My Take on the SCC Meeting

Running effective meetings isn't rocket science. Here's my take on the State Central Committee meeting in Socorro this past weekend:

If you have a more heavily populated congressional district, add people at the registration table so the line there doesn't stretch into infinity while lines for the other CDs are empty.

If the morning session is running late due to long-winded speeches by politicos, break for lunch before 2:30 PM so that people aren't cranky and starving during the business meeting. Better yet, tell the politicos to keep it short because the people's business is as important, or moreso, than hearing repeatedly that everything is peachy and how we "own" this (Red) state. John Wertheim kept repeating he'd hold the resolutions debate to 50 minutes. He should have said that about the speeches.

Don't seat the Party's officeholders and candidates in a separate, roped off VIP section if you want people to believe these politicos are our Democratic public servants instead of the other way around. Put the events that are the reason for the SCC meeting -- the officer elections and consideration of resolutions -- first. That way, our state and federal office holders will have to actually listen to the views of the Party's members and take part in the meeting instead of merely showing up to speak and then leaving soon afterwards.

Have each Congressional District break off into separate meetings to elect their vice chairs and resolutions committee members. In an already overly long meeting, it's excruciating to have to sit through nominating speeches and elections from other districts.

Require that the State Chair read and understand the Party rules before getting on stage to run elections and motions. I couldn't believe that John Wertheim didn't know the rules for electing CD members of the State Resolutions Committee. And that he gave the WRONG interpretation after he tried to scan them on stage during the start of the election. The rules require each district to elect one male and one female. Wertheim said otherwise, though I understand the vote counting went by the rules. His error caused more women to run for Resolutions, while only one man ran.

Considering how important afternoon activities were pushed to the side and almost abandoned because of the long-running morning session, it might make sense to schedule the SCC to run for two days. Jamming speeches, elections, resolutions, training sessions and caucus meetings into one day makes everyone frazzled and doesn't allow for time to reflect, meet people from around the state, see a little of the town or do justice to the work at hand. I know some people are there just to party, but I think most people would welcome time to do things right.

Urge the politico speakers to utter phrases like "grassroots power," "equal rights for all including gay people," "Iraq war," "living wage," "Social Security", "election reform" and "universal healthcare" to show that they realize which issues are important in the Democratic Party. The only speaker who went near some of these was Rep. Tom Udall. Besides demanding that we make sure that elections are never again allowed to be stolen, he urged Democrats to start fighting for our core issues and stop trying to be Republican-lite. Hurrah for Rep. Udall!

If you're having a Friday night fundraising reception with Governor Richardson, Rep. Tom Udall, Senator Jeff Bingaman and others, make sure the room can hold the people who signed up and paid from $25 to hundreds of dollars to attend. Don't hold it in a tiny room with only a handful of tables and serve only cheese and crackers, salsa and chips and few bedraggled veggies to tide people over until dinner.

If the State Party Chair is going to take it upon himself to appoint a bunch of at-large members to the State Central Committee to salve political grumblings, he shouldn't use the excuse that he's trying to gender balance the Committee. The Committee was already gender-balanced according to the Party's own records.

If you're going to put all the resolutions passed by the State Resolutions into one packet, don't separate out two resolutions on equal rights for gay and lesbian people and put them out separately on a sheet of paper labeled "Special Consideration." It's also good policy not to change wording that has been approved at the county level and by the State Resolutions Committee.

Since one of the most important actions we need to take as a Party is to train people on organizing and messaging, don't allow earlier events to run so long that they ruin the chances of people who'd like to attend the scheduled training sessions. I know that State Party staff worked hard on these sessions and most people were denied the chance to attend because the morning session ran past 2:30PM.

Although I'm very pleased with alot of the things progressive Dems were able to achieve at the SCC, I can't help thinking how much more effective, efficient and productive a meeting of Dems from all over the state could be if simple common sense was applied to running the event. How about you?

Barbara Wold