorrow is a general meeting in Anacortes.  There will be an endorsement meeting in Bellingham on June 2, followed by a meeting in Friday Harbor at the Grange (thank you, Bill Severson) on Oct. 6, with the year’s final meeting just north of Burlington on Dec. 8.  There will also be a 40^th town hall with Liz Lovelett and Jeff Morris on March 23 in Burlinton.
The state party is in the process of choosing whether to adopt a primary/caucus model or a straight-but-improved caucus model for the selection of presidential candidates.  Those of us who participated in 2016 well remember the chaos of the local caucuses and we were hoping that we would move to a primary this year to solve that.  But because the state party didn’t thing the legislature would approve of Ranked Choice Voting for the primary, the only choice for a primary we are being given is a primary without any change to specify a second or third choice.  The caucus model automatically has Ranked Choice, because when it becomes obvious that a candidate is not going to meet the 15% threshold required to be considered, the attendee switches to another candidate.  We voted 17-10 to go with the improved caucus for 2020, on the theory that using it this time with the Ranked Choice voting it includes would set the stage for moving to a primary with RCV in 2024.  Just to see where we were as far as who favored a primary with RCV, we almost unanimously supported such a measure.  So it is really a shame that we don’t have that available for 2020, but hopefully we can move to that in 2024.  Learner and Sharon will represent us in this matter at the April state meeting.  By the way, if you have comments as to what you would prefer, you are welcome to go to the state party website and communicate those.
Nancy Greist presented on a citizen advocacy action group the Colorado Democrats have used called CLEAN, which stands for Community Legislative Early Action Network.  This has been used for citizen action to support good legislation, and we are thinking of implementing this here in our county.  Laura Jo will be researching the various contact information we would need to put this in place.
Those are the main points from today’s meeting.  Thanks for reading.  We will look to have our next meeting on Saturday, April 13.

Thanks,
David Turnoy
Chair, SJC Democrats
360-376-4165
davidgeri@centurylink.net

Hi SJC Democrats,

We will hold our next San Juan County Democrats meeting on Saturday, March 9, in the community meeting room of Skagit Valley College in Friday Harbor from 11:45 – 2:30.

If you would like to attend our meeting virtually, you can participate through your computer at home by going to https://zoom.us/j/235705609

Hope to see you there.

Thanks,
David Turnoy
Chair, SJC Democrats
360-376-4165
davidgeri@centurylink.net

Prior to our regular Democrats meeting Saturday morning, we had a special meeting with new Representative Debra Lekanoff. We assembled people representing the county council, the planning commission, public schools, the Comprehensive Plan, the Agricultural Resources Board, the Clean Water Advisory Committee, the Conservation District Energy Program, the Orcas Exchange, the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, the County Land Bank, the Friends of the San Juans, Friday Harbor Labs, Kwiaht, the Housing Advisory Committee, the SJ Islands Museum of Art, the SJ Local Integrating Association, the Friday Harbor and Lopez Port Commissions, OPALCO, and the Sound Defense Alliance/Quiet Skies. Debra had each of these entities share programs they are working on and asked how she could be helpful to them in her role in the legislature. It was an example of democracy at its best, our elected rep gathering input from locals about how best to represent them in Olympia. Debra is going to be amazing!

Also at this earlier meeting today, Stephanie Buffum of Shaw Island expressed willingness to become Shaw’s PCO. Therefore, this is hereby notice that we will vote on confirming her as a PCO at our meeting on Feb. 9.

The result of our reorganization conducted at the meeting are the following officers:

David Turnoy Chair Cindy Wolf Vice Chair

State Committee Man Learner Limbach State Committee Woman Sharon Abreu

Treasurer David Dehlendorf Secretary CJ Collier

Deputy Vice Chair San Juan Island Laura Jo Severson

Deputy Vice Chair Orcas Island Keara Axelrod

Deputy Vice Chair Lopez Island Bob O’Connell

SJC Liaison to the 40th Legislative District Bev Layman

If anyone interested in helping with our project to bypass the Electoral College with the National Popular Vote Compact, I welcome your contacting me. I have this all organized and am hoping several more people will volunteer. This simply involves a few phone calls and emails. Or if you have relatives or friends in Colorado, Nevada, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, or Arizona, I can provide you materials for them to contact their legislators to ask them to sponsor appropriate legislation. Somebody has to do this, and it might as well be us.

