1.  CALL TO ORDER
        The meeting was called to order by Chair Steve Preminger at 7:19 PM.

2.  ROLL CALL
    Absent were:  Allan Thiessen, Jewelle Gibbs, Rod Diridon, Jr., Keith Garvey, Terry Gregory, Thelma Spaziani, Larry Carr, Craig Mann, John Dutra, Joe Simitian, Rebecca Cohn, Simon Salinas, Liz Figueroa, John Vasconcellos, Anselmo Chavez, Pete Stark, Anna Eshoo, Mike Honda, Martin Gorfinkel, Ruth Ashford, Gap Kim, Lillian Hicks, and Mike Markman.
    Excused were: Emy Thurber, Jim Thurber, Alex Bantis, and Alex Kennett.

3.  IDENTIFICATION OF VISITORS
    Aaron Persky, candidate for Superior Court Judge, Office #16.
    "There were four candidates in the race, and I made the run-off.  It shows how low the radar is for judicial races that I came in a very close second in my particular race.  There was less than 1% difference separating the top two, and because nobody got 50%, it goes to a runoff in November.  When I checked my email on March 6th, I got all these condolence emails, so reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.  I'm still in the running and looking for support obviously for November.  It's hard, as you know, with such an early primary to keep momentum going.
    "Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I work in the District Attorney's office, and I grew up in San Francisco went undergraduate at Stanford, graduated Phi Beta Kappa, rode my bicycle to Washington DC to work.  I had dreams of working on the Hill, but it was in the days of Gramm-Rudman.  It was very difficult to get a job, but I got kinda lucky and got a job with the U.S. Department of Commerce, worked investigating unfair trade practices for a little over a year and then came back to the Bay Area to Boalt Hall, where I got my law degree at Berkeley.  From there I went to a law firm in San Francisco, Morrison and Foerster, and slaved away in the civil litigation grill room, but it was a great learning experience.  I wanted to be a trial lawyer, and five years ago I came to the District Attorney's office.  I've just worked my way up through the office, and I now chiefly prosecute two types of cases.  One is hate crimes - I'm on the hate crimes unit - and the second is sexually violent predator cases where we're trying to keep child molesters and serial rapists in custody.  So that's basically what I do.
    "I'd be happy to talk with you more later, and I'm glad to be here.  I have a little bit of older literature.  I don't have any new literature for November, but I'll be around and after the meeting if anybody has any questions please feel free to call.  Either give me a call or talk to me.  Thanks."
    Steve Preminger added that we haven't done judicial endorsements, but at our last two meetings we've had extensive discussions about interviewing for these races because as you've said they are so low profile.  People just don't think about who are these people, and we want to make sure that if they do want to learn we have some ways to help them learn.
    Chris Gilliard.
    Sally Lieber introduced Evanna Miloglav, Sally's campaign coordinator.
    David Cortese, San José Councilmember, District 8.
    Also present was Nicholas Song Stampolis, age 6 weeks.  Congratulations are due Anna Song and Chris Stampolis.

4.  ADOPTION OF AGENDA
    Steve proposed moving one agenda item: the DNC report to be the first report because our DNC representative has some child care issues.  The agenda was approved as modified.

5.  APPROVAL OF MINUTES
    A motion was made and seconded to approve the March meeting minutes.  The motion carried.

6.  REPORTS FROM OFFICERS AND OTHERS

A. Democratic National Committee: Chris Stampolis.
    Chris read the final text of two resolutions which had been reviewed by the Central Committee, and which he submitted to the national body for approval.  The resolution on Cesar Chavez Day becoming a national holiday passed unanimously in Washington, DC.  The resolution regarding civil rights protections in an age of terrorism passed the resolutions committee after much debate and negotiation, and the amended version was accepted by the full DNC.  The Western Caucus of the DNC will meet in Seattle over Memorial Day weekend.  Contact Chris for more info.

