SANTA CLARA COUNTY DEMOCRATIC CENTRAL COMMITTEE

6:45 pm, County Building cafeteria, 70 W. Hedding St. San Jose

MINTUES OF SCCDCC Thursday, May 5, 2005

1. CALL TO ORDER 7:15

2. ROLL CALL

Absent: Francine Davis, Bill Dias, Cathy Dias, Mark Moore, Dennis Kennedy, Brittany Bach, Craig Mann, Alberto Torrico, Joe Coto, Liz Figueroa

Excused: Aldyth Parle

Alternate: Ron Bryant for Scott Rafferty, Brandon Sulser for Anna Song, Adrienne Grey for Jacquie Heffner, Alex Kobayashi for Ira Ruskin, Bill James for Sally Lieber, Jon Kessler for Rebecca Cohn, Clark Williams for John Laird, Sabra Foley for Joe Simitian, Kansen Chu for Elaine Alquist, Jim Ross for Jerry McNerney, Margaret Abe-Koga for Anna Eshoo, Michael Wang for Mike Honda, Sandra Soto for Zoe Lofgren, Laura Kimball for Chris Stampolis, Bob Applebaum for Beverly Waller-Walton, Fran Bennett, Clarence Madrilejos for Herb Wadley, Alicia Lanier for Ann Shirkey, Marylee Shelton for Ruth Ashford

3. IDENTIFICATION OF VISITORS

Jolyn Liu, Enrique Colin, Chris Boylan

4. ADOPTION OF AGENDA

Add: report on convention and report from Rena under old business

Motion to approve as amended, second, carried

5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (Minutes are posted at sccdp.org)

Motion to approve, second, carried

6. NEW BUSINESS

Issues: report from two students from Congressman Honda’s Student Advisory Council from the 15^th Congressional District high schools. At the beginning of each year, the advisory chooses an issue of importance to the youth of the area. Youth political apathy was this year’s issue. 1200 surveys were handed out in CD 15 high schools, 763 were handed back in.

The last fill in the blank item on the survey was: “I would be involved in politics if…”. The results of this question showed that most students have a negative image of electeds and the political system. They believe that electeds should be more active in the online community and within the local community. They also believe that politicians and the system do not address their needs. The students stated that the media influenced their opinions and that they need a better understanding of politics.

The issues of importance to them were avoiding war for money and gain, immigrants, higher education, how to get more woman or non white people into office, creating a focus on domestic issues before international, abortion, and poverty. They urge electeds and Democrats to think about young people, how to get them involved, and how to give them more knowledge.

Discussion on:

Rena suggested the Central Committee host a civics course one Saturday for the students.

Dennis Austin suggested delegations of people speaking to high school students to create better communication.

Clarence suggested the use of community events as a bridge to political interest.

Dan suggested adopting a project to form Democratic Clubs in the high schools in our County.

Peter A. suggested hosting educational retreats and having the Democratic Clubs adopt a school and community event to do good for the community while showing the students how this ties into politics.

Election of State Eboard Representatives:

Nominations: Jim Thurber, Anne Mack, Herb Engstrom, Hope Cahan, Alyson Abramowitz, Loretta Riddle (declined)

Motion to close nominations, second, carried

Speeches by candidates

Jim Thurber and Herb Engstrom were automatically elected, as they were the only two male candidates running for the two male positions.

Motion to vote for the two female positions by show of hands, discussion, second, carried

Alyson Abramowitz: 20 votes

Ann Mack: 31 votes

Hope Cahan: 41 votes

Report on Preminger vs. VA lawsuit: Mike Markman 

Mike summarized the history behind the lawsuit and explained that he and his law firm, Heller Ehrman, are representing the County Committee’s appeal to the 9^th court. The appeal is to strike down the current practice of the VA hospitals that gives sole discretion of the banning of partisan activities to the individual hospitals administrators. The hearing for our right to exercise core political speech is on Monday at 12:30.

7. REPORTS FROM OFFICERS AND OTHERS

A. Executive Board: Steve Preminger

The board discussed the dinner, this meeting, and future activities

B. Chair: Steve Preminger

Discussed the successful dinner and the convention:

Convention: 91 resolutions were submitted to the Resolutions Committee, but were narrowed down to 13. A number of the resolutions that passed were from our county and are on our website for review. The format of this convention was different from previous years as it was in a town hall style. Emy Thurber was elected as our Regional Director. Howard Dean was the speaker at the dinner on Saturday. His speech is on our website.

