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This is a reprint of a live blog from the CA DEm Party Conventionin Anaheim this past Fri,SAt, and SUnday.
written by Marcy Winograd, Linda Sutton and Rick Jacobs
reprinted in full with permission.
CA Dem Party Caucuses Vote to Censure Feinstein, CDP Resolutions Committee Kills Censure Resolution, Floor Debate Blocked -- Read three reports on the CDP Executive Board (Nov. 16-18) meeting in Anaheim:
At the California Democratic Party Executive Board meeting in Anaheim this weekend, the Women's Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, and the Irish-American Caucus all voted in support of censuring California Senator Dianne Feinstein, principally for her vote to confirm Mukasey as Attorney General -- this after Mukasey refused to declare water boarding torture and affirmed his support for a unitary executive. The caucus votes came on the heels of a nationwide Censure Feinstein campaign, led by the Courage Campaign, PDA, Moveon.org, and endorsed by 35 California Democratic Clubs, and 30,000 grassroots activists.
Despite grassroots support for the censure resolution, the resolutions committee refused to consider the resolution or bring it to the floor of the Executive Board. When members of the Progressive Caucus tried to introduce a censure resolution on the floor of the General Session, the leadership of the Party refused to allow discussion of the motion.
Following the Women's Caucus censure vote Friday night, CDP Chair Art Torres opened the Saturday morning General Assembly session with a 35-minute defense of Feinstein, speaking of her proud voting record and leadership in the California Democratic Party. A few of us, outraged at the lecture, shouted from the back, "Waterboarding ... Torture ... Southwick ... Kyl-Lieberman" in reference to her support for Mukasey for Attorney General, the judicial appointment of racist and homophobic Southwick, and Kyl-Lieberman, an amendment declaring a branch of the Iranian military to be a terrorist organization (establishing a pretext for a US attack.) When the lecture dragged on, with no opening for dialogue, Dorothy Reik, Barbara Levin, and I stood up to turn our backs to the Chair for the remainder of his We-must-love-Feinstein speech. During the speech, Torres did mention concern over Feinstein's latest votes and the fact that he had called her to talk to her about her voting record.
On the floor of the General Assembly on Sunday, the CDP took a neutral position on the Indian gambling contracts passed by the legislature and headed for a ballot initiative fight -- while throwing its support behind Proposition 93, a ballot initiative to extend the term limits of the present Democratic Party state leadership. Additionally, the Party took a neutral position on Proposition 92, the community college initiative that would redirect more money from the general education budget to community colleges.
On Sunday morning, during the General Session, when Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Jo Olson stood to introduce a motion to censure Feinstein, I, Marcy Winograd, seconded the motion -- only to have the chair of the General Assembly refuse to recognize Olson or her censure motion. Olson appealed that ruling to the entire body, a few hundred delegates of the Executive Board, but only a third supported Olson's appeal, while the rest backed the chair's decision to deny consideration or discussion of the censure motion. Courage Campaign videographers got much of the weekend's Censure Feinstein story on tape, including CDP consultant Bob Mulholland's attempts to block their video cameras, and they plan to post the video on Youtube later.
Meanwhile, the Party passed a number of resolutions, soon to posted at cadem.org. Resolutions that passed included the following: Remind Congress that a Pre-Emptive Military Attack on Iran Would be Illegal and Unconstitutional (PDLA); Stop Blackwater West; Oppose Local Police Complicity with Federal DEA Medical Marijuana Raids (41st AD); Support CA Secretary of State Bowen's Efforts to Make California Elections Secure (PDLA) and Bring Home the CA National Guard. Resolutions committee members expressed a desire to work with PDA's Michael Jay on an election protection resolution underscoring the need for paper ballots.
Meanwhile, a resolution to censure Dianne Feinstein was killed in the resolutions committee (read Rick Jacobs' report below), as was a resolution to declare water boarding torture. Co-Chair John Hanna objected to hearing both the censure resolution and the no-waterboarding-torture resolution -- perhaps because he saw passage of a no-torture resolution as a backdoor attempt to censure Feinstein for her support of Mukasey and his refusal to declare waterboarding torture.