B.  Executive Board:  Herb Engstrom.
    There was no Executive Board meeting, so there is no report.

C.  Chair: Steve Preminger.
    One thing we didn't do at our last meeting was have a report from our County Committee representative to the Registrar of Voters.  We are always asked to have someone there to represent us to make sure the vote count is fair and accurate.  This time I appointed Hayes Alexander, and I want to know if Hayes could let us know what the experience was like.
    Hayes Alexander report on the vote count.
    "I went down to watch the vote count and I can report that the vote counters are brave and experienced people who don't flinch when that avalanche of ballots comes at them.  The turnout was pretty low - under 40% - and they were done by midnight except for a  few semi spoiled ballots that they counted by hand.  They're very conscientious that way.  As far as the vote counting machinery goes, it works pretty well.  They had some new software.  They were actually downloading the count to the Secretary of State's office in Sacramento as the machine counted.  There were no phone calls or FAXes; it just went directly over over some high speed T1 line.
    "The one thing that was pretty Neanderthal was the vote by mail count.  There are some people who seem to think that voting by mail is the way to go.  When you look at the way that they do the ballots for vote by mail, I wouldn't say so.  The thing comes in, the person's actually holding it, someone actually has to do a visual check.  They gave a graphics picture on a screen of the signature (of the voter), so they've got to pull up the ballot and look at this one, look at that one, and say 'It's OK.'  That takes, who knows, 10 seconds, 15 seconds.  If you look at Santa Clara County, there are 600,000 voters, multiply by the number of seconds it takes one person to look at one ballot and the number of people they had doing it - they had four machines.  If everyone voted by mail it would take three, four, five weeks just to verify every ballot that came in.  (Secretary's note: assuming 10 seconds per ballot, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 600,000 ballots, it would be 2.5 weeks.  This assumes no eating, no sleeping, no bathroom breaks on the part of the counters!)  There's another step they have to do, which is to put ot in the right place, because each voter comes from a particular precinct, but the vote by mail ballots don't come in by precinct.  Someone has to sit there, shuffle through, and put them where they're supposed to go.  They had tables of people doing this.  There were only 20,000 or so such ballots.  Even with 600,00 ballots, you're going to have to put each one in it's little box.  Then someone has to look at the signatures.  Then someone else has to enter in what the vote was - a lot of time, a lot of manpower.  When they were doing it, they did not have the bar code reader working for whatever reason so whenever a ballot came in, someone had to enter the number by hand on a little numeric keyboard, so they had people doing that 24 hours a day.  That was a pretty shocking, sobering operation doing a vote by mail when you think about all the effort various organizations are putting in to try to get everybody to do it.  ANd then you think of the number of voters in just Santa Clara County, and then you think 'Oh, gees, they're gonna do the same thing in LA.'  It already takes forever for LA to count their votes.  So that operation, I think, needs a lot of work, and I didn't really sense that anybody was worried about it that night.  They were worried about counting the votes.  If you asked them how long does it take one person to do one thing, they didn't know.  If you ask if there was a better way to verify signatures, nobody knew.  Why wasn't the bar code working? They really weren't worried about those things.  When you think about the number of voters and the amount of time and effort it takes one person to do one vote in a vote by mail, for me it didn't seem very promising to have the election be on March 3rd and by March 4th to know who won.  If everybody mails their ballots on March 2nd of 50% of the people mail their ballots on March 2nd, that's 300,000 ballots, you're not going to know who won for three weeks unless we do something about this vote by mail business"
    Hayes was asked if other parties were represented there,  He relied that there was a Republican, a Libertarian, and a Green as well as some nonpolitical observers.  And there were some private contractors who were doing the software for the vote by mail.
    Steve continued that the other issue that he wanted to bring up was that of proportional representation on the Central Committee.  Some Assembly Districts are only partly in this county yet they have six representatives just as those ADs that are wholly within the county.  There was an exchange of email between some pretty well informed people.  Steve Chessin and David Cohen had some good insights, and Jacquie Heffner was interested in the issue.  We need to find find out what is the law.  What are the parameters we can work with?  Or should we leave it the way it is?
    David Cohen commented that state law says that a county with five or more assembly districts either wholly or partially within the district gets six representatives, but there are ways to make exceptions for specific counties.  The official way to make such an exception is to have someone carry a bill to make it a state law that we have the election done either by supervisorial district or by proportional representation.  He proposed that the Executive Board discuss the details of what we'd like to do.  Steve Chessin suggested that a subcommittee consider the issue.
    Steve Preminger replied that he knows that other people are interested.  Our next E-Board meeting is next Thursday at the Thurber's at 6 pm, and he invited those interested to attend or to send him an e-mail.  Jacquie asked if we should determine the feeling of the people here to see if anyone really cares.  Steve replied that we should look at the laws and then asked if it were fair that a city with 50,000 people should have the same number of representatives, six, as a geographical area with a quarter of a million people.
    Chris Stampolis cautioned that we don't want the E-Board to create a situation that might lead to a domino effect statewide.  There are a lot of funky things in the state law about how committees are constituted: there's a San Francisco exception and a Los Angeles exception.  There's kind of a gentleman's agreement that Democratic legislators don't bring forward anything that would mess the balance up.  That doesn't mean, he said, that we can't solve our problems, but we need to think about how to do it without Santa Clara County being the one that pulls the pin such that everything goes crazy.  Steve replied that the E-Board will just have the discussing and bring the results back to the full committee for input from everyone.

