SDEC Meeting
Details
The July 14, 2012 SDEC meeting was held at the new state
Democratic Party Headquarters, the Austin IBEW Labor Union Building.
Our new party chair, Gilberto Hinojosa, has made immediate
changes to the meeting from the opening gavel.
They included (in addition to the Pledge of Allegiance which had been
part of the meeting) an invocation and reciting the preamble to the US
Constitution.
Financially, the state party is paying its bills. However, we are looking for ways to save
money in various ways. For example, the
new party offices allow us to save substantial rent costs, approximately $70,000
to $80,000 per year. Also, future SDEC
meetings in Austin will now be held in the meeting room of the building, saving
the party additional money that was previously spent on hotel room rentals.
For the first time in many years, the majority of the SDEC
members are new. It was noted that the
Dean of the SDEC, Dallas’ own Ken Molberg, has left the SDEC after 27 years of
service.
The Nominations Committee recommended, and the SDEC approved,
Dallas’ own State Representative Rafael Anchia as the new DNC representative to
fill the spot of Chairman Hinojosa.
Committee appointments were announced, and David Griggs was
reappointed as Chair of the Legislative Affairs Committee. He will also serve on the Fundraising
Committee (formerly Sustaining Members Committee). Janice Schwarz was appointed to the
Grassroots and Finance Committees. We have
two other SDEC members from SD 16, Jay Narey, representing Stonewall Democrats
and Francine Ly, representing Asian Democrats.
Jay will be serving on the Resolutions and Legislative affairs Committees
and Francine will serve on the Grassroots and Campaigns Committees.
The Chair has added two new Committees -- Campaigns and
Communications. Linda Magid, Committeewoman
from SD8, was chosen to chair the new Communications Committee. In fact, it was Linda’s discussions over the
past year with Chairman Hinojosa that led to the creation of that Committee. The new Campaign Committee will focus on
strategies on how and where we can win. Other Dallas County SDEC members were honored
with Chairmanships – Steve Tillery is the new chair of Nominations and Shay
Wyrick-Cathay is the chair of the Convention Committee. It should be noted that half of the SDEC
committees will be headed by local members from Dallas and Collin Counties.
Our next SDEC meeting will be at the Hilton Hotel in Fort
Worth on August 11 at 2PM. We are coming
to Fort Worth to help rally the faithful in support of Wendy Davis. We will send more details once available.
Highlights of the SDEC Training
We also wanted to share some of the highlights of the
training session that was held for new members of the SDEC, prior to the
meeting.
Hector Nieto from Obama for America spoke to the group. He is the only paid Obama for America staffer
in Texas. However, Organizing for America
(paid for by the DNC) has several paid staffers in Texas, including Taylor
Holden, the North Texas staffer. They
have made over 132,000 calls into Texas over the past quarter. OFA is working with the TDP on an agreement
to share the information generated from the calls. Hector spoke about the support provided by
OFA and specifically mentioned SD-16 National Delegate, Marsha Fishman, as a
shining example of a person who took advantage of their training. Marsha typically has at least three phone
banks a month from her home. They also
will be pushing straight ticket voting.
The House Democratic Campaign Committee (HDCC) was
represented by State Rep Donna Howard and Director Cliff Walker. Their job is to keep incumbents in place and
to help elect new Democratic members to the Texas House. Their goal for 2012 is 60 members, an
additional 12 members. They also recruit
and train candidates. Please consider
supporting the HDCC www.texashdcc.com.
Long time TDP staffer Sondra Haltom is now the Director of
the new Voter Empowerment Project. The
Voter Empowerment Project has the goal of fighting the voter suppression
efforts of the Republican Party and their allies, such as the King Street
Patriots, and to educate less frequent Democratic voters about the
process. Please “Like” the Voter
Empowerment Facebook page.
Jo Cassandra from the Texas House Democratic Caucus (HDC)
shared the HDC mission and told us that we have to get Carol Kent and Robert
Miklos back in the state house and also get Ann Johnson (in Houston)
elected. The fact that she mentioned
only three State Rep races and two are in our SD 16 should remind all of us of
the extreme importance for success in our area.
Mary Gonzalez, 28 year old recently elected state rep from
El Paso, also made a presentation. She
defeated several opponents in the Democratic Primary and does not have a
Republican opponent. She will be
responsible for TDP Hispanic outreach until Election Day. Mary’s campaign knocked on 13,000 in order to
get her elected.
Message from our New Chairman
The Chairman believes that the key to our success is all
about winning elections, and that doesn’t happen by itself. He believes that we are losing elections
because we are not doing our job well enough.
There are consequences for losing elections. Our natural constituency makes up 70% of the
electorate. People want to make a difference,
but you have to ask them to help.
Message from Janice and David
SD 16 has at least five competitive State House Races. We must get our President re-elected, as well
as our local candidates. We are asking
for you to get involved. Early vote starts
on October 22. We all have to do our
part if we’re going to win. David and I
plan to share volunteer opportunities in SD 16 with this distribution list on a
regular basis. If you are involved with
a campaign, please e-mail us by Wednesday night each week with any details on
weekend activities. In turn, we hope to
distribute that information to potential volunteers. In addition, please sign up on your favorite
candidates’ websites to make sure that you are aware of volunteer opportunities
and so that they can contact you.
Finally, we both encourage everyone on this e-mail
distribution to become Sustaining Members of the Texas Democratic Party if you
are not already. We have a new chair, a
new SDEC, and a lot of renewed energy to Turn Texas Blue. The party cannot do that without everyone’s
financial support. For as little as $10
a month, you can become a sustaining member of the state party. Click on http://www.txdemocrats.org/contribute/sustaining-membership/
to help make a difference.
We both look forward to working with each of you in our
collective efforts to Turn Texas Blue!
David Griggs and Janice Schwarz
