Northside DFA endorsement vote February 5

Written by: Sandra Verthein on Feb 3, 2009 7:26 AM EST

Linked to groups: Northside DFA

On Thursday, February 5, the date of our next Northside DFA meeting, we will be voting on endorsing a candidate in the Democratic primary for the 5th Congressional District.

We will NOT be hearing from any candidates at that meeting -- that is why we really need everyone to, if possible, attend the candidate forum this Sunday.  If you really can't attend video of the forum should be available on-line afterwards and it will be live on Chicago Progressive Talk Radio (http://www.chicagoprogressivetalk.com/).

Also, do your homework. There are 14 Democratic candidates, so even though we have allowed a generous time for the forum we still won't hear that much from each candidate. We need everyone to come to the February 5th meeting ready to vote.  The election will happen before our next meeting so there is no putting off the vote while we do more research! The candidates websites are a good place to start your research, and there are links to all of them at the forum website:

http://www.illinois5th.com

Here's how it will all work:

At the meeting we will have a discussion of the candidates and the race.  Anyone can participate in the discussion (with the exception of the candidate themselves who can't be present).  We will ask Northside DFA voting members to nominate candidates that they think should be considered for endorsement.  We will then do an up or down vote on each candidate that was nominated.

You must be a Northside DFA voting member in order to be able to vote.  A voting member is anyone who has attended three of our monthly meetings and done three volunteer activities for our endorsed or adopted candidates in the past year. If you have questions as to if you qualify as a voting member, please contact Membership Chair Jim Schmidt at sqrrljim@ameritech.net.  For more details you can read our group bylaws at:

http://democracyforamerica.com/groups/247-northside-dfa/attachments/64031-ndfa-bylaws

A candidate must get 75% of the vote to be endorsed.  Any candidate that gets 75% of the vote will be endorsed. If no candidate gets 75% of the vote, we will have a second discussion, and then do a second up or down vote on each candidate still under consideration.  If no candidate has received 75% of the vote in the second vote we will make no endorsement.

It takes a 90% vote to adopt a candidate, and a candidate must be endorsed before they can be adopted.  We don't NEED to do an adoption vote -- during a normal campaign cycle we do adoption votes to indicate those campaigns that we intend to focus our resources on.  However since this is a special election the adoption vote is not as meaningful as there are no other campaigns happening right now.

If you can't attend the meeting and you are an NDFA voting member you can vote by proxy ahead of the meeting.  We will contact all voting members with more detais, but basically what You need to do is to submit a vote of Yes, No or Abstain on all 14 candidates, any nominations you wish to make, and any comments you might wish to have added to the discussion, and if you want all your original votes to stand if we do a second vote.  Your proxy vote can be submitted to any steering committee member. But please try to be at the meeting! The vote at the February 5th meeting is final.

What does this mean?

Technically we could end up endorsing more than one candidate in the first vote. Considering the number of candidates in the race I think this is highly unlikely.  I think it is more likely that in the first vote no candidate will receive enough votes to be endorsed.  I know some of our members are concerned that we will not be able to come to consensus on one candidate and will make no endorsement.  Others are concerned that we will endorse more than one candidate, and others feel that we should endorse more than one candidate rather than try to force our members to all support one campaign.

What we need to keep in mind is that whatever choice we make has to be the one that most effectively fufills our group mission to elect socially progressive, fiscally responsible, and ethically committed Democrats to office at all levels of government, with the overarching goal of increasing the progressive nature of government.  If we keep that at the center of our thoughts I am confident we will make the best decision possible.

See you at the forum:

5th CD Democratic Candidates Forum
- Sunday, February 1st, 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
- DePaul Student Center Multi-Purpose Room
- 2250 North Sheffield, Chicago

Then see you at the meeting:

Northside DFA February Meeting
- Thursday, February 5th, 6:00 p.m. dinner ($15), 7:00 p.m. meeting
- Calo Pizzeria and Restaurant, 5343 N. Clark Street
- RSVP at:
http://democracyforamerica.com/events/31757-northside-dfa-february-meeting

Peace,

Sandra Verthein
Chair, Northside Democracy for America
www.dfalink.com/NDFA
Donate to Northside DFA at:
http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/18309

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Location: Chicago, IL 60640