D.  Vice Chair: Tom Cochran.
    This report is for Jim and Emy Thurber who can't be here tonight.  They said please support the Jefferson Jackson dinner. If all clubs and AD committees would please buy a table, that would be a beautiful thing.  If one club can't do it by themselves, please communicate with another one and we'd be well represented.

E.  Treasurer: Dennis Chiu.
    We have $557.01 including a check yet to be deposited.

F.  Secretary:  Herb Engstrom.
    There was a question last time about Central Committee representation for the next (2003-2004) term, so Herb checked with the Registrar of Voters.  HEre are the members and vacancies:
    20th AD: 6 vacancies (no one filed).
    21st AD: Emily Thurber, Anne Manfredi Mack, Jim Thurber,  Thelma Spaziani, Peter Y. Chiu, Francis Albert La Poll.
    22nd AD: Anna E. Song, Alyson L. Abramowitz, Vince Cortese, Aldyth Parle, Stephen A. Chessin, Herb Engstrom.
    23rd AD: Deniese Alejandro, Tom Cochran, Keith Garvey, Terry Gregory, Rena Modell, Claudia Shope.
    24th AD:  Phyllis A. Ward, Jacquie Heffner, David Cohen, Hope Allen, Jean Cohen, Joe Pandit.
    27th AD:  Alex Kennett, 5 vacancies.
    28th AD:  Steve Preminger, Craig Mann, 4 vacancies.

G.  Community Services & Voter Registration: Liz McDavit.
    We are having a voter registration meeting on Sat. April 13th at the South Bay Labor Council at 10 AM. The purpose is to reach out to new volunteers who have indicated an interest in helping with VR and to plug them into the program. Please let anyone know who would like to help with voter reg. this election cycle to come to the meeting.

H.  Finance: Steve Preminger for Jim Thurber.
    The JJ dinner: Now is the time to put tables together for the dinner.  Get nine of your closest friends together to buy tickets, and we'll sell lots.  We'd love to have 500 people there so we can support our endorsed candidates.  We're going to have a great speaker.  Rose Jacobs Gibson, a Supervisor from San Mateo County and a prominent African American leader, is going to be our keynote speaker.  Bill Lockyer, the Attorney General, will be there, and it should be lots of fun.  It's going to be at Lou's Village.  We'd like to make this a great event; we don't ask people to do this often. Let's raise a lot of money so we can plan another great event during the summer, a campaign kickoff that won't be a high dollar event like this one.

Special Guest: 22nd Assembly District Democratic Party candidate Sally Lieber.
     At this point the meeting paused so that the 22nd AD committee could serve the special cake brought in honor of our new candidate for Assembly, Sally Lieber:

Herb noted that we could thank Steve Chessin for the inspiring words in the inscription.
    Sally thanked the committee and noted that the colors of the cake included lavender, so she especially appreciated it.  She said that her general election campaign was off to a great start with a very successful event in Sacramento last night.  The whole Santa Clara COunty delegation was there to show support for her campaign.  We're looking at June 4th as the kickoff for the general election.  Between now and June 4th there will be outreach events directed toward senior voters.