This year’s women’s march will be in Friday Harbor from noon until 2:00 on Saturday, January 19. Please meet at the courthouse at noon. This will be the event for all the islands, and Rhea Miller will be the guest speaker.

If you haven’t heard the news, Senator Kevin Ranker resigned Saturday, January 12.

A replacement will be nominated by the local Democratic Party organizations and selected by the county councils of the legislative district.

Unions used to be one of the main constituencies of the Democratic Party. But as I am sure you know, private sector union membership is down to about 7%. Public unions are still hanging in there, especially as we saw multiple states’ teachers go on strike last year. The teachers in the Los Angeles schools, which is the second largest district in the country, will be going on strike this Monday to protest the district’s failure to use its massive reserves to address huge classes, abysmal building conditions, teacher pay, and many other issues. Our local party would like to be more attuned to union actions, and our Rick Rhoads will be writing a letter expressing our support of the teachers’ action to be sent to the union and the school district, with possibly a press release also.

How can you help support Democratic legislative action? Attend Environmental Lobby Day in Olympia. Cindy Wolf, our vice chair, is the one to contact if you are interested in attending. You can reach her at cwolf@seanet.com. She will be coordinating with Stephanie Buffum of Friends of the San Juans to make this happen.

Sharon brought to us a resolution that calls for the county council to support 100% clean, renewable energy. There is an effort to get county councils around the state to do this in order to show enough support to get the state legislature to do the same. We are sending the resolution to the county council. As it happens, Councilor Jamie Stephens was in attendance at our meeting and said that the council will actually be addressing this shortly.

It is time for the SJC Democrats to come up with an action plan for this year. We won’t be dealing with elections that much, so we have time to work on some other issues. As mentioned earlier, one of these issues is reforming the Electoral College. Another issue has to be moving away from fossil fuels and doing all we can to combat climate change including a Green New Deal. Other items mentioned today included recruiting more young people, looking at the Washington Military Alliance and its various impacts (environment, land use, war training zones, etc.) along with decreasing dependency on the military for employment, having a discussion of Israel/Palestine (possibly a talk by Sandy Strehlou and/or a showing of James Longley’s “Gaza Strip), more author or movie maker talks, ranked choice voting, flipping the national government in 2020, what to do if Trump declares a national emergency and/or martial law. If you have other ideas, feel free to bring them to the next meeting or send them to me. This is your party, let’s consider doing what you think we should.

Ken Crawbuck introduced a resolution related to making our income tax system more progressive. We discussed this at length today, and the net result is that we decided people should send Ken feedback so that he can re-craft his message. Looking at significant increases to income tax at the very high end of the scale is becoming much more mainstream, so this is no longer just a pipe dream. Ken’s email address is kenc@rockisland.com. Here is his resolution:

Bring Democracy back by taxing the wealth and income of the rich in accordance with Thomas Piketty’s economic research results.doc. Resolution on taxing the rich annually for both wealth and income in Washington state and also federally

Amendment “To bring democracy back by taxing the rich annually for both wealth (0.7% for wealth over $10,000,000.00) and income (83% for income over $1,000,000.00) in Washington state and federally.” By taxing the income and wealth of rich at such a high rate each year that they cannot use their money to undermine democracy, we serve to establish and maintain democracy as the political process across Washington state and across the country. This connection between democracy and taxation of the rich is now proven in economic research fact, along with other critical research results of our time for problems like global warming. Our recent decline into ‘inequality for all’ and economic proofs like that of Thomas Piketty prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

WHEREAS, our local, state and federal governments profess to support democracy and act as though they believe in the power of the vote,

