[ There would be far more elected officials like Jamaal Bowman and
AOC, if New York complied with the new Party reforms. The Democratic
National Convention’s Rules Committee voted unanimously to keep in
place the small-d democratic reforms...] [[link removed]]

WANT PROGRESSIVE U.S. POLITICS? CONTINUE TO REFORM THE DEMOCRATIC
PARTY RULES   [[link removed]]

 

Larry Cohen
August 7, 2020
In These Times
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_ There would be far more elected officials like Jamaal Bowman and
AOC, if New York complied with the new Party reforms. The Democratic
National Convention’s Rules Committee voted unanimously to keep in
place the small-d democratic reforms... _

Aug 22, 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977), a founder of the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party which sent a delegation to the
1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, NJ, addresses
the Democratic National Convention’s credentials committee, Photo by
Warren K Leffler/PhotoQuest/Getty Images // In These Times

 

On July 30, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Convention’s Rules
Com­mit­tee vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to keep in place the small‑d
demo­c­ra­t­ic reforms that grew out of
the 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion in
Philadel­phia. Those changes in the rules gov­ern this year’s
con­ven­tion, and now, as a result of the unan­i­mous vote, they
will gov­ern the 2024 con­ven­tion as well, once offi­cial­ly
adopt­ed by the full con­ven­tion on August 17.

The 39 state party chairs that supported the reform proposal recognize
that democracy and change inside the party is just as important as
democracy outside the party. Democrats can’t claim to be the voting
rights party, and then restrict voting in primaries.

Those vital reforms were based on the work of the Uni­ty Reform
Com­mis­sion, of which I was vice-chair, rep­re­sent­ing the
Bernie Sanders wing of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

I was also one of the spon­sors on the Rules Com­mit­tee of the
pro­pos­al to con­tin­ue the reforms through 2024, and yet, in
late July, I feared it was a lost cause. But Sen. Sanders focused
his own and his team’s efforts on pass­ing the pro­pos­al,
and 39 state par­ty chairs endorsed it. Joe Biden’s cam­paign
respond­ed well to those efforts and what became the ​“Uni­ty
Res­o­lu­tion” was ulti­mate­ly adopt­ed by the Rules
Com­mit­tee 173 – 0.

This is sig­nif­i­cant because if the pro­pos­al had not been
adopt­ed, it would have been up to the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al
Com­mit­tee (DNC) to decide whether or not to adopt these rules
in 2024. Since mem­bers of the DNC are superdel­e­gates, this
would have required them to again strip them­selves of the right to
impact the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty nom­i­na­tion for
pres­i­dent in four years. In 2016, most of those
superdel­e­gates were lined up for Hillary Clin­ton long before the
Iowa cau­cus, lead­ing many to believe Sanders’ cam­paign
was hopeless.

The reforms, how­ev­er, go far beyond superdel­e­gates. Most
cau­cus states switched over to hold­ing pri­maries, which
dras­ti­cal­ly increased vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion in
Wash­ing­ton, Min­neso­ta, Col­orado and oth­er states. The
remain­ing cau­cus states were required to adopt a method for
vot­ers to par­tic­i­pate if they were work­ing, phys­i­cal­ly
chal­lenged or oth­er­wise could not caucus.

Most impor­tant­ly, these rules require that unaf­fil­i­at­ed
vot­ers can join the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and vote on the same
day as a pri­ma­ry. In New York alone, there are 3 mil­lion
unaf­fil­i­at­ed vot­ers, many of them young peo­ple, who could
be crit­i­cal to chang­ing the out­come not only for the party’s
nom­i­na­tion for pres­i­dent, but also in the
numer­ous ​“one par­ty dis­tricts” in the House of
Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and state leg­is­la­ture where win­ning
the par­ty nom­i­na­tion vir­tu­al­ly ensures election.

One par­ty dis­tricts are almost cer­tain to elect Democ­rats
giv­en the district’s par­ty reg­is­tra­tion and vot­ing
his­to­ry, so the pri­ma­ry is the elec­tion that counts.
Cor­po­rate and oth­er big mon­ey inter­ests all focus on the
Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates in these races, which often results
in very mod­er­ate Democ­rats get­ting nom­i­nat­ed. This year,
New York moved the cut off date to join the par­ty from six months to
two months before the pri­ma­ry, which, while not in com­pli­ance
with the reform rules from 2016 man­dat­ing same day par­ty
reg­is­tra­tion, is still a step forward.

