Yesterday’s State Democratic Committee Meeting was called to order at 11:00 AM and adjourned at 9:45 PM.
200 candidates gave their one minute speeches.
80 elected members, two per state senate district were “certified”.
In the first set of ballottings, 179 votes were cast. Those eligible to vote included the 80 state senate State Committee members elected on February 5, 2008 – and the 20 year permanent members – and certain ex-officio voting members.
The “gender balance” seats, of which 24 were elected, required six rounds of balloting.
I did NOT keep full track of who was elected, and do NOT want to risk being inaccurate.
I am hopeful that next week the results of yesterday’s election and the list of members will be posted at the State Democratic Committee Website, which is located at:
http://www.massdems.org/index2…
What is clear is that service on the State Democratic Committee, while an unpaid volunteer position, does require a major commitment of time and energy – and impact how governance works.
For example, one of the votes yesterday established the rules for the next nominating convention.
There are 160 elected members rather than 80. Each Senate district has one of each gender elected by ballot and one of each gender elected at conference, though a handful of vacancies were noted.
<
p>I ran for youth male seat and was not successful. The candidates who were successful were Jim DiTullo, Brian Elworthy (incumbent), Matt O’Malley, and Patrick Hart. The first three were elected on the first ballot and Patrick was elected on the second. I do not remember vote totals. These are four great additions to the DSC and I can especially vouch for Matt and Patrick with whom I have worked in the past. Congratulations to all.
<
p>Maybe others can use the comment section of this thread to fill in detailed results for other races.
I guess I should have qualified with 80 “popularly elected by ballot” – I don’t claim to understand the “elected by conference”, nor did I know there are two each for each seat.
<
p>The conference election process is also on the State Democratic Committee website, but I admit when I read it the following happened:
<
p>1. I was unsure how it worked, or when this had occurred and wanted to hear more about it.
<
p>2. I could not recall ever receiving notice of such a “conference”.
<
p>3. I did not understand that these seats were “in addition” to those Committee members that were popularly elected, after pulling papers, and being on the ballot – and would welcome further clarification as to “popularly elected seats by ballot” and whether an equal number of seats is also elected “by conference”.
<
p>There is certainly a lot to learn!
<
p>The conference procedure is, I think, at this link:
<
p>http://www.massdems.org/about/…
<
p>
Like yourself, there are 40 men and 40 women elected on the presidential primary ballot, along with the state party chair.
<
p>In addition, the Democratic State party allocates an additional 80 seats (again, 40 men and 40 women, one of each in each of the 40 state senate seats) to be elected by the local town and ward committees.
<
p>In practice, most of these seats are uncontested. DSC members who are elected through this process tend to be people who really know the committees in their district.
<
p>At Saturday’s election, there were two additional classes of voting members. One is the set of ex-officio members (a variety of Democratic office-holders, DNC members, past party chairs, etc.) who hold a state committee spot by the nature of their position. The other is the members with 20 or more years of service who get permanent seats (and vacate their existing seats so that new members can serve).
<
p>
And let me just say that Christopher Jenkins is a great guy and terrific Democrat. He works his heart out on behalf of the cause and we are lucky to have his intellect, dedication, and energy.
Thanks Chris for your kind words. As Matt O’Malley said below, Chris is a great guy who works incredibly hard for Dems in MA and it’s been great working with him on a number of Democratic campaigns.
As was stated there are 80 members elected through the Senate District Conference process. The first step in the process is to file a letter of intent. If there is only one person who files a letter of intent, that person is deemed elected and no election needs to happen. In this cycle, there were only two senate district conferences that were actually held. Bob from Medfield posted a little bit about the one that was held in his district.
There were five men elected in that category. The four incumbents were all strong. The only person new to the committee who was elected has been active in Democratic politics for many years. Ryan did well, but was not elected. He has expressed to me an interest in becoming involved with the Communications Subcommittee. I am looking forward to working with him.
Thanks, Deb for serving on the committee. These long counted, multiple ballot, votes happen at the beginning of the four year cycle. At the next meeting we will elect DNC members and delegates to the Democratic National Convention. At the meeting following we elect the Democratic slate of nominees for the Electoral College. After that the meetings are of a more reasonable length of time. Much of the work is done in subcommittee meetings. It is always interesting and a great opportunity to meet activists from across the state.
All of those who attended that meeting and worked to elect the rest of the State Dem Committee are to be commended. I think there should be a “logistics committee” too….