I. Candidate Recruitment and Endorsement: Keith Garvey.
    No report.

J.  Campaign Services: Cristina Uribe
    No report.

K.  Issues: Willie Wool
    No report.

L. Political Outreach: Emy Thurber.

Political outreach clubs and ADs

21st AD Committee: Rich Watters.
    1) The Committee met on March 25th t7;00 pm at the Bakers Union in Redwood City. The main item of business was planning for voter registration this summer and fall. Beth Shaw and Shirley Daniels were appointed to head up this effort, which will be undertaken in conjunction with the Peninsula Democratic Coalition.
    2) Chairman Ian Bain is planning to work with leaders of all local Democratic organizations to establish a strong GOTV effort this fall. There is some concern that with the low turnout during the primary, and mostly safe Democratic seats on the Peninsula, Democrats won't go to the polls.
    3) The next meeting of the Committee will be a visit by 21st AD Assemblyman Joe Simitian on April 28th a the home of Greg Low in Thereon.

22nd AD Committee: Chris Stampolis.
    Thanks were offered to all the members who helped to provide food for the Central Committee meeting, and special congratulations were offered to Assembly Nominee Sally Lieber.  The AD Committee provided a cake which read "Congratulations Sally!  Kick butt in Sacramento!"   The next AD Committee meeting is Sunday, May 5 in Alviso.  Details to follow.

24th AD Committee: Jacquie Heffner.
    The 24th AD will be having a spring quarterly meeting on Saturday, April 6th, 9:30 AM - 11:30 at the home of Rebecca Cohn.  Anyone that currently lives in the old or new 24th is welcome to attend.  Please call Hope Allen to R.S.V.P.  by Friday, April 5th. (650) 270-9596.

African-American Democratic Coalition:
    Awaiting report.

Clinton*Gore Action Network: Frank Bosche.
    The Clinton*Gore  Action Network  will, as usual,  support the JJ  Dinner by having a full table.   We are ramping up voter registration efforts starting with Westgate  Mall on  27 April and  will increase our  presence everywhere between now and the November election.

Evergreen Democratic Club at the Villages: Bev Wharton.
    Attendance for our March 12 meeting was larger than usual to hear Assemblyman for the 23rd Assembly District, Manny Diaz. March 5th was the first election since the majority of the Villages was moved from the 28th to the 23rd AD.  Delivering campaign literature and our newsletter to every registered Democrat in the Villages prior to the election and our meeting also brought out new faces and engendered new memberships for the Club.
    The Club's VP, Bob Applebaum was guest speaker for last Tuesdays' meeting on the topic of "The Preservation of Social Security and Medicare."  The Club hopes to fill a table for the JJ Dinner and will be well represented at the 8th Annual Senior Concerns Rally and Barbecue, sponsored by the FORUM, on Sat., April 13. The Club received a beautiful certificate from the CDC formalizing our membership in the CDC.  We are working on getting a law professor from University of Santa Clara as next month's speaker on the topic of laws which have benefited women.

High Tech Dems:
    High Tech Dems held a successful event on March 18 at Mings.  The panel discussion focused on the State of Silicon Valley, a 4-month follow-up to our November event.  On the panel were Mayor Ron Gonzales, Steve Westly, Craig Newmar (founder of Craig's List), and economist Steve Levy.  Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group served as an expert moderator for the discussion.
    In honor of our first anniversary coming up at the JJ Dinner, High Tech Dems is running a membership drive where we are offering discounts on a combined purchase of membership and a seat at one of the several High Tech Dems tables (we had two tables last year and are shooting for more this year).  Please visit www.hightechdems.com for further details.

Peninsula Democratic Coalition: Jon Kessler.
    On March 23rd, 2002, the PDC hosted another of their legislative luncheons, with Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren as the featured speaker. Ms. Lofgren recounted the situation surrounding the events of 9/11 as it related to the security of members of Congress. She also commented on the President's war on terrorism, working in the minority side of the House, and other pertinent issues of the day. The next PDC board meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 10th, at 7:15 PM. All are welcome to attend.