The attendees agreed that they would like more hands on workshops.

The Bob Mack award was given at the Chairs reception on Friday night.

Alyson announced that 4 new members from our county made it onto the Business and Professions caucus

Buu announced the first diverse slate of the HI caucus

Peter Chui provided a Rules Committee bylaw changes follow up. The committee will have listening tours around the state to hear from members around the state. This will be completed by June 25^th. The suggestions will be resubmitted at the next State Party E-board meeting

C. Vice Chair: James Kim

The Human Race is this Saturday. People can also sponsor a member if they are unable to attend.

The Grandmothers luncheon is tomorrow at noon at the Hyatt. This event celebrates the need for understanding how important grandmothers are in the community.

D. Treasurer: Drina Collins

E. Secretary: Hope Cahan

Thank you for electing me as a delegate.

Please remember to email or hand in your reports to me so that they may be added to the minutes.

F. Community Services and Voter Registration: Linda Spangler

G. Finance: Jim Thurber

Thank you to Jen Wallace for her hard work on the dinner. It was a lot of work, but was worth it. The total in attendance was 620: 20 people over the room’s capacity

H. Candidate Recruitment and Endorsement: Jon Kessler

We do not have any interviews until the fall. The endorsement questioner is now online, would welcome any feedback.

I. Communication: David Cohen

Dean’s and Boxer’s speeches are on our website

If you have an event that you would like on our calendar, must send it directly to David

Other counties are using the source code from our website to build their websites (Butte County has the highest traffic at this point)

Santa Cruz, San Diego, Monterey County won the Steve Westley award and will build an online distributed voter system so precinct captains can download their precinct list and actively work/ update the list. Will use the money to fund a host website for the counties throughout the state.

J. Campaign Services: Philip Bump

K. Issues: Herb Engstrom

I received 19 responses to the 73 questioners I sent out. Results: issues will be presented during the monthly meeting, up to but no longer than 20 minutes. Additionally, people would like to invite our legislators or their alternates to speak to us.

L. Political Outreach: Tom Cochran

Club Reports

Evergreen Democratic Club at the Villages: Bob Applebaum

Our club almost filled two tables at the Democratic Dinner (we had 17 members attend). Three members attended the FORUM 11^th Annual Senior Concerns Rally & BBQ, Apr.23. We were at the ready to attend the City Council meeting last Tuesday to support Councilman Dave Cortese’s request for a two-week postponement on the Evergreen Visioning Project Task Force, but relieved to hear that it would not be necessary, because the postponement had been granted.

Our speaker at Tuesday’s Club meeting was Stanford Law Professor Emeritus and National Labor Relations Board Chair from 1994-98, William B. Gould, IV, who gave a most dynamic and interesting talk about his experience being nominated by President Clinton for the NLRB Chair and the agonizing process of confirmation. We highly recommend him as a speaker for other clubs.

We will have at least one car load attending the Monday, May 9^th Social Security Rally at the San Jose State Student Union Amphitheater.

We look forward with anticipation to another visit to our club by SJSU Professor Terry Christensen in June.

Silicon Valley Latino Democratic Forum: Xavier Campos

We have been meeting with the candidates for San Jose City Council District 7. We will make our endorsement announcement via press release next week.

We purchased a table at the JJ Dinner and filled it with some of our board members and some of our young leaders in our community.

We also bought an add for the JJ Dinner listing our boardmembers.

We are also working with Jon Kessler to get our (and PDC’s) membership to attend the Phil Angelides event on the 19^th.

We will be providing food for the next month’s meeting.

Lesbian Gay Bisexual Democratic Club: Evan Low

There is a fundraiser for Gavin Newsom in Los Gatos on Tuesday, May 17^th at 6:30pm.

The club gave a sole endorsement for San Jose City Council District 7 candidate Madison Nguyen.

There is a club picnic on June 5^th at 1pm at Doug Winslow’s house.

Santa Clara County Democratic Club: Alicia Lanier

Our next SCCDC meeting will be Monday, May 16, at Carrow’s Restaurant on El Camino in Santa Clara. The program topic will be: Computerized Voting Machines: Who is Counting your Vote? The guest speaker is Dr. Barbara Simons. Dr. Simons is a nationally recognized expert on electronic voting. No-host dinner begins at 6 p.m. and the program begins at 7 p.m. All Democrats are invited to attend.

