SANTA CLARA COUNTY DEMOCRATIC CENTRAL COMMITTEE
6:45 pm, County Building cafeteria, 70 W. Hedding St. San Jose
MINUTES FOR Thursday, March 2nd, 2006
1. CALL TO ORDER
2. ROLL CALL
Absent: Francine Davis, Bill Dias, Cathy Dias, Deepka Lalwani, Thelma Spaziani, Kevin Moore, Alex Kennett, Dan Kenney, Tony Alexander, Kristine Dillon, Bruce Morasca, Alberto Torrico, Tony Alexander, Kristine Dillon, Bruce Morasca, Alberto Torrico, John Laird, Simon Salinas, Joe Simitian, Chris Stampolis
Alternate: Mark Vanni for Julie Lind, Laura Macias for Scott Rafferty, Brandon Sulser for Anna Song, Xavier Campos, Swannee Edwards for Dennis Kennedy, Alex Kobayashi for Ira Ruskin, Mike Potter for Joe Coto, Jon Kessler for Rebecca Cohn, Kansen Chu for Elaine Alquist, Mike Honda, Ricky Le for Zoe Lofgren, Clarence Madrilejos for Herb Wadley, Diego Barragan for Anil Babbar
Excused: Craig Mann
3. IDENTIFICATION OF VISITORS
Gary Lasby, Wanda Brian, Diane Rolfe, Andrew Patias, Mehdi Safipour: Bay Area Iranian-American Democrats, Assemblymember Sally Lieber
Candidates: Sam Licardo: San Jose City Council District 3, Joe Pandit: Director of Santa Clara Valley Water District 4, David Pandori: San Jose Mayor, Karyn Sinunu: Santa Clara County District Attorney, Larry Stone: Santa Clara County Assessor, Jerry McNerney: 11th Congressional District, Stephen Thomas: 11th Congressional District, Maria Fernandez for Cindy Chavez: San Jose Mayor, Jim Beall: 24th Assembly District, Manny Diaz: San Jose City Council District 3, Ross Senigorino: San Jose City Council District 1
4. ADOPTION OF AGENDA
Motion to approve, second, so carried
5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (Minutes are posted at sccdp.org)
Motion to approve, second, carried
6. ISSUES
Senator Liz Figueroa: Discussed lack of superior candidates currently running for office Nationwide. Recommends that everyone define what his/her values are so that deciding which candidate to vote for will be easier. Democrats must continue to tell people what they stand for because there is so much confusion right now.
7. NEW BUSINESS
8. REPORTS FROM OFFICERS AND OTHERS
A. Executive Board: Hope Cahan
The board discussed the upcoming Democratic Dinner, the ongoing efforts to defeat Pombo, and the Immigrant Voter Registration drive.
B. Chair: Steve Preminger
Worked on the campaign to create a strong infrastructure to defeat Pombo
C. Vice Chair: James Kim
For the first time ever, the Republican Party is last of the major parties to be chosen by the immigrant community.
D. Treasurer: Drina Collins
E. Secretary: Hope Cahan
Please sign the visitor sign in
F. Community Services and Voter Registration: Carolyn Curtis & Adrienne Grey
Please take a few permanent absentee forms to sign people up. We get extra bounty money for democrats who register as permanent absentee.
New immigrant voter registration went really well last month. Any second language speakers should join the volunteers to help reach out to the new citizens in their native language.
Were able to put together a protest against Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Republican Convention.
G. Finance: Jim Thurber
The state party offers liability insurance to all affiliated clubs. This is expensive, but good to have in the case of an accident. The Central Committee has insurance, but is not able to co-host an event and use our insurance to cover the whole event unless it is a countywide event. Therefore, all clubs are urged to sign up for at least the general liability insurance.
2000 invitations for the April 7th Democratic Dinner went in the mail yesterday and all clubs are urged to purchase at least 1 table. We have 1,000 seats to fill. (During the club reports, clubs agreed to purchase at least 19 tables.)