WHEREAS, our local, state and federal governments acknowledge that “Money in Politics” presents problems for our democratic processes (e.g. the recent carbon tax initiative failure),

WHEREAS, there are many research papers that prove that our democratic processes do not support the agenda of the average person but clearly do support the agenda of the rich

WHEREAS if we continue down the path we are today, which will allow the world to be fried for profits while also supporting the defeat of a truly progressive agenda, which requires progressive taxation of the rich, that is designed to ensure the average Americans voice is reflected in a truly democratic political system,

WHEREAS the contradiction inherent in Washington States laws which both profess to support the notion of a democracy while also wrongly supporting a creative interpretation of a phrase in the state constitution that prevents the implementation of progressive taxation, as that notion is now defeated via challenges to the law in Washington State,

WHEREAS the connection between rising wealth and income inequality is now proven to negatively impact democracy by world famous economists like Thomas Piketty and Robert Reich,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the San Juan County Democratic Party send a message to the members of the Washington State Legislative delegation and the Federal Congressional delegation as well as the platform committees at the state and federal levels urging them to support the declaration of “support bringing democracy back” by Instituting wealth and income taxes on the wealthiest Washington State residents as detailed by Thomas Piketty which is 83% annually for income over $1,000,000.00 and 0.7% of wealth annually for wealth over $10,000,000.00.” Whatever the final tax rates are they should be defined to support the preservation of democracy by taxing the rich, and needs to account for federal income and wealth taxes that may also be applied. This resolution needs to become part of the Democratic Party Platform and legislation that is passed in the state of Washington legislature and signed by the Governor, passed federally as legislation and signed into law, and

THEREFORE BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that the SJCDCC urge the Washington State Democratic Committee to add this resolution into the WA state and national platform without delay.

Submitted by the San Juan County Democratic Convention to the (fill in the blank) (Date Submitted 1/2/2019)

The <fill in the blank> committee “RECOMMENDED A PASS” on this resolution at its <date> meeting <location>.

The <fill in the blank> committee “PASSED” this resolution at its <date> meeting in <location>.

Related to the above issue, Learner mentioned that there is now an economic equity committee as part of the state party. We have our next state meeting in two weeks, and a number of us who will be attending will check it out.

That’s all for now. Please join us at our next meeting at the college on Feb. 9 at 11:45.

Fresh off a successful 2018 campaign season, the San Juan County Democrats are ready to begin their activities for 2019. Our first meeting will be this Saturday, January 12, in the community meeting room at Skagit Valley College in Friday Harbor from 11:45 until 2:30.

This is our reorganization meeting when we will elect people to fill all our officer positions. FYI, only elected Precinct Committee Officers are eligible to vote for these positions, but anyone who is a Democrat is eligible to run for an officer position. At the meeting we will also start to plan our activities for this year, especially looking at themes that might guide those activities.

Please note Zoom conferencing is not available for this meeting.

Hi SJC Democrats,

This Saturday will be the final meeting of the year for the San Juan County Democrats. We will be celebrating our victories in the recent election as well as reviewing a number of important events in which we were involved that haven’t received their due attention because of our focus on elections. The meeting will take place at our usual locale, the street-level community meeting room at the community college in Friday Harbor. The meeting will last from 11:30 until 2:00. For those attending from other islands, you can simply walk on the ferry, as we will have drivers picking us up at the ferry and then returning us later to catch the 2:20 return.

For anyone who would like to virtually attend, you can do so through a Zoom conference. To join the meeting, on your computer go to https://zoom.us/j/413931590, then use the following ID: 413-931-590.

Hope to see you Saturday.

Thanks,
David Turnoy
Chair, SJC Democrats
360-376-4165
davidgeri@centurylink.net

On Saturday, September 22, the San Juan County Democrats met in Friday Harbor, our primary purpose being to listen to candidates, then decide on endorsements. Candidates endorsed are in bold.