Peninsula Young Democrats: Brandon Sulser.
    In March, PYD had its 2nd Annual Strategic Planning Meeting to plan the direction of the club over the next year.  We elected a new Vice Chair, Genevieve Gerard.
    PYD is now planning its first ever fundraiser for the club, a trip to the San Francisco Symphony on April 13th. A reception will occur at 6:30 in the Green Room (appetizers and wine will be served) with the show to follow at 8 PM.  Tickets for PYD members are $90.  $100 for non-members.

Santa Clara County Democratic Club: Charlie Ahern.
    Awaiting report.

M. Regional Director: Madge Overhouse.
    They've changed the date of the State Executive Board meeting - this is supposed to be permanent.  It still will be in Sacramento at the Sheraton, and it's going to be August 2nd and 3rd, a Friday and Saturday.
    Steve noted (expletive deleted) that this is the weekend of the Santa Clara County fair.

N.  Pro-Choice Coalition:  Claudia Shope.
    There are good things and bad things to announce.  A couple of the bad things that are going on this weekend.  From April 3rd to April 7th the Antis are holding this "Global  Family Life Conference" in Santa Clara at the Marriott.  A lot of really wacko people are talking there, and they also plan a candlelight vigil.  We are anticipating that they might leave the St. Leo's church and go to the Planned Parenthood Clinic around 7 AM, so if you'd like to be there at the Clinic on the Alameda, that might be a good idea.  I've told you about the fake clinics they've established.  One such clinic is trying to raise money, and on Saturday, May 4th they are having a walk.  One year they raised $300,000, which is a lot of money.  It's called "Valley Crisis Pregnancy Center," and they're having their 13th annual "Walk for Life 2002" in Amador Park in Pleasanton.  Registration is at 8:30 AM; the walk begins at 9 AM.  Their goal is to raise $150,000 to help make the Center a state licensed medical facility to provide alternatives to abortion to women "facing unplanned pregnancy situations."
    The good news is that Gov. Gray Davis ordered HMOs to cover the cost of morning after contraceptives, which makes California the first state in the nation to require such payment.  Also, they are trying to educate the public about these pills, which are effective up to 72 hours.
    More good news is that State Sen. Sheila Kuehl has introduced the Reproductive Privacy Act (Senate Bill 1301), which reaffirms the privacy rights established by Roe v. Wade.  Thus, even if Roe v. Wade is overturned at the national level, these rights would remain in California.  Because Roe v. Wade is only one vote from being overturned, this is a good time to pass the Kuehl bill.  The bill will also provide greater access to early abortion methods like RU-486 by eliminating arbitrary barriers that currently impede the ability of qualified health care professionals to treat patients in the area of reproductive health.
    There are a number of other good bills in California like Carole Migden's emergency contraceptive bill for rape survivors.  There's an abortion training bill, 2194, by (Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth) Jackson.  I want to urge people to be aware of the bad things to oppose and good things to support.  We'll be having a Pro-Choice Coalition meeting on Tuesday on the Alameda and we welcome any of you to come.  Parris (Correa) came last months and we were really glad to have her.  She volunteered for some new programs that we are trying to put together for next year, the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.  She took the lead in some of these things, and we'd like to see other leaders like her.

O.  DTV Report:  Steve Chessin.
    Democratic Television Producer Steve Chessin reported that our March taping was with Dr. Terry Christensen, Chair of the Political Science Department of San Jose State University, who discussed the results of the March election with guest host Ben Tripousis, Chair of the 23rd AD.
    We have not yet confirmed our April guest.
    We will be on San Jose AT&T Channel 15A April 11th and May 9th with the show we taped with Dr. Christensen.
    We could still use more good Democrats on the crew.  No prior video experience is necessary.

P.  CDC Report:  David Wilkes.
    Dave presented a couple of resolutions that will be considered for adoption at the CDC convention in June.  Democratic clubs might want to consider endorsing these resolutions as well.  The resolutions, "Resolution on Constitutional Rights" and one "Removal of Text from the Official Voter Information Guide" are reproduced in the appendix.

