HEY PPC, WHY DON’T YOU SPEND YOUR TIME CRITICIZING BUSH?

Some might ask, “why is the Progressive Populist Caucus focusing on the Party. Isn’t your time better spent going after Bush?”

Simply put, we in the Caucus leadership have come to the conclusion that the Democratic Party of Texas (and elsewhere) has lost both its effectiveness and ability to move hearts and minds of the electorate. The results over nearly the last decade support this assessment. Clearly what we are doing and how we are doing it as a Party are not working. Like most organizations, the TDP has cycled into a phase of denial of many dysfunctions, structural, process, ideological and leadership to mention a few. It is time for a change.

The solution, we believe, lies in reform of the party to make it more open to new people and new ideas. Reform to foster improvement of process to encourage more, not less, participation. Reform of rules in some instances. Distribution of power to concentrate it less in the hands of a few and involve more in its leadership, including the SDEC and County Chairs. Of major concern to our Caucus is the reality that the tail wags the dog in this Party. Candidates and their consultants are largely setting the agenda for the Party and shaping the issues on which we stand. We believe it should be the other way around. Reform in this aspect of our operations should result in a Platform, which expresses the views of the people in this Party and the recruitment of candidates who represent our views. On specific reforms, see the article below.

This party has not seen meaningful reforms since the 70’s with the successful incursion into its leadership by the Billie Carr forces and the liberals. It is time for another round of reform to make us better to meet the challenges of the Bush and Perry administrations and the Republican onslaught of regressive policies, which deny, hurt and divide people.

The vision our Caucus has for reform culminates with a new era of progressive public policy, which emphasizes social and economic justice. See our Statement of Purpose above. Our vision is populist in that it puts the needs of ordinary Texans above corporations and the power elite who still have enormous influence on the agenda of this Party, though we see signs of improvement under our new leadership. There is abundant evidence that standing for progressive and populist positions will resonate with a majority of the electorate.

Given the unique mission of the PPC for party restoration and reform, duplicated by no other organization associated with the Texas Democratic Party, we believe we must pursue our work for the benefit of Texas Democrats.

We recommend two books addressing this phenomenon: The Emerging Democratic Majority and Made in Texas, both published recently.

Reform is tough and sometimes punishing. It is always painful because, it involves change and those in power are more often than not resistant to change. It nearly always, in a review of history, requires that those who cannot adapt to change step aside and make way for a new generation of leadership. It is also painful for the reformers because we act out of love for our Party but are often attacked for taking tough positions and are called “disrupters”. We, the reformers, all from grassroots Precinct, County and Club organizing backgrounds, are in this to prepare our Party to once again be relevant and victorious. We are not seeking power for ourselves, but for future generations of successful Texas Democrats. Join us in this hard work.

A REPORT ON OUR PARTY REFORM WORK

The Progressive Populist Caucus was formed at our State Convention in June, 2002. We vowed at that time to begin the process of reforming our Party to return it to the progressive and populist values so richly imbedded in our history.

We have been diligently working to introduce Party reforms to our fellow Democrats and more recently, our Party leadership. The ultimate goal is a rejuvenated Party better led and equipped to advocate public policy and field candidates more relevant to grassroots Texans. We number over 700 Party activists across the State with 6 active regional groups in North Texas, Central Texas, San Antonio. the Valley, Houston and Southeast Texas Here is what we have embarked on to-date and the result.