U.S. Senator – Maria Cantwell

U.S. Representative, 2nd Congressional District – Rick Larsen, with the caveat that a letter will be sent to him detailing our concerns that we would like him to address

State Representative, Position 1, 40th Legislative District – Debra Lekanoff

State Representative, Position 2, 40th Legislative District – Jeff Morris

County Prosecuting Attorney – Randall Gaylord

County Assessor, Non-Partisan – John Kulseth. Unopposed. No vote taken, no endorsement requested.

County Auditor, Non-Partisan – Milene Henley. Unopposed. No vote taken, no endorsement requested.

County Clerk, Non-Partisan – Lisa Henderson. Unopposed. No vote taken, no endorsement requested.

County Councilperson, District 3 (Lopez Island), Non-Partisan – Jamie Stephens

County Sheriff, Non-Partisan – Ronald Krebs

County Treasurer, Non-Partisan – Rhonda Pederson. Unopposed. No vote taken, no endorsement requested.

County District Court Judge, Non-Partisan – Carolyn Jewett

State Supreme Court, Justice Position 2, Non-Partisan – Susan Owens. Unopposed. No vote taken, no endorsement requested.

State Supreme Court, Justice Position 8, Non-Partisan – Steve Gonzalez.

State Supreme Court, Justice Position 9, Non-Partisan – Sheryl Gordon McCloud

State Court of Appeals, Division 1, District 3. Non-Partisan – Cecily Hazelrigg-Hernandez

San Juan County Superior Court, Judge Position 1. Non-Partisan – Kathryn Loring. Unopposed. No vote taken, no endorsement requested.

State Initiative Measure No. 1631 – Approval of this measure would impose pollution fees on sources of greenhouse gases and use the revenue to reduce pollution, promote clean energy, and address climate impacts. Approve/Yes

State Initiative Measure No. 1634 – Approval of this measure would prohibit new or increased taxes, fees, or assessments on raw or processed foods or beverages, with exceptions. No

State Initiative Measure No. 1639 – Approval of this measure would require increased background checks, training, age limitations, and waiting periods for sales or delivery of semiautomatic assault weapons, etc. Approve/Yes

State Initiative to the Legislature No. 940 – Approval of this measure would require law enforcement to receive violence de-escalation, mental-health, and first-aid training, and provide first-aid; and change standards for use of deadly force, adding a “good faith” standard and independent investigation. Approve/Yes

State Advisory Vote No. 19 – On purely an advisory basis, this measure would advise the state legislature to either maintain or repeal the expansion previously approved by the legislature of the oil spill response and administrative taxes to crude oil or petroleum products received by pipeline. Maintain

San Juan County, Proposition No. 1 – Approval of this measure would establish and implement a 0.50% real estate excise tax previously approved by the County Council that would be used to fund affordable housing development in our county. 99% of the tax is to be paid by the buyer, with 1% paid by the seller. Go to www.yesforhomes.net for more information. No vote taken, no endorsement requested.

Lopez Solid Waste Disposal District, Proposition No. 1 – Approval of this measure would renew for one year the existing $0.10131 per thousand of assessed value property tax levy (approximately $105,000) used exclusively for solid waste disposal. 60% majority vote required.

No vote taken, no endorsement requested.

I have one more note to add about the endorsements today.  When we were discussing Congressman Rick Larsen, I mentioned that he had sent us a pre-recorded four minute video statement to view.  If you would like to view it, you can find it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axvLeY8R26Q.  One of the interesting statements made by Rep. Larsen is that he supports getting rid of the income cap on taxing Social Security.  You may be aware that incomes over about $120,000 have no FICA taken out, yet one of the best ways to preserve and possibly expand Social Security would be to remove this cap so that all income is subject to the tax.  Member Eric Vittinghoff provides the following analysis and link for you to learn more about this:  “This CBO report shows that while social security payroll  taxes are regressive, the ratio of lifetime benefits to lifetime taxes is quite progressive.  The progressivity is mainly due to benefits to the disabled, who tend to have low income and collect benefits for a relatively long period.  That said, the benefit formula makes the benefits to earnings ratio somewhat progressive for retired workers as well, although longer survival among those with higher incomes offsets some of this effect. The benefit formula depends on “averaged indexed monthly income” (see footnote 13, page 5), which seems to suggest that the progressivity would not be changed by removing the cap — specifically, because the benefit depends on income, not FICA taxes paid.” The link to read the report is 

https://webmail.centurylink.net/service/home/~/?auth=co&loc=en_US&id=223852&part=2.2

