Burnt Orange Report

Convention Update #1

By Byron LaMasters

Karl-Thomas was elected by a 100-30 margin to be a Kerry Delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Boston next month by the 24th Senate District Caucus. Congratulations Karl!

The treasurer of the Dallas County Young Democrats (and Texas Young Democrats National Committeeman), David Hardt was also elected to be a Kerry delegate to the Convention by the 16th Senate District Caucus.

I'm sure I'll here more news from other friends soon, but I'm happy for the two of them.

Here's my experience at my Senate District Caucus (14):

As is typical of any official Democratic event, it took awhile to get everything organized. Senate District 14 has 291 delegates to the Texas Democratic convention, so as an alternate, I had to wait to see how many of the delegates showed up. Once the sign-in for the delegates closed, the process of elevating alternates began. It was decided that all the alternates would write their name and gender on a notecard, and hand them in. Then we were taken outside the caucus room where Glen Maxey was designated to read the list of delegates and upon reaching an unfilled delegate slot, a name was drawn of an alternate of the same gender to fill that alternate. My name was drawn to fill the third male delegate slot taking the place of the absent delegate. First was the affirmation of the previous election of the delegation chair. Then, the senate district elected representatives for the Credentials, Platform, Resolutions, Rules and Nominations Committees. Finally, we elected representatives to the SDEC (State Democratic Executive Committee). Two former Dean activists were elected to fill the two seats. Rich Bailey was elected to fill the open male SDEC member. For the SDEC female seat, Fran Vincent defeated incumbent Anne McAfee. After the SDEC meeting we adjourned for the convention with the intention of reconvening following the adjournment of the election tonight in order to elect National Delegates.