Minnesota is a caucus state and I dutifully went to my precinct's democratic caucus. There were more participants this year than I have ever seen. I live in a neighborhood with a lot of University students. Our neighborhood also has a number of older activists who always come to political events and often organize events and dedicate themselves to various causes.
At least 75% of the caucus goers in my precinct were young people and probably were students. The rest were mostly in the activist category, with a smattering of people, mostly older people, that I didn't know.
Our precinct presidential vote was 140 Obama, 37 Clinton, and 2 for Edwards.
The truly interesting part is that you can propose resolutions for our democratic party's platform. When passed, they go to the next level, the county convention, which will pare them down, and then on to the state.
I spoke about national health care and proposed and had a resolution passed. The students were well prepared with some resolutions dealing with environmental matters, such as biofuel and reducing use of corn and moving towards grasses and algae. Other resolutions were presented and passed concerning education financing.
A resolution a passed supporting gay marriage.
By this time the group had started to thin out and probably only 30 people remained, the activists and a few students. The resolutions started to get weird. One person made an awkward resolution about medical bankruptcy. I explained how bankruptcy worked. The resolution ended up stating that there would be no limits on the number of times you could file bankruptcy with medical bills and there would be no means testing. I voted no. Everyone else voted for it.
Some proposed a resolution that absolutely no more development occur along lake superior. I said that I understand the issue of losing our lake shore, but we have to keep in mind that we would be depriving land owners of use of the undeveloped land without compensation. Managed to get the resolution changed to one that supported buying of more park land along lake superior. Lot of work to fuss that one around and I know our little local caucus has minimal effect, but I do wish sometimes that the party activists would think a bit more about the effects of what their proposals will be.
By this time I was burning out on trying to make the resolutions more moderate. I was worried someone might call me a Republican or something.
At least i was elected a delegate to the next level before I started to argue against half the resolutions.
Someone proposed that no for profit corporation could lobby congress. I talked about how our constitution allows us to petition congress and basically guaranties our right to lobby, therefor people who work for corporations have the right to lobby. Plus, it is not very fair to allow the sierra club to lobby but not the logging industry. Some said "who cares." But the resolution finally was changed to one to limit the dollar amount a lobby can spend on a specific piece of legislation. I abstained, it passed.
Someone proposed that anyone who wants to stay at home and raise their children be paid minimum wage with benefits. I asked, by whom? Answer: taxes. I said how about a longer FMLA leave period? Nope. The resolution passed overwhelmingly, with two no votes, mine and one young woman.
After a bunch of other resolutions, we were tired. We quit and went home. Thank God, who knows what was going to come up next.
Nice to see the interest of all the young people.
At least 75% of the caucus goers in my precinct were young people and probably were students. The rest were mostly in the activist category, with a smattering of people, mostly older people, that I didn't know.
Our precinct presidential vote was 140 Obama, 37 Clinton, and 2 for Edwards.
The truly interesting part is that you can propose resolutions for our democratic party's platform. When passed, they go to the next level, the county convention, which will pare them down, and then on to the state.
I spoke about national health care and proposed and had a resolution passed. The students were well prepared with some resolutions dealing with environmental matters, such as biofuel and reducing use of corn and moving towards grasses and algae. Other resolutions were presented and passed concerning education financing.
A resolution a passed supporting gay marriage.
By this time the group had started to thin out and probably only 30 people remained, the activists and a few students. The resolutions started to get weird. One person made an awkward resolution about medical bankruptcy. I explained how bankruptcy worked. The resolution ended up stating that there would be no limits on the number of times you could file bankruptcy with medical bills and there would be no means testing. I voted no. Everyone else voted for it.
Some proposed a resolution that absolutely no more development occur along lake superior. I said that I understand the issue of losing our lake shore, but we have to keep in mind that we would be depriving land owners of use of the undeveloped land without compensation. Managed to get the resolution changed to one that supported buying of more park land along lake superior. Lot of work to fuss that one around and I know our little local caucus has minimal effect, but I do wish sometimes that the party activists would think a bit more about the effects of what their proposals will be.
By this time I was burning out on trying to make the resolutions more moderate. I was worried someone might call me a Republican or something.
At least i was elected a delegate to the next level before I started to argue against half the resolutions.Someone proposed that no for profit corporation could lobby congress. I talked about how our constitution allows us to petition congress and basically guaranties our right to lobby, therefor people who work for corporations have the right to lobby. Plus, it is not very fair to allow the sierra club to lobby but not the logging industry. Some said "who cares." But the resolution finally was changed to one to limit the dollar amount a lobby can spend on a specific piece of legislation. I abstained, it passed.
Someone proposed that anyone who wants to stay at home and raise their children be paid minimum wage with benefits. I asked, by whom? Answer: taxes. I said how about a longer FMLA leave period? Nope. The resolution passed overwhelmingly, with two no votes, mine and one young woman.
After a bunch of other resolutions, we were tired. We quit and went home. Thank God, who knows what was going to come up next.
Nice to see the interest of all the young people.
