1) You must be a registered Democrat as of December 31. Missed the deadline? Register now and attend as a volunteer or guest.
2) Find your caucus location on the Mass Dems site. No caucus listed? Contact your chair now to get the information on when your caucus is scheduled. If no chair is listed contact the MDP for information on your community at 617-776-2676.
3) Attend your caucus. You must arrive on time to vote or to be considered present for nomination purposes. There is no 15 minute grace period as there was in some past caucuses.
4) If you can’t attend your caucus, but would like to be a delegate, contact your chair now to let him/her know of your interest. While those who are present have preference, if there are insufficient people present at the caucus who are interested in being delegate, then your name can be placed in nomination by a 2/3 vote.
5) If you don’t get elected, you can apply for add-on status if you qualify. The categories are youth, disabled and minority.
6) If you are not a delegate, the Democratic Party always needs volunteers.
All the details are posted. You can read the rules beginning on page 14 of the Preliminary Call to Convention. There are forms for applying for add-on delegate status and other forms.
Many BMGers volunteered for the Obama campaign. Attending the convention and getting involved with the Democratic Party is a way to stay connected with the people with whom you volunteered. The bigger your network, the more effective you will be as a community or political organizer.
It is often not as competitive to become a delegate during an off year convention. I encourage people to first attend an issues convention, as a delegate or alternate, before attending a nominating convention.
There are occasionally complaints that people don’t know about the deadlines and the caucuses until after they have past. The Democratic Party is committed to an open process and making information easily available to all Democrats. Towards that end, John Walsh has formed a Communications Sub-Committee and we are working to get this information out.
Although this is not an official Party effort, for regular updates on things Democratic here in Massachusetts, you can sign up for my weekly newsletter, the DDemDispatch by sending an e-mail to DDemDispatch-subscribe@yahoogroups.com .
I attended last convention with a press pass. Had a lot of fun covering it that way. Just wanted to throw that option out there for folks, because I’m sure they’ll be looking for bloggers to cover it this time as well.
Has anyone heard anything about prominent charter and/or platform amendments on offer this year?
Watch this space — I’ll have some interesting announcements in the next week or so.
When there are hotly contested nominations, there is a lot more competition for delegate seats; this years issues convention is a good convention for learning the procedure as there should not be hot competition for delegate slots.
If history is a guide, there will be a series of public forums run by the platform committee in nearly every corner of the state. I would assume that this will be kicked off at the 2/10 state committee meeting.
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p>Charter proposals will probably come before the DSC at the April meeting, which would indicate that the appropriate subcommittee will deal with them in March.
Here’s what chairs received yesterday…
We would like to encourage your town/ward committee host a platform hearing. The hearings need to be held between February 11- March 29. The platform process will be announced at the February 10th Democratic State Committee meeting, and will be communicated to Chairs at that time as well.
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p>Chairman Walsh has been publicly talking about having a process analagous to what the Barack Obama campaign did. Stay tuned for details.
The Charter may be amended by a vote of a majority of all delegates to any State Convention.
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p>The Convention Rules have not been approved. What I am describing is what is customary. I make no representation that the same process will be in place this year.
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p>It is customary that the Convention Rules call for a process that allows any Democrat to propose an amendment within a certain time period. I believe that it is usually 60 days before the convention.
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p>At that point a Charter Amendments Sub-Committee meeting is called. An amendment that is ruled on favorably by the Amendments Committee will come before the full Convention. An amendment that is not approved by the Sub-Committee can be considered by the full convention with sufficient signatures of delegates and copies of the proposal for convention delegates, provided by the proponent.
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p>Only amendments that have been submitted to the Charter Amendments Sub-Committee can be considered by the Convention. If approved, it automatically goes to the Convention. If rejected, it can be considered with sufficient signatures. If withdrawn it can not be submitted, even with signatures.
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p>The Charter deals with Party governance issues, not public policy or platform issues.
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Attend a caucus and get involved in your Democratic Party!
Each city,town, and ward has its own scheduled caucus. If you have any questions about date and time check the state party Website, http://www.massdems.org, or all the party headquarters.
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p>Caucuses in Peabody:
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p>Ward 1 Sat. Feb 7th at 2pm at Rockdale Park meeting room
Ward 2 Sat Feb 7th at 10am at Eastman Park meeting room
Ward 3 Sat Jan 31st at noon at Wilson Terrace meeting room
Ward 4 Thurs Jan 29th at 6:00 pm at the AOH in Peabody
Ward 5 TBA
Ward 6 Sat Feb 7th at 2pm at the West Branch Library, Peabody.
The MassDems caucus info page only shows the caucus locations in an excel file.
Here is dem caucus location info in a nice web-viewable format.
Our caucuses in Medford will be held NEXT Saturday Feb.7 at 10:00 am in City Hall.
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p>See you there all you BMG Medfordites!