Imag­ine a cam­paign like the recent U.S. House pri­ma­ry
elec­tion in New York’s 16th Dis­trict between Jamaal Bow­man
and incum­bent Eliot Engel. With same day par­ty reg­is­tra­tion,
thou­sands of new Democ­rats could have helped elect Bow­man, the
pro­gres­sive chal­lenger. He won any­way, but there would be far
more Bow­mans and AOCs if New York com­plied with par­ty rules. New
Jer­sey, Penn­syl­va­nia, Mary­land and oth­er closed
pri­ma­ry states have sim­i­lar bar­ri­ers and mul­ti­ple one
par­ty dis­tricts. Chang­ing to same day reg­is­tra­tion could
also help pro­gres­sives get elect­ed in those states.

Oth­er impor­tant reforms con­sid­ered at the Rules Com­mit­tee
this year had mixed out­comes. Pri­mar­i­ly these were char­ter
amend­ments, and faced a high­er bar since they are per­ma­nent
pro­vi­sions. All were issues spon­sored by Sanders del­e­gates
and viewed by the Biden cam­paign as items that could be deferred.
(Eighty per­cent of the com­mit­tee mem­bers were Biden
appointees.) These issues includ­ed man­dat­ing pri­maries instead
of cau­cus­es and keep­ing cor­po­rate lob­by­ists out of the
DNC. While they did not suc­ceed, reform­ers will con­tin­ue to
pur­sue such issues at the DNC and in state parties.

In the Unit­ed States, unlike any oth­er democ­ra­cy, we define
our pol­i­tics by our can­di­dates. Even on the Left, we talk
about move­ment build­ing and orga­niz­ing yet often are
addict­ed to can­di­dates and ignore the
rules — espe­cial­ly when it comes to the rules inside the
Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. Some on the Left have argued for
build­ing a new par­ty with­out ever fig­ur­ing out what the
rules are in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty that stand as the real
bar­ri­ers to change.

The unan­i­mous vote should be a wake-up call about what’s
pos­si­ble in terms of build­ing and chang­ing the
Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. The 39 state par­ty chairs that
sup­port­ed the reform pro­pos­al rec­og­nize that democ­ra­cy
and change inside the par­ty is just as impor­tant as democ­ra­cy
out­side the par­ty. Democ­rats can’t claim to be the vot­ing
rights par­ty, and then restrict vot­ing in pri­maries. State
Par­ty chairs Ken Mar­tin (Minn.), Jane Kleeb (Neb.), Tina
Pod­lodows­ki (Wash.) and Trav Robert­son (S.C.) led the effort to
mobi­lize state chairs to sup­port the rules res­o­lu­tion that
we ulti­mate­ly passed. They are com­mit­ted to par­ty build­ing
at every level.

Par­ty build­ing starts with mea­sur­ing par­ty
reg­is­tra­tion in every coun­ty and set­ting goals. It means
mea­sur­ing turnout and vol­un­teers. It means open­ing up
par­ty elec­tions at the precinct, coun­ty and state lev­els. It
means orga­niz­ing around issues, and using the pri­ma­ry process
to elect can­di­dates who are account­able on those issues to the
par­ty orga­ni­za­tion, whether at the local, state or
nation­al level.

The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has oper­at­ed as a top-down
sys­tem for decades, but slow­ly there is a grow­ing
recog­ni­tion that the nation­al par­ty is most­ly the sum total
of the 57 par­ties (includ­ing states, Wash­ing­ton, D.C.,
ter­ri­to­ries, Puer­to Rico and Democ­rats abroad) — and
that those par­ties must be mem­ber based.

Until 2017, it was rare to have micro­phones on the floor at DNC
meet­ings, let alone dis­cus­sion and roll call votes on motions.
After the offi­cer elec­tions in 2017, that changed, and the
inter­nal func­tions of the DNC are increas­ing­ly
demo­c­ra­t­ic, in part because of the the Uni­ty Reform
Pro­pos­als. DNC Chair Tom Perez has encour­aged
par­tic­i­pa­tion even when it is con­tentious, such as last
year’s dis­cus­sion on hold­ing pres­i­den­tial debates
focused on top­ics like cli­mate, rather than the gen­er­al debate
for­mat that prevailed.

Focus­ing on ​“the rules not just the rulers” is also
crit­i­cal when it comes to Sen­ate gov­er­nance and the
Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus. Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Mitch
McConnell (R‑Ky.) and the Repub­li­can cau­cus worked around
the ​“clo­ture” rule that requires the sup­port
of 60 sen­a­tors to end debate on a piece of leg­is­la­tion on
the Sen­ate floor.

