01/25/2020
WHY YOU SHOULD BE A DELEGATE TO THE DEM STATE CONVENTION
HOW YOU BECOME ONE,
& WHAT YOU WILL ACTUALLY DO
On June 13th (Saturday) Hoosiers will convene in Indianapolis for a 1-day convention of the Indiana Democratic Party.
This is going to be a very straight-forward post explaining why/how you file, plus what you would actually do.
HOW TO FILE (DEADLINE FRIDAY FEB 7th)
Go down to your county building and request help filing a CAN-37 Form to become a delegate to the Democratic State Convention. It helps to know your precinct, with extra points for knowing your delegate district, but don’t worry about that for now. The county should do it anyways to make sure there’s no error. So, now you’ve filed for election, IF your delegate district has more candidates than the allotted amount, you name will be on the very bottom of the Democratic primary ballot along with other nominees. However, this is very unlikely. Most delegate districts go unfilled and are appointed by the county chair. More likely than not, there will be no competition for your seat. Congrats! You are now a state delegate, your term lasts for basically one day: June 13th.
You can also become a delegate by appointment of your county chair. This is not guaranteed, so file first and cross the bridge of losing a contested delegate’s election when you get there.
If you are worried about the cost of travel and boarding please let us know and we will organize to alleviate those costs.
WHY YOU SHOULD DO IT, and WHAT IS “IT?”
This National Convention is likely to be a contested (“brokered”) convention wherein no candidate earns a majority of delegates. National Convention delegates COULD have a major impact on who the nominee will be.
I’m not going to lie to you - the delegates have very little say in 80% of the convention. However, the 20% you can do is extremely important. In my view, to only sacrifice a day to make the Indiana Democratic Party more fair is a pretty time-efficient way to make change.
The Indiana “big-ticket item” is that you will be able to vote on either State Senator (North Porter & LaPorte Co) Karen Talian or former Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel.
The real important stuff is done in your Congressional District meeting. There, you will elect delegates to the national convention as well as committee representatives. (Rules, Resolutions, and Credentials) There has been lots of intraparty progressive organizing happening and we need people who will vote in favor of party reform on those committees to make it happen.
The rest of the day is pomp and circumstance but the bottom line is that WE NEED PROGRESSIVES IN THE ROOM TO SEND THE RIGHT PEOPLE TO THE DNC IN MILWAUKEE, GET THE BEST CANDIDATE FOR AG, and SEND PARTY-REFORM COMMITTEE REPS FROM OUR CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT!
Please contact me or comment below if you have any questions OR if you plan on attending!
-Brandon Dothager
(219)670-6163
[email protected]
