|
Edited on Mon Jun-21-04 12:33 PM by VelmaD
As requested (read ordered) by PDittie, here's my report and thoughts on the State Convention. Fair warning: I haven’t had a lot of sleep and this will probably get babbly. Oh, and there’s a lot of the personal mixed in with the political.
Thursday I left Austin too late to make it to the State Democratic Executive Committee meeting but I heard it wasn’t all that exciting anyway. Basically Thursday was a party. Crashed in the hotel room then got all dressed up, had drinks with the DUers in the Hyatt bar and hit the party at the Aquarium hosted by John Sharp. The Aquarium is really cool. Has great neon outside and the inside is a bit like being underwater. And they have some bizarre looking fish in the big central tank. The upside, free booze. The downside was that it was packed, you couldn’t hear a thing, and the big ferris wheel outside was closed. *pout*
Anyway, we went out to a fine little Mexican place with the yummiest margaritas. This would be the beginning of the long drinking binge we all went on at the convention. :evilgrin:
Friday it was down to business. Picked up my credentials and then wandered around looking for the caucus meetings. It was really annoying. The convention center is poorly laid out and there was no map provided to the delegates. *sigh*
I am a member of the Progressive Populist Caucus and we had a big day Friday. We were pushing an electronic voting resolution and had a wonderful speaker on the topic from Rice University. I got roped into helping get people signed into the caucus to vote and we must have signed up at least a couple hundred new members. Maybe more. Our room was PACKED. It was neat to see so many people wanting to publicly affirm that they are progressives and populists.
After that it was lunch. Thanks PDittie for picking the fine little Italian restaurant. Sorry I spent lunch so wigged out. I lost my driver’s license and was thrilled with the assistance I got from the Convention staff, the Houston PD officers, and the Security staff at the convention center. My license turned up and Security even brought it to an easy to find spot so I wouldn’t have to get lost looking for their office. :yourock:
Then it was off to the Senate District Caucus. I can only speak to SD14’s Caucus but it was typical in that we got started VERY late. But we managed to get to everything except electing out National delegates before we had to be downstairs for the opening of the convention. As you may have heard already I was elected out of my SD to the Credentials Committee. GO ME! :)
The opening of the convention was great. We got serenaded by the marching band from Thurgood Marshall High School. They ROCKED! Someone else is going to have to report on what the speakers said that night, particularly John Edwards, because I missed most of it because they had to convene the credentials committee to work out a fight in SD23. I heard Edwards was good though and that there was much excited squealing from the female delegates. :eyes:
The fight in Credentials was the reason I ran in the first place. I had been warned it was coming. Basically they broke the rules for elevating alternates to delegate status (because they didn’t like the race of the alternates in question) and the alternates and some delegates walked out of their caucus, called the Parliamentarian in and then held a rump caucus when they were unable to get their concerns addressed. We had to settle what to do about it in the Committee. Both sides go up and presented their cases and we asked questions and then the weird shit started. The Chair called a 5 minute recess and asked the “affected parties” to meet him in the hallway to talk about it. Well, it went on for way more than 5 minutes. I headed to the potty and when I got back they were still out in the hall arguing. I made a comment and the Chair tried to order everyone else but “the affected parties” back into the Committee room. Well, I didn’t take kindly to that and made a snarky comment about how we should be talking about it in Committee not in a hallway.
So, he drug everyone back inside. I found out later from a friend who was an “affected party” that the Chair was trying to broker a deal. That’s all fine and good but he shouldn’t have been doing it out in a hallway. Anyway, the Committee was having none of it. You could tell from the start what was going to end up being the resolution. We ordered the SD to elevate the alternates, completely redo their caucus, and required them to have the Parliamentarian present at all times to make sure they followed the Rules.
By the time we were done the general session was almost over. My SD had to reconvene its caucus to elect National delegates. It took forever as we proved yet again that Will Rogers was right, we’re “not members of an organized political party”. *sigh* I didn’t get elected but I’m pretty happy with the group we’re sending. One of the male delegates in particular was a real sweetie. I met him a couple of times and I think he’ll do just fine. He promised to have enough fun in Boston for the both of us. We’re also sending an Arab-American as a delegate, which is pretty cool.
After the SD caucus my night got bad. I was moving out of the hotel room I stayed in Thursday night and into a DUer’s place. I couldn’t find my friend who had the key to the hotel room, he was in the SD we made completely redo their caucus. I wandered around the convention center looking for him and finally had a blood sugar crash. It was awful. But slutticus picked me up and took me to Katz’s and fed me up. The funny part was while we were waiting for our table NoPasaran and sonias walked in. Serendipity. And there was Death By Chocolate which saved my evening. :)
Saturday was amazing. Dennis K was the big speaker on Saturday and he brought the house down. There was much yelling and cheering and my voice is still shot to hell. The Killer D’s also spoke and there was much adulation from the crowd. :yourock:
Things did get a little bogged down later on Saturday. I got bored with the interminable speakers and wandered around the exhibit hall. Got GOPisEvil a t-shirt for his birthday. Got myself lots of stickers and buttons and whatnot to decorate myself. I got a particularly lovely pin from the Muslim Democrats. I also joined Texas Democratic Veteran’s in honor of my brother and cousins who have served and my favorite DU veterans – DarkPhenyx, matcom, Skittles, and the rest of our gang of fine DU vets. Their speaker on Saturday morning was wonderful and he easily convinced me (along with hundreds of other folks) to go and support his caucus.
Finally ran into BlueCollar while I was walking around outside to get some air. He yelled at me for not eating again and made me go have some red beans and rice at the concession stand. Had to hold a gun to my head and everything. ;) We talked for a bit and wandered back to the main hall in time to start voting on resolutions.
We passed all sorts of resolutions. The Texas Democrats came out opposed to electronic voting machines that don’t provide the voter a paper ballot showing who they voted for. Hooray! :party: We’re in favor of medical marijuana and a moratorium on the death penalty. We’re in favor of a Department of Peace – this one had a little floor fight because the resolution came out of committee without the “be it resolved” that included the Department of Peace specifically, but it got added back in on the floor and passed. If anyone can think of any other resolutions that passed feel free to add to the list.
We also voted on the platform and I read most of it but I really didn’t pay much attention while they were talking about it because I was talking with a bunch of people from my SD. I met some of the most fabulous people and everywhere I went people were stopping me to ask about what happened in the Credentials Committee. It was so neat to have people recognize me and know my name. :)
Anyway, after the voting we adjourned and democracy was officially saved. :toast:
And then we PARTIED. Me and slutticus and PDittie and his wife and BlueCollar and Lisa0825 ate and then wandered through various and sundry bars getting hammered. Thanks to everyone who stood a round that night. :beer: *big smooches* There was a lot of booze and not much sleep Saturday night. So we were all a little bleary at brunch on Sunday but it was yummmmmmmmy.
A few thanks are in order. First and foremost to PDittie and his wife for all the planning they did. I highly endorse PDittie as your tour guide when in Houston. Everywhere we went the food was amazing.
Thanks to slutticus too for putting me up when my best friend’s family got to be too much for me at the hotel. You may be the only person on earth whose car is messier than mine, but yes you were a good host.
And thanks to everyone who kept me company and made me eat and listened while I ranted about my Committee meeting and got me drunk. I had a fabulous time at this convention and it wouldn’t have been nearly so neat without everyone from DU.
|