What you need to know to participate

— from David Turnoy, Chair, San Juan Democrats —

My previous article explained how voting in the presidential primary will work this year. Your next decision is whether you want to continue on to run to be a national delegate at the May 30 Democratic Congressional District Caucus. You should have already indicated your intent to do this when you first registered to run to be a delegate. You will also be required to submit a letter of intent to stand for election as a national delegate or alternate between March 23 and May 3. This can be found on page 107 of the Washington State Democratic Central Committee’s Delegate Selection and Affirmative Action Plan. Here is the link for your convenience. All those who had been elected as state delegates on May 3 will attend the May 30 CD Caucus to vote for the national delegates. Our Congressional District is allocated six national delegates, so there will be many people running for a small number of spots.

If you want to run at the May 3 county caucus to be a state delegate to the CD caucus and to the state convention, it is advisable to register in advance, preferably by April 20. First, this gives us an idea as to how many people we should expect for the May 3 meeting. Also, it will help those of us running the meeting to take less time with signing up candidates for the delegate position. It is not required to sign up in advance, but I would really appreciate your doing so if you can. To do so, go to the following link: https://wademscaucus2020.azurewebsites.net/. By the way, you don’t have to attend the county caucus to be elected a state delegate to the CD Caucus. If you cannot attend, you will especially need to register at the link just provided, and you can provide a brief statement to be read on May 3 so that you are considered during the selection of delegates supporting your presidential candidate.

If you go to this website to register, which I just did, you will be asked which Legislative District (LD) you are running in—that would be the 40th. As you continue filling out this online form, you will be asked if you want to continue on in the process toward ultimately becoming a national delegate for the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, WI, which runs July 13-16. Note that it could cost you anywhere from $5,000-$7,000; fundraising is usually advisable for this. In addition, apparently because of limited lodging, our Washington state delegation will be staying at the Hilton Hotel at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, about two hours away from the convention. A bus will be provided for transportation to and from the convention, but that is a four-hour round trip each day.

In addition to the state delegate selection at our county caucus on May 3, our county is supposed to work on our platform that day. We have a wonderful platform, which you can find HERE. We will be working on revising it at our monthly meetings as time allows up until the May 3 meeting, so hopefully we won’t be spending too much time on this on May 3. However, if you have a resolution which you would like to submit to us to be considered at that meeting, please let me know. You would also want to plan to attend the caucus on May 3 to introduce your resolution.

Now that we are done discussing the May 3 caucus, the next thing to think about is whether you want to continue on to run to be a national delegate at the May 30 CD Caucus. You should have already indicated your intent to do this when you first registered to run to be a delegate. You will also be required to submit a letter of intent to stand for election as a national delegate or alternate between March 23 and May 3. This can be found on page 107 of the Washington State Democratic Central Committee’s Delegate Selection and Affirmative Action Plan. Here is the link for your convenience. All those who had been elected as state delegates on May 3 will attend the May 30 CD Caucus to vote for the national delegates. Our Congressional District is allocated 6 national delegates, so there will be many people running for a small number of spots.

If you really want to run to be a national delegate but were not successful at the May 3 county caucus, there are two other options You can attend the May 30 CD Caucus without having been elected on May 3, or without having even run on May 3, and still run to be a national delegate. Or, at the state convention June 12-14 in Tacoma, there will be 19 at-large delegates and seven alternates chosen by the state committeemen and women. I am told that especially with the at-large seats, it is helpful if you are a member of a minority group like African American, LGBTQ, disabled, etc. The state platform will also be considered at the state convention.

If this is confusing or you have other questions, feel free to call me at 360-376-4165 or email me at davidgeri@centurylink.net. If you know others who would like to receive this information, have them email me so I can put them on our email list and send them this letter (or you can forward this information to them).

SEE PART 1…

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