DPSC Secretary Andrew Becker

01/14/2021

It has come to my attention that I may have to correct misinformation or confusion about one of the items on tonight's Central Committee agenda. Below, you will find DPSC Administrative Resolution 2020–01, appointing the DPSC's delegates to the California Democratic Party State Central Committee.

Our bylaws require us to do this during each January reorganization meeting (see bylaws except in comments below). This resolution is substantially the same as the resolutions that we passed in 2019 & 2017 (see those resolutions in comments below). This is also what the DPSC did in the years before that, before we established electronic recordkeeping standards. This action was approved by the Executive Board during their January meeting (see Executive Board minutes in the comments below).

Please consider as suspicious & unreliable any accusations to the contrary.

08/08/2019

Secret ballots have been prohibited at all levels of the Democratic Party since the 1971 McGovern-Frasier Commission reforms. The Commission found widespread ballot-box stuffing at Club and County Party levels in 1967/1968, resulting in unrepresentative delegations being sent to county and state party Central Committees, who elected voting members of the Democratic National Committee, resulting in an undemocratic stacking of the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the nomination of a person who was not even running for president (pro-war candidate) Hubert Humphrey, instead of the candidate who had won the most primaries throughout the nation (anti-war candidateEugene McCarthy). Ever since then, any subunit of the Party that has the ability to influence the composition of any Party organ above it by sending voting delegates to it has been banned from using secret ballots.

05/01/2019

A note on Resolution formatting for anybody trying to submit a Resolution to the County Party, State Party, or wherever:

The 'Whereas clauses' in the preamble (all of the Whereas clauses) must end in a semicolon then the word "and" – except that the last Whereas clause before the Resolving clauses should not have the word "and" after the semicolon. There's some disagreement about whether the last Whereas clause ends with a semicolon or a period, but the more traditional style ends it with a semicolon.

You also cannot have periods anywhere in the entire preamble – it's supposed to be one giant run-on sentence separated only by semicolons. Instead of periods, use other punctuation. Since semicolons are used to end Whereas clauses, you also cannot use semicolons in the middle of a Whereas clause. Parentheses and em dashes (the long dash "–" not the short en dash "-" or a hyphen...all three have different lengths, although modern typefaces often combine the en dash and the hyphen) can be used liberally instead of commas if this results in way too many commas.

Resolving clauses end with periods, not semicolons (nor a semicolon followed by "and"). Resolving clause may *only* use one period per Resolving clause (each clause can only be *one* sentence each). Again, you can replace periods with em dashes or other punctuation. Since Resolving clauses don't end in semicolons, semicolons can be used in them.

Finally, each word "Whereas" or "Resolved" should begin with a capitalized W/R and be followed by a comma ("Whereas," or "Resolved," or "Therefore, be it Resolved," or "Be it Further Resolved," and so on). It's common to use small caps, bolding, or italicization for these introductions, and also to treat them as a title by also capitalizing the first letter of words like "Further." Resolving clauses can simply say "Resolved," but more often the words "Therefore, be it" or simply "Be it" are added before "Resolved." You can also add those two phrases at the end of the last Whereas clause after its terminal semicolon instead of before "Resolved" (only if you don't end the last Whereas clause with a period), but that's very old-school.

01/14/2019

Very interesting to analyze the results of elections. In elections for Central Committee and ADems in Sac Co, progressives have won handily.

In the recent DPSC Officer elections, the Elected Members voted, by large margins, the opposite way that Ex Officio Appointees did. Club Reps were evenly divided.

Representation matters, and the Elected Members are the voice of the people.

01/13/2019

I'm proud to continue serving the Democrats of Sacramento County as your Secretary! Thank you to everybody who entrusted me with this great responsibility.

Please feel free to reach out to me with your ideas, questions, and concerns as we head into 2020.

09/08/2018

Meeting materials for the DPSC's September Central Committee meeting:

06/27/2018

"The DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee voted 27 to 1 to block officeholders, DNC members, and other party dignitaries from casting decisive votes on the first ballot of presidential nominating conventions."

A Democratic National Committee panel has approved a plan to bar unpledged party leaders from voting on the first ballot at presidential nominating conventions, settling a lasting fight from 2016.

06/17/2018

I want to highlight this Resolution the Democratic Party of Sacramento County passed in support of rent control.

Democrats win when we fight to lower the cost of living for regular people -- that's the core of our economic philosophy since FDR. Except for a minority of neoliberal ModDems (overrepresented in media & elected office), this is what we believe in.

06/15/2018

It's really easy to not endorse Republicans. Don't endorse Republicans.

06/07/2018

The most important reforms are always opposed by entrenched interests.

Kudos to progressive leaders like Representative Ro Khanna for supporting what is right, not what is advantageous to them personally.

The Democratic National Committee is set to meet this week to decide on a reform plan that would rein in superdelegates.