Kings County Democratic County Committee Meeting 9/22
I wasn’t at this meeting, but I keep my eyes on the Brooklyn reps now because corruption is a problem in Brooklyn. McCreight and Warren Chan were serious about being against corruption. Apparently at one point they wouldn’t allow a vote. And then when the vote is taken (see Warren Chan’s post below) the room voted for it BUT PROXY VOTES OVERRIDE IT? Someone has to have some more news about this. It sounds like the Republicans who had a proxy vote issue this past year as well.
Hugs,
marlene
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September 24th, 2016 at 4:14 pm
I was there so I can shed some light on it.
The motion was to send the 5 proposals (viewable at https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/newkings/pages/196/attachments/original/1474056880/county_committee_reform.pdf?1474056880) as a package to the Executive Committee for review. It was explained that the Executive Committee (which consists of the District Leaders) can change the bylaws as well.
Former Senator Martin Connor, a county committee member from the 52nd AD, rose to spoke about how the bylaws have the weight of law behind them and it is necessary to make sure everything is properly written. He have two examples. Senator Connor began to explain the issue with raised by Mr. McCreight’s posting by asking if any “Virginia Republicans were in the room.” He did this because, as he reminded many in the room, the Republicans are trying to undo Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s action to restore voting rights to ex-cons. Though not the exact same thing as providing instiutuional support, he asked us without asking, could we, as Democrats contunue to call ourselves Democrats if we don’t want to restore full rights after they have paid the price? It is a fair argument in my opinion. (He also said it could be a 1st Amendment violation). Secondly, Senator Connor said the language in the proposal regarding the Executive Committee meeting about “selecting judicial candidates” was legally incorrect since, under New York State law, judicial candidates for each party are selected at the Judicial Convention by the delegates; all the party’s Executive Committee does is say whom they would prefer to be candidate. The delegates can accept or reject it.
Much later in the meeting, Chairman Seddio did say that the meeting, between costs for the room at St. Francis College, the mailings, etc. cost about $6,000. That was an indirect point of opposition to the proposal to send all proposed resolutions to be voted upon at the next county committee meeting to the membership that have the backing of 20 county committee members because of how much it would cost for said mailing. The retort to that is that the language could also have been distributed electronically to the membership. The retort to that, as one District Leader told me before the meeting, was that some county committee members do not use email nor the Internet.
Speaking personally, before the meeting, I planned on voting yes on the 5 proposals. But, in the course of the evening, I saw that some were “not ready for primetime.” However, there were some with which I could see no legitimate reason to oppose (e.g. to provide information on how to start a Democratic Club or no one county committee member can hold more proxy votes than county committee members from his or her Assembly District). Yet, the motion was to package them together and have the kinks worked out. I voted “no” because I would like each of the proposals debated and voted upon that evening. But with the aforementioned issues raised by Senator Connor and Chairman Seddio would have been enough for me to say we need to slow down.
There was a motion to have the Executive Committee meeting wherein they select the officers be held in public session and Chairman Seddio actually seconded the motion. In the meeting, following the elections, Chairman Seddio said he would setup a committee to look at the proposals. District Leader Nick Rizzo asked who would be on the committee and Seddio replied that he himself would pick. Nick incorrectly said that was subject to the approval of the Executive Committee; he was given a copy of the bylaws and saw the section regarding these membership of these committees are picked by the Chairman. Later, before the Executive Committee meeting adjourned to go into Executive Session, Rizzo, said that the meeting they were about to have was the equivelent of a Senate confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justices and how it was imperative that it should happen in public. Seddio retorted that Nick didn’t do his job as a District Leader in that he ran no candidates for judicial delegate. (Before the meeting, I learned that Rizzo, on the first round of petitions he printed had judicial delegates listed. However, after his friend and New Kings Democrats member, Emily Gallagher, decided to run for Distrct Leader with Nick and against incumbent Linda Minucci, Nick forgot to include judicial delegates to his reprinted petitions.)
Now, the issue of one person holding a lot of proxy votes is legitimate. I discussed this with a Member of the Assembly following the meeting (full committee and executive committee) and the issue was about participation. There are some members that cannot be bothered to attend in person and simply will send in their proxies.
September 24th, 2016 at 5:30 pm
Also, no proxies were thrown out which is what happened at the Republican meeting last year which resulted in the court demanding a do-over.