Attention DPVA: Washington Capitals Fire Coach As Team Struggles

Did you see the editorial in the Sunday Post? (4.00 / 1)

The Washington Post compared our state elections to elections in the Soviet Union because there were so many unopposed candidates and because of the Gerrymandered districts.

The post didn't call out the Democrats, but a lot of those unopposed races were because the Democrats didn't run anyone. Are we at a point now where the districts are so manipulated that no one but the incumbent can win? Is that why some candidates are unopposed? Are we really becoming the Soviet Union?

---

by: commentator1 @ Mon Nov 28, 2011 at 15:43:45 PM UTC

Scary (0.00 / 0)

I did see that and it is a scary notion but with the gerrymandering and an uninquisitive and uninformed electorate the GOP is gaining ground on their ideal plan where races are run in the primary only and general elections are just a rubber stamp.  

---

by: glennbear @ Mon Nov 28, 2011 at 17:48:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Why doesn't the DPVA make the Strategic Plan available to local committees ? (0.00 / 0)

One of the most important items that will be discussed (in a public forum, no less) during the Strategic Forum & Work Groups session on Sat. is the Strategic Plan adopted in 2010.

So why isn't the 2010 Strategic Plan made available to all local committee chairs for further distribution to all committee members ? I can understand why the DPVA would not want to post the Strategic Plan on their publicly-accessible part of the web site, but there's no legitimate reason I can think of that it wasn't distributed to the membership as soon as it was adopted.

I'll try to obtain a paper copy of the Strategic Plan when I arrive at the meeting location, maybe also an electronic copy since I'll have my laptop along with a 2 GB flash drive. Obviously, the 2010 Strategic Plan failed although the failures might have been because the party leadership failed to implement the critical elements of the plan.

We've generated a large body of ideas here on BV that can be used to produce a very useful set of Strategic Plan revision proposals, but we have to know what is in the original Plan before we can figure out what needs to be revised in its entirety.

Maybe some county committee chairs did receive a copy of the 2010 plan but for whatever reason(s) chose not to distribute it to other members.

I'd like to see the 2010 Strategic Plan and proposed revisions from the Sat. Strategic Forum posted on a section of the DPVA web site that is accessible only by committee members who are given a password for access, similar the way some members are given password access to the VAN database. Then the entire review and revision process would be much more transparent and periodic revisions as needed could become much more efficient and timely. Plus we would have a tool for assessing how well (or poorly) those charged with implementation of the plan are performing.

                      T.C.

---

by: Tom @ Mon Nov 28, 2011 at 16:14:48 PM UTC

I guess I should have said what Sat. meeting I was referring to.... (0.00 / 0)

For those who haven't been closely following the diaries relating to reforming the DPVA party structure and leadership, I was referring to the 2-3 Dec. DPVA quarterly meetings in Hampton, Va., the Sat. A.M. meeting being the Central Committee meeting. The Strategic Forum begins immediately after the Central Committee adjourns and runs until 2 P.M. My comment above more correctly should have been posted on one of those diary threads but I don't know how to cross-post so I'll just leave it where it is and add the comment there later.

---

by: Tom @ Mon Nov 28, 2011 at 17:21:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

A simple reason (0.00 / 0)

members of local committees are not members of DPVA.  There are really three totally separate Democratic Party committees that someone can be a part of.  

1) The local city/county committee, and any subdivisions like magisterial districts that are within that committee.

2) The state committee (DPVA).

3) The national committee (DNC).

Being a member of a local county/city committee does not make you a member of DPVA any more so than it makes you a member of the DNC.  That's why most of the slots for State Central are elected; so that members will represent their local committee.  It doesn't seem to work that way, but it should.  There are some DPVA members who are not even members of their local committee, which in my mind is back asswards.

---

by: NotJohnSMosby @ Mon Nov 28, 2011 at 18:27:14 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Actually, the state committee is just a collection of District Committees (0.00 / 0)

The State Central Committee has almost no relationship to local committees, and Central Committee members are not selected with any connection to the local committees in mind.  Most of the Central Committee is made up of 11 District Committees, and people are elected to those District Committees at a District Committee reorganization meeting that occurs every four years.  The next time that there will be a state-wide reorganization will be in May, 2013.