1. Created a majority on the Platform Committee of the 2004 State Convention and led the writing of the most progressive Platform for our State Party in several decades.
2. Led the 2004 Convention Resolutions Committee to adoption of a leading edge statement supporting the requirement of a voter verifiable paper trail/ballot for all Texas elections.
3. Successfully petitioned the 2004 Convention for the creation of a Federal Cabinet-level Department of Peace and led the Convention To its adoption, only one of several States to have done so.
4. Recruited and supported reformist SDEC candidates at the 2004 State Convention. This resulted in gaining at least 30% of the seats on that body committed to a Party reform agenda.
5. Following the 2002 State election debacle we introduced a resolution to the SDEC asking the 6 year incumbent Chair to step aside for new Party leadership to emerge to introduce obviously-needed reforms to make our Party relevant. Several months later that Chair resigned and we supported our co-founding Caucus member David Van Os for Party Chair in a vigorous contest. Van Os did not prevail but his brilliant campaign and our sound reform ideas compelled the new Chair, Charles Soechting, to reach out to us and for the first time in decades, give the progressive vision a voice in state party affairs.
6. Our Caucus developed thirty reform ideas for our Party involving structural, rules, process and leadership improvements and have succeed in the past two years in securing adoption of fifteen, or half as of this writing. Details are presented in the “Reform Ideas” section of this edition of the newsletter.
7. Our regional Caucuses have undertaken amazing work in their areas of Texas.

Our Corpus/Valley group is producing a weekly Progressive issues F.M. radio program and were instrumental in bringing the first Air America liberal radio talk program to Texas. DFW and San Antonio Caucuses have been concentrating on County party leadership changes and rebuilding infrastructure of their precinct organization.

Our Houston and SE Texas Caucus has provided leadership for grassroots precinct chair vacancy filling and precinct chair training. In addition, they have led the region in work with their County Party in moving the voter verifiable paper trail/ballot agenda forward with the electronic voting technology in use in Harris County.

All regional groups of our Caucus are collaborating with Democracy for Texas/Democracy for America groups, particularly with their avowed mission of progressive candidate recruitment and support. Additionally, our Statewide Caucus has formed a partnership with Progressive Democrats of America, allied with them in their work on Federal public policy and progressive legislation.

A MESSAGE FROM CAUCUS CHAIR EMERITUS STAN MERRIMAN

Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that our State and County Party organizations need rebuilding?

In your heart don’t you believe the reason struggling working people in this state are not supporting Democrats and don’t even bother to vote is because we as a Party have not been effective in taking a bold stand on key issues affecting all our lives; healthcare, education and making a living wage for our labor, to name a few? Is it because we have failed to recruit and hold accountable statewide candidates who speak to us about bread and butter issues and a bold Democratic Party plan to bring desperately needed services to our communities and people? Or is it that we have for over a decade neglected the development of our base, including core low-income constituents with support for precinct-level mobilization work? Or, is it our failure to effectively speak to the people in language we all understand in conveying what we stand for? We think it is all of the above and a massive reform of how our beloved Party works, how it is led and how and to whom we communicate is the necessary starting point.

 

What is the Progressive Populist Caucus and what gives it the right to demand reform of our Party? We are people who do the “grunt” work at the Precinct and Club level to support our Party and candidates. As our Caucus chair emeritus , typical of our Steering Committee members and membership, I have organized Precinct 148 in Houston for the past 9 years with building a loyalist Democrat database, block walking, distributing signs, organizing precinct meetings, phoning and mailings out of my own pocket; I pride myself that I have done this kind of Party work for over 35 years. Others on our Steering Committee organize and lead local Clubs, serve on the SDEC, volunteer at Party headquarters stuffing envelopes and running phone banks and the hands-on work vital to the Party and lead progressive organizations in issues advocacy. Jim Mattox, the consummate grassroots advocate, has been a presence and inspiration at our Caucus meetings to urge us on to advocate restoration of precinct level organization in our Party across Texas. He roars like a lion at SDEC meetings urging our State Party leaders to lead back home in rebuilding grassroots and precinct level organizing. It was Jim who suggested the theme we use with our name, “The Democratic Wing of the Texas Democratic Party”.

 

Let’s be clear, rebuilding the precinct-level organization, starting with filling the 40% vacancy rate of Precinct Chairs across Texas, (that’s about 2,400 precincts !) and training all Precinct Chairs across the State is our core mission. We believe this must be the top priority of the State and County Party organizations, led by State and County Chairs and SDEC members. If we do not achieve that over time, and we have no illusions this is accomplished overnight, all other Party reform work is largely moot.