H. Candidate Recruitment and Endorsement: Jon Kessler
Interviews will be on March 20th and 22nd and the 27th and 29th of the following week. We will do the County seats first and the City seats the following week. Clubs need to submit their representative who will sit on the interview committee. The interviews will be from 6pm-10pm
I. Communication: David Cohen
J. Campaign Services: Philip Bump
K. Issues: Herb Engstrom
L. Political Outreach: Tom Cochran: Each club that comes up tonight must submit a club contact person with name, number, and email.
The Evergreen Valley College Democratic Caucus has fulfilled our requirements for accreditation. Motion to accredit, second, so carried
Club, AD, SD, & CD Reports
Evergreen Democratic Club: Beverly Waller-Wharton
We enjoyed an enlightening analysis of the past November election and prognostications on the forthcoming June and November, 2006, elections by Professor Terry Christensen at our February meeting, followed by a question and answer period.
Members will be in attendance at the March 10th Century Club luncheon and we hope to have a large number attending the CDC convention. We are urging members to attend the Annual JJ Dinner in April to ensure our club has at least one and hopefully two tables. Past President Bob Applebaum is serving on the Health Advisory Commission, which voted recently to endorse SB 840. Bob will be making a presentation on a road map to obtain health benefits for uncovered adults.
At our meeting next Tuesday, we will be screening the 1966 film version of Ray BradburyÕs novel, Fahrenheit 451.
For MayÕs meeting, we have invited Supervisor Jim Beall as our speaker.
Santa Clara County Democratic Club:
Will be hosting a San Jose Mayoral Candidates Forum on Monday, March 20th at the Del Mar High School Cafeteria.
The clubs co-sponsoring the event are: DAWN, LGBT Democratic Club, Dean Democratic Club of Silicon Valley, Bay Area Iranian-American Democrats, Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee.
DAWN: Carol Garvey
DAWN will be conducting endorsement interviews for the June Primary on March 11th and 12th (Sat/Sun) 2006 in preparation for our pot luck endorsement brunch to be held Sunday, April 2nd, 11am at SEIU Local 715, 2302 Zanker Rd, San Jose, We will be endorsing the following races: San Jose Mayor, Board of Supervisors-District 4, District Attorney, San Jose City Council-Districts 1 & 3, Assembly Districts 24 & 28, and Lt. Gov.
Also co-sponsoring the Mayoral Forum on March 20th, being presented by the Santa Clara County Democratic Club.
Following the lead of PDC, SVAPADC, and other clubs, the DAWN board voted to recommend increasing our board from 15-19 members, adding an additional VP and 3 general board members. The proposed laws change will be voted on at our May brunch- date to be announced.
Dean Democratic Club: Jim Ross
At our membership meeting last night, we got pointers on how to stay on message, and practiced this among ourselves.
We endorsed Debra Bowen for Secretary of State, as did our statewide umbrella organization, CA for Democracy, and the national PAC Democracy for America. WeÕll be endorsing in just a few other races.
We continue to monitor AB583, Clean Money, and are poised to lobby for it in the State Senate.
We have the Wal-Mart video for sale on DVD for $12
M. Regional Director: Emy Thurber
Reminder of endorsement caucuses on Saturday morning, April 1st
We must have 70% of the delegates turn out so please attend
State Democratic Convention 27, 28, 29th in Sacramento.
Have 4 counties cooperation on the defeat Pombo campaign
Sam Rodriguez is the new political director for the party. The party has already begun hiring representatives to reach out to faith-based communities.
John Soper is trying to organize cell phoning for Francine BusbyÕs campaign. Will do calling on March 19th and the 20th.
N. Democratic National Committee: Chris Stampolis
O. Pro-Choice Coalition: Claudia Shope
State News:
In a move reminiscent of the movie Groundhog Day, anti-abortion extremists have filed two new parental notification initiatives with the CA Secretary of State and are attempting to qualify it for the November ballot using paid signature gatherers. Signature gatherers have already been spotted in Santa Clara County. We are trying to track them, please let Katie Desmond at Katie_desmond@ppmarmonte.org know if you see one of these petitions circulating.
