Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Live from Yakima: Watch Darcy Burner enter the 2006 Democratic Convention

We couldn't think of a better way to launch our new and long planned Video Library than to bring you a clip of Darcy Burner's entrance into the 2006 State Democratic Convention.

Click to launch video

Click to launch the video from our Multimedia section.

Delegates heard another rendition of Darcy's innovative stump speech late this morning. Darcy was the last major candidate to speak before the party moved on to other business. And she certainly did an excellent job.

CONVENTION UPDATE: Well, we've now heard from Paul Berry, the Chair of the Credentials Committee (of which I am a member) who has delivered the preliminary credentials report.

There are 839 delegates have signed in. Additionally, 61 alternates were seated for a total of 900 voting delegates. The total number of potential delegates (that is, the maximum number of people who can be elected under party rules to attend the convention) is 1582.

So out of 1582 potential delegates, we have 900...and that's not bad.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I forgot to mention that we heard earlier from Mike Honda, the Vice Chairman of the DNC, who delivered the keynote, and Eileen Macoll of the state party. I had a chance to say hello to Congressman Honda as he passed through the lobby into the convention hall.

We recessed for lunch and have resumed the consideration of business. The first items were two charter amendments to the state party charter which would add members to the Central Committee.

The second was an amendment which would give Young Democrats of Washington two permanent voting representatives on the central committee (one male, one female, as per party rules).

The first amendment was considered and rejected by a large margin - possibly 4 to 1, perhaps even 5 to 1. The reason for the large rejection was that the amendment to the state charter was seen as conflicting with the DNC charter, and was thus deemed unworthy of adoption.

The Young Democrats' amendment, on the other hand, enjoys clear and widespread support and does not have a potential conflict with the DNC Charter. However, a vote to amend the charter of the state party requires a high standard: according to our parliamentarian (David McDonald) 765 of the delegates must vote in favor for the amendment to pass. This might seem like a high number, but the rule is thus: a majority vote of the delegates to the state convention is required to adopt a charter amendment. So that's a majority of the 1582 potential delegates - and a majority would be 765 votes.

We have completed one vote already. That was a hand vote where tally committee members, including myself, counted delegates raising their credentials to determine the result of the vote. Based on that vote the amendment failed narrowly, because there were only 728 votes in favor. Backers of the amendment (including myself) called for another vote, this one by written ballot.

That vote is being tallied now by a few Tally Committee members, and we should know the result soon.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: In the second vote (written ballot) the YD amendment is short by six votes, but there's some questions surrounding just how many votes constitutes a majority for a charter amendment. The Young Democrats continue to press forward hoping to get the amendment adopted.

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