Consideration of endorsements took up the entire meeting, therefore other business will be put off until a meeting in October, the date to be determined. However, I have three other things to include here. The first is an updated report on the fundraiser for the three Democratic Congressional candidates that was organized by four of our stalwart Democratic women. The latest total is just about $10,000, with Kim Schrier at $4,530, Lisa Brown at $3,925, and Carolyn Long at $1,525.

The second item is a report from Rita O’Clair about her experience observing the ballot processing for the recent primary. Here is Rita’s report:

Report on Observation of Ballot Processing

Ballots arrive in Friday Harbor either from the Post Office, or in special boxes constructed of heavy nylon, closed by a zipper and padlocked. They immediately go to Carlys Allen at our county elections office, and it is her job to verify the signatures on the ballots before anything else is done. Without opening the ballot envelopes, she compares each signature with one on file in state elections records, and has received special training in the recognition of valid signatures. With each signature that she verifies, the voter’s name is checked off, so that no one can vote more than once. If Carlys has any questions about the validity of a signature, she can phone the voter or even have the voter come by the elections office to verify that is their ballot.

The ballots are separated into large batches of about 200 and are stacked in trays. One by one, the trays are put onto the ballot processing table at the county elections office. The ballot processors work in pairs and we had 4 or 6 of them working each day. Usually 2 or 3 observers were present each day as well, and they were seated separately from the processing table. The building is an old, converted residence, and was not designed with ballot processing in mind, so the accommodations are awkward and space is tight, but they do the best they can. Each pair of processors divides the batch of ballots equally between the two of them. Each processor then slits open all of the envelopes in one half batch and removes the sleeved ballot from each. The envelopes are stacked carefully, and the processor can look through the aligned holes in the envelopes to make sure nothing remains in the envelopes. The envelopes, which are where the voters’ names are recorded, are set aside, and from that moment on the ballots themselves become anonymous. Each processor then removes the sleeves from the ballots and the sleeves are set aside. The processors then open each ballot in the half batch, searching for problems that would make the ballot difficult or impossible for a computer to read. For example, if someone writes in a candidate’s name, that ballot is set aside so that someone can later type the person’s name into the computer. When each processor has completed the half batch, then it is exchanged with the half batch of the other member of the pair, and the checking process is done again, so each ballot is checked twice.

Camolyn Armstrong, who is in charge of this ballot processing, then scans the ballots into her computer. Each ballot has a bar code on it, so the bar code number becomes the means by which any ballot can be recognized (and, for example, called up so that a problem can be fixed), but there is no way to link the bar code with the name of the voter. As Camolyn sits at her computer and examines each problem ballot, one by one, that ballot is projected onto a wall so that all of the ballot processors can see and discuss the problem. They reach a consensus and the ballot is emended in the computer, and the next problem ballot is drawn up.

At the end of the 4-day ballot processing, Camolyn instructs her computer to tally the votes for each candidate, and these totals are both sent to the state elections office and posted on the county elections office website. The original ballots are kept for a period of time but are eventually destroyed.

Anyone who would like to volunteer to be a ballot processing observer in the November election should check with Rita O’Clair for some pointers on how the observers are supposed to do their jobs.

The final item is a report on the state party meeting in Spokane last weekend, attended by our state committeeman Learner Limbach. Here is Learner’s report:

Report from Learner Limbach, San Juan County State Committeeman

Introduction

These meetings always involve a lot of preparation. We receive a large packet of proposed Charter and Bylaws Amendments, plus a large number of anywhere from 20-40 resolutions to review. In addition, those of us involved in Constituency Caucuses and/or committee work generally have extra meetings leading up to the state meeting.

