To the delegate who bullied me outside Washburn High School at the end of the Minneapolis DFL convention on Sunday, April 21, 2024

Sir, this is a representative democracy

I served (regrettably) as the Minneapolis DFL Convention’s Parliamentarian yesterday. First of all, this is my hobby. It’s not a paid position, or a position for which I’ve been rigorously trained. It’s a privilege and responsibility conferred upon me, mostly because I showed up for a lot of meetings over a number of years and, bit by bit, acquired more parliamentary procedure knowledge than the average delegate to a DFL endorsing convention. I also took one online training, read a volume of Robert’s Rules (okay, skimmed), and have served as Parliamentarian at one other DFL convention, and Convention Chair at two other DFL conventions. That’s it. That’s the extent of my qualifications.

I must tell you (and you probably know) that you were out of line. Extremely out of line. I believe that the main reason why the Chair didn’t recognize your Point of Information request was because of your tone and volume. Look, we DFL nerds don’t heckle you at your Parks & Rec Intramural Kickball League, or your Craft Brewery Bag Toss Tournament, or whatever activity you choose to participate in during your free time. So you should have the decency not to heckle us.

If you hadn’t been shouting at the top of your big lungs, or trying to shove a phone screen displaying a shoddy Quora.com internet commenter’s opinion about parliamentary procedure in my face, I would have taken the time to explain to you that:

1. “Point of Information,” confuses two types of common convention discourse. Desiring more information about the convention’s proposed reconvening date is not a “Point of Order,” and is, rather, a “Request for Information.” The Chair was in order to deny you the opportunity to have the floor when you were shouting at him.

2. I don’t like the DFL caucus and convention system any more than you do. In fact, I might be angrier about it than you.

I couldn’t tell you those things because your vocal volume and tone, combined with your aggressive body language and size, signaled, to me, a potential physical threat. I have infinite gratitude for the young woman who put her (pregnant!) body between mine and yours and offered to help me.

Nobody wants to hear that anything’s hard. No one wants to hear that, in order to get a literary agent, you have to write a whole-ass book. No one wants to hear that, in order to lose weight, you have to eat vegetables and exercise. No one wants to hear that, in order to improve the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s system of caucuses and conventions, you have to go to a shitload of meetings. But, unfortunately, that’s the way to improve the current system.

We live in a representative democracy (for now). Is it a good system? No. But it’s maybe the least worst system of government. And Minnesota’s DFL Party also uses a representative democracy model for its caucuses and conventions. Is it a good system? No. Can’t we just cancel caucuses and have a primary, then? No, we cannot. If you don’t like the caucus system, then you need to contact your MN House Representatives and Senator (because they were elected by the people; we live in a representative democracy, etc. etc.). They have the ability to change the statute that requires Minnesota’s major political parties to set caucus dates every year.

The MN Secretary of State’s helpful How Elections Work webpages even includes a section on how to complain about the caucus system:

Feedback about caucuses

If you have questions, concerns or a complaint about your precinct caucus, please contact the political party holding the caucus meeting. Unlike elections, which are run by local and state government election officials, precinct caucuses are run by political parties. Everything from site location to how the caucus is conducted is the responsibility of the party.

You’ll notice that the MN SoS website links directly to the major political parties and says nothing about yelling in the faces of lowly political party unpaid volunteers. Ken Martin is the Chair of the Minnesota DFL and you can try emailing him or Tweeting at him but, in my experience, that type of correspondence won’t get you very far, in terms of changing the Party’s process or policies.

So, what I would have told you, if your demeanor outside of Washburn High School last night hadn’t made me put my hands up, palms out, in a gesture of surrender, cowering in front of you, meekly crying out, “Please stop; you are scaring me,” (again, 100% gratitude and respect to the pregnant lady who got between us; 0% respect to the many men who witnessed this harassing interaction and did nothing). What I would have told you is that the only way to change the process is from the inside. Going to your precinct caucus and getting elected to be a convention delegate, then attending the convention and voting for your preferred candidate, is basically the least you can do, in terms of party involvement. And, if you don’t like the process, no one is making you go through it. It’s a representative democracy; let one of your neighbors go to the next convention, instead.

In the unlikely event that you want information about how to change the Party processes from inside the Party (which is, I assure you, the only way to change Party processes), I’ll encourage you to, next time, sign up for a pre-convention planning committee. Specifically the Rules Committee. The rules for yesterday’s convention were terrible. That’s because they were created by a committee. It’s a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen type of problem.

I mean absolutely no disrespect to the Minneapolis DFL pre-convention Rules committee. Convention rules are always terrible. That’s the nature of the whole deal. Think of your least favorite board game. Now, imagine that you have to play that board game once every two years. Before you play it, a different group of people congregates to rewrite the rules. These people are well-meaning, but most have never played the game, or have only played the game a couple of times, and some of them suspect that others in the group are cheating before the game even starts. Then you have to play the game in a shabby school auditorium with all the other players trying to speak into an ancient microphone. It’s a terrible system. (Someday I’ll write about what’s good about DFL conventions; you can imagine that there is some fun to be had as you’re trying to figure out how to play this game you don’t really like with new rules. Well, maybe you can’t. But I can.)

But, you know what? I’d rather have a shitty bunch of rules created by a roomful of disgruntled DFL activists than a primary, where the candidate with the most special interest money almost always wins.

The Minneapolis DFL actually goes nowhere, on the hierarchy of DFL organizing units. So, if you want to change things from within the party, next time, you’ll want to attend your Senate District convention, then get elected to be a delegate to the Congressional District and State Conventions. Pay attention to the nominations process. You want to pursue any leadership opportunities that lead to a role on the State Central Committee or, better yet, the State Executive Committee. Then, you want to get a spot on the Constitution, Bylaws, and Rules Committee (aka CBRC). That’s where processes get changed. That’s where governing documents get changed. All of these roles and organizations are further explained in two documents that are available on the DFL’s website for anyone to access, at anytime, from anywhere: the Official Call and the Constitution and Bylaws. Yeah, they’re long and they’re boring. It’s hard. You have to train to run a marathon; you have to read small print to influence a major political party.

Community Caucuses, which are also listed on the DFL’s website, are another avenue to serving on one of these DFL governing bodies. And if you really, truly feel that you were disenfranchised yesterday, or at any other DFL event, you can fill out a Challenge form. The DFL Party takes those seriously. “We,” by which I mean all of the volunteers who put in hours of our free time to put on yesterday’s convention, take the process seriously. We honestly want to give every delegate an opportunity to participate in the Party’s business. Grassroots democracy is a huge time suck; a frustrating and, at times, demoralizing endeavor. But it’s better than the alternatives, which I see as either corporatized primaries where the candidate with the most money wins, or a Trumpian dictatorship.

Finally, I’m going to dismiss your anger and frustration with this controversial statement: the convention recessing (or if it had adjourned) without an endorsement isn’t really that big of a deal. Party endorsements send messages to voters. And, sometimes, a “no endorsement” or a deadlocked convention is a decent message. There’s not a ton of differences between the two school board candidates running for District 6 in Minneapolis. If there had been a starker difference between the two, in terms of experience or values, probably the first round of voting would have awarded one of the candidates the 60% majority required for endorsement. The convention yesterday wasn’t a waste of time. Everything worked yesterday. The delegates at yesterday’s convention sent a message to Minneapolis District 6 voters who are less politically engaged: Greta and Lara are pretty similar.

You, sir, need to chill out. See you in two weeks, I guess.