Q.  Welfare Reform:  Sal Alvarez.
    No report.

7.  OLD BUSINESS
    There was no old business.

8.  NEW BUSINESS

Amendment to SCCDCC Executive Board Duties and Responsibilities Act: Submitted by Herb Engstrom.
    A trivial change: Amend to change "Director of Candidate Services" to "Director of Candidate Recruitment and Endorsement" to reflect the similar amended bylaw change.  A motion to amend was made, seconded, and approved.

9.  ANNOUNCEMENTS

    The next Executive Board meeting is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, 6 PM, April 11, at the Home of Emy and Jim Thurber.
    Anne Mack reminded us of the annual Don Edwards Volunteer of the Year award.  We are look for those people that were volunteers and that did an excellent job this past year who are worthy of the Don Edwards this year.  You have until April 20th to submit nominations.  It can be mailed, faxed, or emailed.  Please take a good look at the form, and send your nominations in.  The nomination forms and criteria are posted on the web site,  www.scc-democrats.org .
    Steve Preminger added that he wanted to say something about Aldyth Parle and the guy sitting next to her (John McLemore).  We often have visits by  councilmembers from cities like San José and we always acknowledge them, but we have John McLemore and Aldyth Parle, who are city councilmembers from Santa Clara who come to all our meetings and sit through them, and we really appreciate that.  Aldyth is in the 22nd AD, and after redistricting, John is in the 24th.
    Steve added that there is going to be a fundraiser for the governor.  We don't have the confidence that others have that he's a real shoo-in who's just going to be able to walk into the governor's office again.  We're going to do a "Silicon Valley Friends of Gray Davis" fundraiser on Thursday, May 23rd.  It's not exactly a grass roots event - the tickets are $250, and if you want to sped some real quality time with him, it will cost you $10,000.  Steve was asked if 10 grand buys you three minutes with the governor.  "No," he replied, "we give you more than that because there's not that many people that want it."  We're going to raise a bunch of money for him, and we'll tell you more about it at the next meeting.

10. ADJOURNMENT
    The meeting was adjourned at 8:26 PM.

    Resolutions to be presented at the CDC convention in June.

Resolution on Constitutional Rights

Submitted by the Hayward Demos Democratic Club
Mike Kessler 510-352-4371 phone/fax

WHEREAS, generations of Americans have struggled to achieve and preserve the rights enumerated by the Bill of Rights, including the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amend rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion, and the complementary rights to personal security, protection from arbitrary search and seizure, right to a fair trial and due process of law,

WHEREAS, these rights are being violated by presidential orders setting up military tribunals and the arbitrary detention and questioning of residents; and the misnamed PATRIOT Act which authorizes warrantless surveillance and searches of private residences, which is unconstitutional on its face,

WHEREAS, fighting terrorism need not and should not involve depriving U.S. residents of their constitutional rights, nor of killing innocent residents of other countries,

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Council congratulates those 66 members of Congress who voted NO on the PATRIOT Act; and we urge all other Congress members and Senators, upon reflection, to act to rescind this blot on our record and pass legislation to halt implementation of the Bush Administration’s unconstitutional orders, and

THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the California Democratic Council urges all Democratic officeholders to do all in their power to oppose and repeal these dangerous attempts to make our country a police state.

Removal of Text from the Official Voter Information Guide

Submitted by Craig Athon, CDC Resolutions Chair.  For more info, please contact Craig at riscodemo@aol.com

"While looking at my sample ballot at the State Convention I noticed an enclosed post card which asked if you wanted the text of propositions removed from the Official Voter Information Guide. The post card is at the back of the booklet. Everyone I showed the post card to thought that that was a terrible idea. I encourage you to mail it back with the NO choice marked."

Here is a sample resolution for your club.

WHEREAS voters need to have easy access to the text of propositions on the ballot; and

WHEREAS the Official Voter Information Guide issued by the California Secretary of State has arguments and analysis about the text of propositions; and

WHEREAS including the text of the propositions in the guide is the easiest and most useful possible manner of supplying the voters with the information they need to cast an intelligent vote;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT (name of your club) opposes the proposal to remove the text of propositions from the state voter information guide;
and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT (name of your club) inform the Secretary of State Bill Jones of this position.
 

This page was last updated 4/21/02.