The state party has posted the draft of the 2020 national convention delegate selection plan for public comment. Also, the linked page mentions that the national convention site will be announced soon, but it was in fact announced today that the convention will be in Milwaukee.
I have submitted the following feedback regarding the plan:
I would like the state party to consider the following to the extent national rules allow (and communicate same to the DNC suggesting a change of rules if necessary):
Allowing for secret ballots at congressional district caucuses for delegates. Attendees at these caucuses come of their own accord and do not represent anyone but themselves. Therefore there is no need for the transparency of a signed ballot and this would eliminate a potential source of inappropriate political pressure.
Eliminate the gender division requirements at least at the district level as based on outdated assumptions. There will almost certainly be relative parity without it, but could be redressed when at-large delegates are elected. This eliminates awkward questions about how a person who identifies non-binary might participate and if there happen not to be enough of one gender the other gender could take the slots. (I would advocate the same changes for our state convention rules as they apply to local caucuses as well.)
Do not allow presidential campaigns to veto the candidacies of would-be delegates. This caused a lot of hard feelings in 2016. I would, however, be OK with credential challenges for candidates for delegate who were supporting a candidate other than the one s/he is pledging to support at convention as well as with campaigns communicating the names of which persons they prefer to be elected delegate.
Finally I suggest making March 3rd, rather than February 12th the cutoff for turning 18. If you can legally vote in our state primary you should be able to participate in the rest of the process as well, provided you are a registered Democrat.
The convention has to come up with a better way to pick the Vice Presidential candidate. Consider Joe Lieberman, John Edwards and Tim Kaine. If a commitee were set up with the goal of finding the three biggest slime balls in the entire party they would have a hard time finding anyone worse.
Technically the delegates could elect someone else, but I’m sure you realize that both parties have ratified the preference of the presidential nominee since basically forever.
Still, when you look at the results it’s hard not to conclude that the system is broken. Maybe the solution is a determined effort to get the Presidential candidates to name a VP early on.
Well, I was actually fine with all three of them and Kerry-Edwards in particular was the ticket I wanted even before it was confirmed. Keep in mind that this was before Lieberman became quite such a DINO or we learned all the sleazy stuff about Edwards. I suppose we could do it like MA chooses LGs and have the two offices run separately then ticketed at convention. That would be interesting.