During the weekend, some PDA activists spoke to Christine Pelosi, daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The message? We need much greater accountability between the party's platform and the voting records of Democratic Party lawmakers. The country elected a Democratic majority to challenge the Bush agenda, not to comply with it. We should have been out of Iraq by now!
Many thanks to the PDA activists and supporters who drove to Anaheim and packed the resolutions committee session to support our efforts.
Marcy Winograd
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CENSURED!!! SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN GETS SEVERE REBUKE FROM PARTY BASE
by Linda Sutton
Senator Dianne Feinstein, AKA Mrs. Richard Blum, finally heard the outcry from the party base which has for many years been dismayed by her Republican-like votes. The Progressive Caucus as well as the Women's and Irish-American Caucus passed a resolution similar to the following :
Whereas Senator Dianne Feinstein voted to support the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey as United States Attorney General, thereby elevating to the highest position in law enforcement a man who refused to renounce the right of the President to resort to torture and who refused to recognize waterboarding as a form of torture, and by this action Senator Feinstein failed to oppose President Bush and failed to stand for the ideals of the Democratic Party, which abhors torture and stands firmly against its use by the United States at all times and places; and
Whereas Senator Feinstein voted to confirm Judge Leslie Southwick for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit despite his clear record of racism and gender discrimination, thus failing to stand firmly with the Democratic Party, which supports gender equality and opposes racism in any of its manifestations; and
Whereas these examples are far from the only instances where Senator Feinstein, after seeking and securing the support and endorsement of the California Democratic Party, has failed to support the policies and principles of our party;
Therefore be it resolved that the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party expresses its disappointment at, and censure of, Senator Feinstein for ignoring Democratic principles and falling so far below the standard of what we expect of our elected officials.
The resolution at the Progressive Caucus was co-authored by Northern California Chair Mal Burnstein and Michael Jay, Delegate of the 42nd AD.
Speaking in favor of passage, Southern California Chair Dr. Jo Olson opened debate.
"We have taken a lot of flak, a lot of heat for splitting the party, for fracturing the party, for putting a division in the party, for going against party lines, and yet we stand here today, and we have members of our Congress and members of our Senate who make egregious breaks from party lines and are not held accountable. I think that we face a very serious situation today."
After reading the resolution to the gathered 200 caucus members, Dr. Olson continued, "I just think it's incredible audacity that we're even having a discussion about it. It's TORTURE, it's TORTURE, it's TORTURE. Dipping human beings in water and pretending to drown them is TORTURE...actually drowning them, it's torture. I'm a physician and I've seen people die...it's horrible...There's no reason that our senator from this incredibly Democratic state in this country should be coming anywhere close to supporting it and I hope you will all join me we're not going to accept and send a strong message that we're not going to accept this kind of behavior and judgment.
Vice Chair Brad Parker made the point that this is about policy and not personality and is not an indictment of her entire career. It relates to specific actions and our right to dissent. Numerous speakers rose to speak in favor and only minor amendments were proposed and voted down. The resolution passed with overwhelming support of the voting members. Questions were asked, but no one spoke against the measure. After passage, it was sent to the Resolution Committee of the Democratic Party asking for consideration. Late Saturday night this committee declined to hear the resolution. The Executive Board meeting of the California Democratic Party was held at the Sheraton, Anaheim.
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Censure Killed; Point Made
By Rick jacobs - Nov 17th, 2007 at 9:41 pm PST
The people's effort to censure Senator Feinstein was killed with a few objections in a crowded committee room tonight, just a stone's throw from Disneyland. The destiny of the censure resolution was clear from the outset. Because the resolution had been submitted within ten days of today's meeting, it was on the agenda of the resolutions committee as a "late" resolution, along with sixteen or so others.
After four hours of deliberations on about 60 resolutions, the late resolutions were read out by title. The rules state that if any one member of the rules committee objects to a specific resolution, that resolution is dead; it is not heard, not voted upon and not considered in any way.