McConnell elim­i­nat­ed this clo­ture vote on Supreme Court
nom­i­na­tions because a clo­ture vote would have blocked
Jus­tices Neil Gor­such and Brett Kavanaugh from con­fir­ma­tion.
Sim­i­lar­ly, McConnell passed his 2017 tax give­aways to
cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca with a sim­ple major­i­ty. He also used
a par­lia­men­tary motion to cut the floor time for judi­cial
con­fir­ma­tion from 30 hours to two, and over 200 fed­er­al
judges have been con­firmed in Pres­i­dent Trump’s
first 3 years.

Hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in cam­paign
con­tri­bu­tions will be spent on con­test­ed Sen­ate races this
year. Yet at this moment, at least 10 Demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­bers
of the Sen­ate have not com­mit­ted that they are will­ing to vote
to get rid of the fil­i­buster if they are the major­i­ty
in 2021. Here again, it is rules inside the Demo­c­ra­t­ic
Par­ty, not those imposed from out­side, that hob­ble
our democracy.

Our addic­tion to can­di­dates means that we raise huge
con­tri­bu­tions and devote hours and hours of vol­un­teer time
to win a Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty. But because we
tend to ignore the rules, very lit­tle time has been spent
dis­cussing how the Sen­ate should gov­ern with
a Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty. For exam­ple, sen­a­tors like
Joe Manchin (W.V.), Angus King (Maine), Kyrsten Sine­ma (Ariz.) and
Dianne Fein­stein (Calif.) have all indi­cat­ed they would not move
any leg­is­la­tion for­ward unless it had 60 votes, which in
effect gives Repub­li­can sen­a­tors the right to veto
Demo­c­ra­t­ic leg­isla­tive ini­tia­tives. Imag­ine,
a Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty in the Sen­ate next year that is
unable to act because the Democ­rats are unwill­ing to wield their
major­i­ty pow­er the way that McConnell did repeatedly.

The hur­dles fac­ing us are not only Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty
rule­mak­ing and Sen­ate pro­ce­dures. From the cur­rent
elec­toral col­lege sys­tem to the arcane U.S. vot­er
reg­is­tra­tion process, the lim­its in all but five states on
vote by mail, and, most impor­tant­ly, no lim­its on cam­paign
spend­ing — the Unit­ed States stands as the most
con­strained democ­ra­cy in the world. This is true even with­out
deal­ing with fun­da­men­tal rules like the make up of the
Sen­ate itself, the role of the fed­er­al judi­cia­ry in
review­ing leg­isla­tive changes, or the abil­i­ty of the
pres­i­dent to com­mit the nation to end­less wars.

But we can start with the rules that Democ­rats con­trol. As we saw
in the Rules Com­mit­tee, we can orga­nize and make
a dif­fer­ence. We can demand that the rules on
unaf­fil­i­at­ed vot­ers join­ing the par­ty are enforced in
New York and oth­er states. We can put lim­its on cor­po­rate and
oth­er big mon­ey influ­ence in the par­ty struc­ture. We can
bet­ter focus on one-par­ty dis­tricts, real­iz­ing that many of
the rules are designed to pro­tect incum­bents who ben­e­fit
great­ly from cor­po­rate con­tri­bu­tions. We can demand that
Sen­ate Democ­rats gov­ern and not hide behind the fil­i­buster.
We can build state par­ties from the bot­tom up, con­trolled by
coun­ty orga­ni­za­tions that are tru­ly precinct-based, with
fair inter­nal elec­tions. We can orga­nize for pro­gres­sive
state par­ty plat­forms like those adopt­ed in many states that
sup­port issues like Medicare for All and then build the
pro­gres­sive cau­cus in that state to hold can­di­dates
account­able on our issues.

What we can’t do is wait for the next Bernie Sanders and expect them
to do it for us. We can’t ignore the rules and how we change them,
and then say the par­ty sucks and look for anoth­er new one to solve
the prob­lem. Run­ning inde­pen­dent and third par­ty
can­di­dates is fine where it works, but it doesn’t work in
most places.

Our Rev­o­lu­tion (where I chair the board) and oth­er
orga­ni­za­tions are mobi­liz­ing not only on issues and for
can­di­dates, but around par­ty build­ing and rules reforms
with­in the par­ty. Vot­ing for Democ­rats can­not be like
root­ing for a sports team and wear­ing their col­ors. We need to
stay focused on issues, not just can­di­dates. But just as
impor­tant­ly, we must focus on the rules that reg­u­late, and
often con­trol, the outcome.

_[Larry Cohen chairs the board of Our Rev­o­lu­tion and is
a mem­ber of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee,
vice-chair of the Uni­ty Reform Com­mis­sion, and mem­ber of
the 2020 con­ven­tion rules com­mit­tee. He is the past
pres­i­dent of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers of Amer­i­ca
and was a senior advi­sor in the Bernie 2016 campaign.]_

_Reprinted with permission from__ In These Times
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