My current roles:

Ag and Rural Issues Caucus, Western Washington Vice Chair

Environment and Climate Caucus, At-Large Executive Board Member

WSDCC Communications Committee

In addition to the above roles, I served on the Rules Committee at this meeting in place of our State Committeewoman Natasha Frey who could not attend. This turned out to be one of the most significant parts of the whole weekend because the Rules Committee meeting ended up lasting a total of 9 hours on Saturday as we worked through a proposal to create new rules governing Constituency Caucuses (more on this later in this report). In fact, I ended up missing the Communications Committee, Environment and Climate Caucus, Ag and Rural Caucus and all other meetings on Saturday because they all took place while we were still in the Rules meeting.

Key Resolutions

Reject Corporate PAC Money From the Fossil Fuel Industry

I spent a lot of time prior to the meeting co-authoring a resolution calling on the DNC to reinstate their corporate fossil fuel PAC money ban, a resolution ended up passing by a 3-1 margin. More info can be found at https://eccwa.wordpress.com/2018/08/24/open-letter-from-ecc-calls-on-dnc-to-reinstate-banon-fossil-fuel-donations/

Resolution to Create an Economic Equity Caucus of the Washington State Democratic Party

I also helped out with an effort to form an Economic Equity Caucus (EEC). The resolution to form the EEC passed and I plan to stay involved in the next stage of development which will include creating bylaws, etc. More info can be found at

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WqvxDdZYp3BccL0iQjCpFk5GFxLsLSoV/view?usp=sharing [From the chair David Turnoy: I went to this site, and this is a fabulous document.]

Protect and Restore Snake River Salmon, Southern Resident Orcas, Treaty Rights, and Communities

This resolution called for breaching the Lower Snake River Dams. This has been a focus of the

Environment and Climate Caucus for quite some time. However, we got a lot of pushback from people who feared that the party passing this resolution would hurt candidates in Eastern Washington. Ultimately we agreed to pull the resolution (retract from a floor vote) with the understanding that a council will be formed with ECC, Ag and Rural and others to work out solutions to prepare communities for the inevitable breaching of the dams. More information about this and other actions taken over the course of the weekend by the Environment and Climate Caucus Spokane Meeting Summary posted on the ECC website https://eccwa.wordpress.com/2018/09/20/spokane-meeting-summary-september- 2018/

Remove the Enloe Dam

While we punted on the LSRD resolution, we DID pass a resolution calling for the removal of the Enloe Dam. The Enloe Dam is situated on the Similkameen River near Oroville, WA. It is currently not operational and its only function is blocking salmon from accessing several hundred miles of spawning habitat upstream. Planning is underway to rebuild the dam to be able to generate power again, but the power it would generate is not needed and many think it is not even a sound financial investment. We are planning to send the resolution to Governor Inslee and do what we can to build support for removal of the dam.

http://methowvalleynews.com/2018/04/20/okanogan-county-pud-signs-contract-for-enloe-damdesign/

There were many other great resolutions passed in Spokane. One of my favorites called for Abolishing ICE. All the resolutions will soon be posted on the Washington State Democrats website. I will keep tabs on that and let everyone know when that happens.

Advocacy Committee

The Advocacy Committee that was formed earlier this year presented their first recommendations and legislative priorities. While the priorities included many great things, there was no mention of resource management or agriculture. I was, however, pleased to see Climate Action and Environmental Protection on the list.