It is on the ground at the precinct and neighborhood level where we have been defeated, proven by the 2004 National campaign and the 2002 Texas gubernatorial campaign where we more than matched the Republicans in the “air wars”. They stole our precinct organizing play book decades ago and we neglected that area on the misguided advice of Party/campaign consultants that we could win through those air wars and by abandoning our core values as Democrats in favor of more “centrist”, “conciliatory” positions on issues and policy.

Elsewhere in this newsletter we outline some Party Reform ideas generated by our Strategy Committee.

 

We would like your feedback. Tell us how we can help you introduce positive reforms which will bring our State Party back into relevance with Texas voters to help us all regain political power to advocate the public policy people care about. We will then continue to mobilize our Caucus member to work with you to get the job done to reform our beloved Party and make it of the people once again.

We want to lock arms with you, our Party leaders, to reform our Party’s leadership, structure, rules, candidate recruitment, campaign funding methods, election process, grassroots party-building techniques, resolutions and platform process to hear the voice of the people to make our party a clear alternative to the Republican Party’s exclusive service to the wealthy and corporations.

 

Let us hear from you. Visit our web site to see our Mission and Working Principles.

 

www.TexasPopulists.com. Let us hear from you as to how we can mobilize to help you get your challenging job done at escramble('chair','texaspopulists.com');" target="_self"> and work together to reform our Party to be once again effective and a voice for the people.

Give us your email address so that we can periodically communicate with you.

 

Invite one of our members to address your local leadership groups to discuss resolutions and proposals to start the reform process.

 

 

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A PRECINCT CHAIR TRAINING TEMPLATE FOR PRECINCT ORGANIZING - WINNING ONE PRECINCT AT A TIME !

 

A WORKSHOP WITH TOOLS FOR DEMOCRATS TO TAKE BACK TEXAS
OFFERED BY THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF HARRIS COUNTY AND COMPILED BY PPC LEADERS
FROM PRESENTATIONS BY SOME OF HARRIS COUNTY’S MOST SKILLED ORGANIZERS

This 1.5 hour training workshop has had significant use around Texas and in particular in Harris County over the past two years. Incorporating the wisdom of Billy Carr, considered the foremost precinct organizer in Texas, it endeavors to provide basic skills, customizable to the needs of differing organizing environments across the State. One size does not necessarily fit all when it comes to differing organizing environments; urban, rural, suburban, Dem-dominant, R’s- dominant to name a few. But herein lie some truisms proven timeless in their utility. A on-line copy will soon be available on the PPC web site in PowerPoint format. Hard copies can be accessed for a small fee to cover photocopying and mailing by writing : escramble('chair','texaspopulists.com');">

Step One: Creating Precinct Organization

• Basics of Recruiting & Organizing Your Precinct Volunteers
• Inspiring Young People to Become Involved - As Voters, Precinct Workers, and Future Leaders
• Ideas on Raising Funds For Your Precinct- interactive audience breakout exercise
• Keeping Track Of Your Precinct-Data-bases; forms; phone and address books; labels; calendar

Step Two: Identify and Register Voters

• Winning Starts With Identifying and Registering Your Voters
• Tools Available From Your Local Party and Local Government to Identify and Mobilize Voters- Outlining call, walk, mail lists, newcomer lists, precinct maps
• Harnessing the Power of the Internet For Precinct Mobilization

Step Three: Stay In Touch

• Ideas for Maintaining Contact With Voters Throughout The Year

Step Four: Get Out The Vote

• Getting Out The Early Vote
• Helping Voters- Using Electronic Machines, Provisional and Mail Ballots
• GOTV – Lessons from Winners-interactive discussion on winning organizing strategies

Step Five: Staying Energized and Motivated