Guttmacher Institute ranked California #1 overall in preventing unintended pregnancy. The announcement was made in Los Angeles with a press conference honoring former Governors Pete Wilson and Gray Davis for their leadership in promoting policies- including comprehensive sexuality education and access to prescription drugs- that resulted in a dramatic decrease in unintended pregnancy (over 40% in ten years).
Local:
The Pro-Choice Coalition will be voting on a new chair. The Pro-Choice Coalition of Santa Clara County is comprised of representatives of pro-choice organizations across Santa Clara County; please consider participating if this describes your organization.
The human rights community is organizing a bus and event tour in the late days of March and early April to unite organizations like Planned Parenthood, PFLAG, EQCA, Gay-Straight Alliance Network, the ACLU, NOW, NARAL Pro-Choice California, Amnesty International, and many others. Contact Katie Desmond at Katie_desmond@ppmarmonte.org if your organization would like to participate.
Reproductive rights activists all across the state will gather in Sacramento to show their support for birth control and access to reproductive health care. Planned Parenthood Mar Monte will be sending a delegation of staff and activities- some scholarships are available contact Katie Desmond at Katie_desmond@ppmarmonte.org or (408) 297-9255 ext. 217 if youÕre interested in attending.
P. DTV Report: Steve Chessin
Democratic Television Producer Steve Chessin reported that our February taping was with Congressman Mike Honda of the 15th Congressional district.
Our guest in March is our own David Cohen, Communications Director of the Santa Clara County Democratic Party.
We will be on San Jose Comcast Channel 15A March 9th with the show we taped with Diane Rolfe, March 23rd with the show we taped with Congressman Mike Honda, and April 6th and May 4th with the show we will tape with David Cohen.
See the sccdp web site for the schedule in the other communities.
We could still use more good Democrats on the crew. No prior video experience is necessary.
San Jose Channel 15A (also serves part of Cupertino), 8:00pm every other Thursday (408-918-3200):
2006:
Mar 9 DTV 132 Diane Rolfe
Mar 23 DTV 133 Hon. Mike Honda
Apr 6 DTV 134 David Cohen
Apr 20 DTV 135 TBD-135
May 4 DTV 134 David Cohen
May 18 DTV 135 TBD-135
See http://www.sccdp.org/dtv.php for the full schedule, and to download our shows.
Q. CDC Report: Jay Jackman
CDC will have its annual convention in Santa Clara. It will be a great opportunity to learn lots of useful political tools as well as meet other activists and candidates. The weekend is really affordable, especially if you chose to come and buy your own meals. Please check out the website -CDC -ca.org for the program, luminaries who will be there and registration info. This is a wonderful local opportunity. Please consider joining us for at least part of the weekend.
9. OLD BUSINESS
10. ANNOUNCEMENTS
Maria Fernandez: Please join Cindy Chavez at her campaign kick-off on Sunday, March 5th at 2:30 at 701 N. First Street in San Jose
Tom Cochran: will be hosting a fundraiser for Bill Lockyer on April 20th
Jay Jackman: Collecting signatures for Anna Eshoo
Dan Hoffman: Silicon Valley Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State is having a forum on March 5th at 2:30 at the Saratoga library Community Room off of Fruitvale.
Carolyn Curtis: Resolution that California should move to impeach Bush. Vermont is already doing this.
Ann Mack: CA Senior LegislatureÕs only funding source is on your state income tax form line 54. This is tax deductible. Please contribute to this great organization.
Diane Rolfe: Please sign the petition to get the PIA Healthy Kids imitative on the ballot.
Pete OÕReilly: San Francisco County Supervisors voted to impeach the president. Phil Angelides house party in Saratoga. Leader from Bolivia will be speaking on March 6th on Zanker and Brokaw. The Òbring the troops homeÓ resolution will be on the agenda for the SCC Board of Supervisors.
Thank you to PDC for the refreshments
11. EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING
The next Executive Board meeting TBA
12. ADJOURNMENT 9:20