There are actually three ways one can be selected to the Central Committee:

1.  Be one of the 20 elected at each District reorganization meeting.

2.  Be one of the following:  

* the State chair;
* the vice-chair for organization (first vice-chair);
* the vice chair for rules (second vice-chair);
* the vice-chair for technology and communications;
* the vice-chair for finance;
* the vice-chair for outreach;
* the secretary and the treasurer of the Central Committee;
* the Virginia members of the Democratic National Committee elected by the State Convention, and any other
member of the National Committee elected under the national charter and rules who resides in Virginia;
* the Democratic members of the United States Congress from Virginia;
* the Democratic Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General;
* the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Delegates, provided they are Democrats;
* The Senate and House of Delegates Majority or Minority Leaders, provided they are Democrats;
* the chairs of the Democratic caucuses of the Senate and the House;
* the president, national committeeman and national committeewoman of the Virginia Young Democrats;
* the president and first vice-president of the Virginia Democratic Women's Caucus;
* the chair of the Association of Democratic Chairs;
* the chair of the Association of Democratic Elected Officials;
* the chair of the Virginia Young Democrats College Caucus;
* the chair of the Virginia Young Democrats Teen Caucus;
* the chair of the Virginia Young Democrats County/City Caucus; and
* Representatives from recognized caucuses identified pursuant to Section 4.19 and constituency group organizations as identified pursuant to Section 4.20.

3.  Be selected pursuant to Section 6.2 of the Party Plan, which calls for 4 additional members from each CD -- one General Assembly member from the Congressional District and three city or county representatives.  This last category seems mainly to be there to accommodate places like the Fifth District, that have 22 jurisdictions.  It also provides another way to get to the mandated gender balance.

This is all set forth in the Party Plan -- http://www.vademocrats.org/sit...

Just a warning -- this will all get really stupid after new Congressional District lines are drawn, because anyone who has already been elected to the Central Committee under the current boundary lines will retain his or her spot on the Committee even if that results in some District only getting 10 and some other District getting 30 members.  Until reorganization, that's just the breaks.

---

by: cvllelaw @ Mon Nov 28, 2011 at 19:01:47 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It gets ever more stupid. (0.00 / 0)

There is already one law suit filed by the Dems. that most likely go to the Va. State Supreme Court. The Va. Constitution requires that the General Assembly pass a Congressional District redistricting plan before the end of 2011, so the law suit is essentially asking the courts to make the CD boundary decisions, as was done ten year ago. There may be a second law suit that would also take a long time to work it's way to the Va. Supreme Court.

I think the previous Va. CD redistricting court process took about 3 years to finally resolve, and this one is not likely to be resolved before the May 2013 CD committee re-org. Call to Caucus, so what we are being advised at the county committee level is that we will vote at the May 2013 caucuses on the basis of our current CD, which in my case means that even though I'm sure the redistricting boundaries will eventually move me to the 10th CD I will still be eligible to be elected to the 11th CD committee, which I fully intend to try for.

Where it gets really messy is what happens when I finally get moved to the 10th CD and I want to move my CD committee membership from the 11th to the 10th. As it happens, all of my close friends who are members of the Fauquier County Democratic Committee and are presently members of the 10th CD committee and would otherwise have voted for me for membership will get moved to the 1st or 7th CDs, so they will need to become members of their respective new CD committees. I don't know if the National-level party rules (i.e., the DNC) contains any guidance as to whether a CD committee member who is moved to different CD by re-districting retains any right to membership or not. I haven't found anything in the Va. Dem. State Party Plan that addresses that once-every-ten years issue so it might have to be resolved by the DPVA Steering Committee and respective CD chairs in consultation with the DNC.

Or, maybe someone here on BV knows of a previous precedent that makes it less complicated than I think it is.

This happens every ten years, so a logical person might expect that there would be some guidance contained in some DPVA or DNC document, but if there is I've never seen it or heard of it.

So, DPVA reform and precedent scholars: What can you tell those CD committee members who will eventually get moved to a different CD ? Will they lose their CD membership immediately or will they have temporary membership on their new CD committees until the next re-org. ?

---

by: Tom @ Mon Nov 28, 2011 at 20:33:30 PM UTC

[ Parent ]