February 22, 2005
Dallas Co. Democratic Executive Committee to Meet
By Byron LaMasters
For the first time in memory, the Dallas County Democratic Executive Committee will meet - not because a meeting was called by the county chair, but because over 51% of the committee (precinct chairs) have signed a petition calling for such a meeting. The Dallas County Executive Committee has not met since May 2004, and a meeting has been called presumably to discuss issues related with the party leadership.
The meeting will occur at the CWA Hall at 6:30 PM on Monday, February 28th. A copy of the notice is available here (PDF file).
Issues of concern between some activists in the county, and the county chair are many, but most of the concerns are enumerated in the resolutions passed by several local clubs on the matter:
Dallas County Young Democrats
Dallas Stonewall Democrats
Lake Highlands / White Rock Democrats
Dallas County East Democrats
Richardson / Northeast Dallas Democrats
University Democrats at UT-Dallas
The party chair addressed some of these concerns in a letter sent to a select group of precinct chairs, available here (PDF file). In particular, the chair apologized for using the party stationary while endorsing confirmation of a judicial appointee of President Bush, but did not apologize for her support of the appointee. Regardless, next Monday's meeting should be interesting.
Posted by Byron LaMasters at February 22, 2005 01:57 AM
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FUN! Can't wait to hear the after meeting!
If Susan Hays cared about the Party she'd do us all a favor and resign. Her party office was an absolute disaster last fall and in 2006, Martin Frost isn't going to spend 4.5 million dollars that have the effect of bailing her ass out. In 2002 Hays wasn't willing to sue republicans to protect our vote when they were stealing it with the misprogrammed electronic voting machines, but now she's reportedly thinking about suing her own constituents to keep them from meeting. She's also reportedly thinking about calling the press and having them come to the meeting. Does this sound like the kind of person who cares about serving Democrats or does it sound more like someone who cares only about serving herself?
Some of Hays' people have been calling the pct. chairs and threatening to run candidates against every pct chair that signed the petition. Over 200 chairs signed it, so I guess Susan's folks are going to have a busy year. It's too bad though that they're not going to spend their time recruiting 200 pct chairs to run in the more than 300 VACANT precincts. If this is the first ever Dallas Democratic Executive Committee meeting called by petition, the task of collecting signatures was probably made easier by the fact that the number of precincts with chairs in them has reached an all-time low under Chair Hays' watch. Maybe it's beginning to dawn on Chair Hays that, yes, in fact, pct. chairs DO matter.
It is a sad state that we have come to in this matter. Chairwoman Hays could have repaired this situation and her reputation at any time. Now this dispute is Democrat against Democrat, friend against friend. Chair Hays or her followers are asking folks to spy on their friends and report back what they are hearing. One of the Chair's minions (we will call him Tony the Tiger) is threatening to recruit candidates to run against those Precinct Chairs and SDEC who are against Chairwoman Hays. Where does this end? I guess we will see Monday night.
