Video: Jim Mattox Testifying to TDP Committee on the Primary/Caucus on November 14

good man, (0.00 / 0)

I'm sorry I never got to meet him.  The 2 step process is a big pain and a huge headache but it get's people invested in the election of democrats and most importantly, provides a great great electrol preference data set.  That'll help democrats in texas for years.

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by: not humble enough @ Fri Nov 21, 2008 at 17:01:09 PM UTC

A-man (5.00 / 1)

A Texas legend, we mourn his passing.  I've read a few articles referring to General Mattox as the "People's Lawyer."  To be more precise, he was the "People's Advocate."  Even his comments against the Texas Two-Step are consistent with his lifelong fight for civil rights.  The caucus system discriminates against the elderly, parents taking care of young children, people in the military, people who do not have flexible work schedules, and people who rely on public transportation.  One person one vote.  I dispute that the caucus system "get's people invested" but even if it does, that doesn't mean it's not discriminatory.  Democratic Party = inclusion.  Two-step = exclusion and vote dilution.

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by: A-man @ Fri Nov 21, 2008 at 20:09:43 PM UTC

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you are rightly passionate (0.00 / 0)

Inclusion is the most powerful engine for the democratic party and the reason we have been the better choice

Now that we have the power to choose the rules I think we could argue a little bit.

You could also say that a republic form of government also discriminates all those people because they have a harder time serving in elected office.  A simplistic conclusion could be that we should have more ballot measures because that would be less discriminatory for those people since they aren't representatives.  But we've seen the ballot measure process completely corrupted not because people are stupid but not prefect.

Two step process does not equal exclusion and vote dilution so simply.  It also equals a lesson in democracy.  One million people went through a bit of Robert's rules of order, saw the decision making process of large groups, learned that democracy ain't some idea in a classroom, it's in our elementary schools, it's how we choose presidents.  People think it's a game on telavision, caucuses reteach to inform the electorate.

They aren't useless.  

Also, you didn't respond to my idea of greater demographic understanding for the Democratic party of Texas.  That's insanely important information so as to target turnout.

My last idea: Civil Rights is about equal access to power.  How easy that power is to get is not part of Civil Rights.

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by: not humble enough @ Fri Nov 21, 2008 at 21:23:52 PM UTC

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Thx for posting this video Scott, Matt (2.50 / 2)

For the many that could not attend the Caucus meeting at the AFL-CIO Hall, we're thankful you captured Jim's passion, empathy, and dedication to improving our Caucus process.  It's encouraging to see Jim sharing his passion and recommendations for improvement.  We need more Progressive leaders like Jim that have the knowledge and courage to speakout.  

We may not all agree with everything, of course, but we can all benefit from listening and hearing from a diverse population of experience individuals.

I hope this inpires many more people to step-up and speak your opinions and convictions.   And I trust we'll honor and respect our differences as we move forward to improving our processes.

We need to simplify our Caucus.  It is very confusing to most.  

But we do need to keep some type of a Caucus.  I've met many people from my community during our Caucus.  And the Democratic Party benefits greatly with the data we collect.

General Mattox shared great points about improving our meetings and other ways to best leverage our data and help to movtivate our base so that folks will want to come back to work again and again for the Party.  In the spirit of progress and learning...education at our meetings is a much needed improvement.  

Like Jim, I'd also like to see more than a bunch of speakers on stage.  We need to get to work on inspiring our base by linking their individual passions to our Democratic Party issues/platform and link those items to actionable work that will benefit us at the polls.

Going forward, I hope we better utilize the times we have everyone together by capturing information on what their passions are and helping them with actionable next steps.

It wouldn't hurt to install better processes to allow us to listen to each other as we encourage our voices to be heard, Democratically.

I hope we utilize Jim's fine recommendations, respectively.  

Best,
David Kobierowski

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by: David Kobierowski @ Sat Nov 22, 2008 at 00:17:58 AM UTC

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Good points David (0.00 / 0)

I agree that the system needs to be improved and not eliminated.  I like the caucus system.  It does help us build up our grassroots in our pcts.

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by: sonia @ Mon Nov 24, 2008 at 03:17:12 AM UTC

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