When finally the resolution to censure Senator Feinstein was brought up, the Party's chief political strategist, Bob Mulholland, stood and shouted from the side of the room, "object, and object!" There were other shouts from the room as committee members joined in. First, Committee Co-Chair John Hanna objected and then others objected and then, as if to make sure that we got the point, everyone who wanted to join the chorus of objections demanded that their objections be counted, too. It was a sort of pile on moment, in which one veto simply would not do. It all happened within about a minute.
Senator Feinstein's best friend and her campaign chair, Roz Wyman, had sat in the room all day, just a few feet from me. When all of the objecting was over, Bob Mulholland came over to her for a quick chat, Roz stood and said, "I'm going home," she patted a few people on the back and off she went. Mission accomplished.
uriously, the next resolution but one, entitled "Defining 'Waterboarding' as torture and eliminating its practice by the U.S. government," met the same fate. Mr. Hanna objected to this resolution as well, so the CDP will not take a stand on the substance of a bill that Senator Feinstein herself has already signed on to support with Senator Kennedy.
While the censure resolution failed, the movement succeeded on the substance of the issue -- namely holding elected officials accountable for their votes. As others have noted, CDP Chair Art Torres addressed the plenary session of the executive board this morning, extolling the long and virtuous record of Senator Feinstein and explaining that he had spoken with her, telling her that people are upset. While Chairman Torres chose to frame the anger at the senior senator as stemming from two votes out of thousands in her career, trying to diminish the existence of a whole pattern of votes by the senator, Mr. Torres got the point. And I hope so does Senator Feinstein.
Let's take stock: Two weeks ago, people all over the country and especially in this state were angered and dejected because Senator Feinstein had, in quick succession, voted for an apparently morally bankrupt man for federal judge and then for judge Mukasey as attorney general. This followed on the heels of earlier votes that extended the rights of the federal government to spy on us without warrants. And the senator was signaling that she would vote to give retroactive immunity for such spying to telecom companies.
We banded together and took action, even as many thought it was futile. Today, thanks to very agile and determined grassroots organizers at PDA, some forty Democratic Clubs and organizations in California and our good friends at MoveOn, more than 31,000 individuals signed on to support the censure resolution together with those clubs. Max Follmer's reporting at the Huffington Post forced party employees and consultants as well as senator Feinstein's staff, to acknowledge that there is a problem. The Sacrament Bee's online insider political website wrote about the issue. And no less than the UK's Guardian newspaper filed a story.
Of course we wanted the California Democratic Party to pass this resolution. But political parties are not built to do that. They exist to perpetuate the party and that comes through keeping incumbents in office. There were sharp disagreements here today as people in the corridors buzzed about the temerity of 31,000 individuals and dozens of clubs asking for a senator to be held accountable. And having sat through the resolutions committee hearing today, I think that the vast majority of the folks who volunteer countless hours to serve on these committees take their work seriously. They really care about what they are doing. Had we polled the members on whether they approved of the senator's recent votes, my guess is we'd have had near unanimity that her votes were wrong.
But that's not the way it works. There remains an element of democratic centralism in the party structures, a sense that we can disagree behind closed doors but never in public. And many think we have to defend "our own" no matter what. The problem , of course, is that those who are not part of the system stop registering as Democrats. Today, over 20% of registered voters in California are "decline to state" (not affiliated with a political party) because they increasingly see the parties as pale shadows of each other. People want honesty and transparency, they want to vote for people who will stand for principles and get stuff done, not just work to win an election.
Our job is clear. We are outside. We must be willing to upset the applecart to assure that our nation is not weakened by those who would temporize about essential civil liberties. Torture is torture. We oppose it. Domestic spying is illegal. We oppose it. Hate speech and separating families due to sexual orientation is an abuse of fundamental equal and human rights. We oppose it.
We make our own leaders stronger when we tell them that we watch them as closely as we watch those who have led our country into its current state. In many ways, we owe it to ourselves, to Senator Feinstein and to the Democratic Party to hold all on our "side" to higher standards than those who overtly trample on America as the Bush Administration has for seven years.
We'll stay vigilant. And we'll continue to call on Senator Feinstein and others to communicate with her constituents, to listen and to be expect public consequences if she again puts the fundamental issues of democracy at risk. The party leaders know we are here and so does our senator; now we have to stay here.
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