Rules Committee

The main issue at hand that was of major significance in the Rules Committee was a proposal to create new rules governing Constituency Caucuses. State Party Chair Tina Podlodowski has been pushing for this since becoming Chair. There are some valid reasons for wanting to formalize the relationship with Caucuses. For context, Caucuses have always been formed by the State Central Committee through a resolution passed at a state meeting. They are their own incorporated entities and manage their own membership lists and bank accounts, etc. The issue is that there has never really been a formal acknowledgement within the party defining how Caucuses relate to the party as a whole. The party reserves rooms at the state meetings for Caucuses to meet in, and naturally there are liability issues, etc. The party would like all caucuses to have bylaws that meet certain criteria and for all caucuses to agree to the code of conduct and have every member agree to it as well. There are other reasons but those are the main ones as I remember.

Earlier this year Tina put Andrew Villanueve, a member on the Rules Committee, in charge of the drafting a proposal. Everyone else received the draft proposal two weeks prior to the Spokane Meeting.

With the heavy workload in the weeks leading up to the meeting, very few people had time to really review the proposed rules.

The rules as drafted by Andrew Villanueve ended up being highly contentious. I had planned to go to part of the Rules Committee meeting to observe, but since Natasha wasn’t at the meeting she offered me her proxy, which allowed me to participate as a voting member. Little did I know it would turn into a 9-hour meeting.

The main pushback against the new rules came from the caucuses themselves. Many complained they had not had adequate time to familiarize themselves with the proposal to even have an informed opinion, and didn’t have time to discuss it with their entire Caucus. Some of the biggest issues with the proposal were:

• Referring to Caucuses going forward as “Councils”

• Requiring all Caucuses to submit annual reports and annual work plans for approval to the State Party Executive Committee

• Requiring all Caucuses to provide membership lists with contact information to the Executive

Committee

• Requiring Caucuses to provide the Executive Committee with draft press releases prior to them

being posted and change them as requested.

• Giving power to the Executive Committee to revoke status of a Caucus for any reason.

In short, the proposal was a big power grab by the Party, with little or no benefit to the Caucuses themselves. The main benefit for Caucuses that was being claimed was that Caucuses would be “officially” recognized. Many of us had a hard time figuring out how that was really a benefit when compared to what we have currently.

There are some 15 caucuses in total, and throughout the day Caucus Chairs were communicating with each other about the proposal. It soon became clear that many caucuses were opposed to the new rules. Both the Environment and Climate Caucus and the Ag and Rural Caucus, both of which I serve on the boards of, were opposed.

In the Rules Committee Meeting I ended up being the voice for the Caucuses as most other committee members were in favor of most of the proposal. We spent about 2 hours on the entire rest of the Rules Committee agenda and 7 hours on the Caucus Rules Proposal. The reason it took so long was that we went through every point twice. First getting input from the Caucus chairs and having minimal discussion, then a second time to actually word-smith and negotiate new language that everyone could live with.

We made enormous progress in this process and it actually got to the point where I thought we had something passable.

However, on Saturday evening I shared the edited proposal with many of the Caucus Chairs and Central Committee Members who are members of Caucuses, and they still could not get behind it as it did not go far enough. I was faced with having to push for a proposal that we had just spent the entire day reworking, or to listen to the concerns that I was hearing and push for the proposal to be tabled during the Sunday General Meeting. I chose the latter, on the basis that we have functioned for years without this structure in place and we can certainly wait another three or six months.

After more discussion among Rules Committee Members, on Sunday a motion was made to table the proposal so that it would go back to the rules committee to be reworked with all the Caucuses being part of the process. I was the first speaker in support of this motion and explained that everyone spent the whole day Saturday in a good faith effort to create a passable proposal, but there were too many people who were still uncomfortable and Caucuses deserved a chance to be part of the process from the beginning. The motion passed with a near unanimous vote.

I have been invited to participate in the next stage of the process as a bridge between the Rules Committee and the Caucuses and I hope that I can help the process result in a mutually agreeable solution. I believe there are some basic things that should be codified, such as having some standard bylaws requirements and everyone agreeing to the party’s code of conduct, which is a useful tool.

This is the chair again. I just want to extend a special thank you to Learner for his amazing work at the state party level. We are extremely lucky to have him representing us.

Thanks for reading,

David Turnoy, Chair

davidgeri@centurylink.net

360-376-4165