Paul Lohman wrote, "Is anyone else bothered by the fact that at the Mpls City
Convention the delegates chose to endorse two candidates - not three - and now the
Central Committee may step in and endorse a third candidate? I am. In fact if I
thought that we were simply turning the endorsement of a third candidate over to the
Central Committee I would have put forward a motion (that I'm sure would have passed)
preventing the Central Committee from endorsing any other candidates. We had a
convention. We went through a laborious endorsing process. We chose to endorse two
candidates. We were divided on endorsing a third. For the Central Committee to come in
later and in essence change the message of the convention has the potential of
disenfranchising the work of the delegates. I don't think that's a good message to
send."
[BRM] I'm not disagreeing with Paul -- in fact, I'm not taking any view about
whether the City DFL Central Committee should or shouldn't endorse a candidate for the
third school-board seat. But some background about why the Central Committee is
meeting tonight may be helpful.
First, the City Convention in May did address the issue of endorsement by the
Central Committee. Rule 13 provided that "[p]rior to the primary, the Minneapolis DFL
Party Central Committee may not endorse." The Convention could have prohibited the
Central Committee from considering an endorsement after the primary as well, but
didn't do so. (The State DFL Bylaws provide that "[a]n instruction by a convention
vote of 60 percent of the delegates that the central committee shall not endorse will
be effective through the general election unless otherwise stated by the
convention....")
Second, the State DFL Bylaws provide that "[i]n the event that a non-endorsed
candidate is the winner of a primary, a post-primary convention or central committee
meeting may be called for the purpose of considering an endorsement. If called, it
must be held within 18 days after the primary." That provision is designed for the
situation where an endorsed candidate doesn't advance from the primary to the general
election, or where the political landscape otherwise changes between the endorsing
convention and the general election. Which brings me to my next point:
Third, while many people evidently learned about tonight's meeting only from
the StarTribune article in yesterday's paper, in fact the meeting has been scheduled
for nearly a month -- since well before anybody knew how the primary election would
turn out. There was no guarantee that the two DFL-endorsed candidates would finish as
strongly as they did in the top two places, nor that the third- and fourth-place
finishers would be candidates who had sought the City Convention's endorsement. We
might instead have been looking at a situation where an endorsed candidate did not
come through the primary, or where the other four finishers included three non-DFLers
and one DFLer -- in which case it would be tough to argue that the Convention would
have wanted the Party to leave the third DFLer out there alone just because the
Convention lost a quorum. (By the way, I have heard much interesting speculation in
the past few days about what the Convention "would have wanted" in these
circumstances. Depending on who is doing the speculating, the Convention "would have
wanted" the Central Committee either to endorse Sharon Henry-Blythe or Dennis
Schapiro, or to make no endorsement. Depending on who is doing the speculating. The
actual results from the Convention's votes are online at
http://scc.net/~t-bonham/MPLSCV04R.HTM.) Happily, the Party doesn't find itself in
that situation -- but before the primary election, there was no way of knowing how the
results would turn out. So in mid-August, I consulted the City officers and the
senate-district chairs and associate chairs, and we agreed on calling tonight's
meeting, just in case. The meeting was announced via the City Party's electronic
distribution list on 23 August, just over four weeks ago. The call was mailed out just
after Labor Day (still before the primary).
The Central Committee is not obligated to endorse a candidate tonight. The
first question that the meeting will consider is whether to proceed to an endorsement,
and I know some members who will be voting "no." If you are a DFLer and have an
opinion that you want heard, you are welcome to come join us tonight (Tuesday) at 6:30
p.m. at the Jury Assembly Room, Hennepin County Government Center, 300 South Sixth
Street, Minneapolis. Any Minneapolis DFLer may speak at the meeting. And if you can't
come in person, you can contact your representatives to the City Central Committee,
whose contact information is available in the online directory at
http://www.scc.net/~t-bonham/MPLSCC1P.HTM.
Finally, let me put in a plug for the Minneapolis DFL Party's electronic
distribution list, which now includes about 500 subscribers. (An invitation was mailed
out in April to every delegate who attended a precinct caucus in Minneapolis and
listed their e-mail address.) The list is open to any interested member of the DFL
Party. I invite you to join. If you are a DFLer interested in joining the Minneapolis
list, please write to me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] When it comes to the Minneapolis DFL
Party, you'll get your news before you read it in the newspaper.
BRM
Brian Melendez, Chair,
Minneapolis DFL Party
Lowry Hill (Ward 7)
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