On your local public access TV station, look for these two new Straight Talk shows produced by our club.

o "Affordable Housing in Silicon Valley", with Mountain View mayor Matt Neely, Stephanie Schaaf of the Sierra Club's transportation committee, and Chris Block, Executive Director of Charities Housing.

o "Universal Health Insurance", with Lynne Penek-Holden of Health Care for All and Dr. Charles Browning, a retired psychiatrist. They discussed the critical health care situation in California and how Senator Sheila Kuehl's Senate Bill 840 would solve these problems.

Barbara Nesbet, former mayor of Monte Sereno, hosted both shows. An upcoming show will feature two members of the Union of Concerned Scientists who will discuss global warming.

Among other recent activities...

· Our club was pleased to co-sponsor the Evening with George Lakoff, and we also had a table at the annual Santa Clara County Democratic Party dinner last Friday at the Fairmont.

· Several club members participated in the Clean Money Lobby Day in Sacramento last month. We were among about 100 Clean Money advocates from around the state who visited with Assembly members to encourage support for Loni Hancock’s Clean Money & Fair Elections Bill and to participate in the Elections Committee Hearing.

The Dean Democratic Club of Silicon Valley: Carolyn Curtis
- hosted a picnic & wildflower walk for Jerry McNerney April 10, raised $1500
- are further helping McNerney by serving on 3 of his 4 committees (co-chair Jim Ross heads Outreach)
- has a Social Security task force (Jim Ross chairs) that created 4 excellent flyers (available at www.dfasv.org, soon to be available on the county website)

- sent 12 members (elected, appointed, proxies, observers) as first-timers to the state party convention
- hosted the enormously successful George Lakoff lecture April 22, a professional-level event attended by 1100 people that raised $4400+ for the Rockridge Institute, and is organizing follow-on events

- had two tables at the dinner April 29
- has 5 participants in the Human Race
- has its annual meeting & election of officers June 12 at Vasona Park
- is hosting a fundraiser for Ira Ruskin's campaign debt Mon June 20
- continues to host meetups in 2 locations
- has a website, www.dfasv.org, that gets 67,000 hits/month

West Valley Democratic Club: Dennis Austin

We endorsed the April 28^th rally in Sacramento for Worker’s Memorial Day. The number of people representing the Republican Party from Tustin, CA equaled the number of people representing the Democratic Party. The representatives from the Peace and Freedom Party outnumbered both major parties.

Assemblymember John Laird acknowledged at a May 1^st event in Santa Cruz the teachers, nurses, and firefighters as the groups responsible for the declining approval rating of the governor.

M. Regional Director: Emy Thurber

Emily Thurber, newly elected Region 5 Director, said her first official act was to give the 2004/2005 Regional Director’s award to an outstanding volunteer, David Cohen. She asked for feedback on the convention and ideas for improvement. She also announced that there would be a CDP “listening tour” meeting on June 5 at the Morgan Hill Grange Hall, 40 E. 4^th Street, Morgan Hill, from 2:00 to 3:30. Peter Chiu and Jim Thurber of the California Democratic Party Rules Committee will explain the proposed changes to the Assembly District Committee structure and CDP Vice-chair eligibility and listen to all Democrats who can attend. Anyone who wants a copy of the proposed rules changes should e-mail her.

N. Democratic National Committee: Laura Kimball

The DNC members nationwide will have a conference call in a couple weeks.  If any members have questions or issues they wish Chris to address, please email them directly to Chris.

Also, the CDC Convention in San Bernardino is shaping up well for June 17-19.  The San Bernardino Hilton has a special rate of $99 per night for CDC Convention attendees.

O. Pro-Choice Coalition: Claudia Shope

Arnold took the signatures in for the ballot initiative on teacher tenure. Parental notification may be on the ballot because they are getting a lot of signatures

Nuclear option still being pushed by Bill Frist.

The13 year old girl in Florida will be able to have an abortion. You can right letters of support for the girl and the ACLU to newspaper editors or op-ed pieces.

Teen pregnancy awareness month is this month.

2 conservative groups (Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays) have filed a federal lawsuit to block a sex ed curriculum that would offer discussions on homosexuality and show a video on how to put on a condom.

In Alaska, the state’s informed consent website, required reading for women seeking abortions, will feature a section on fetal pain claiming that the fetuses feel pain at 20 weeks gestation and a section on the alleged link between breast cancer and abortion.

In Colorado, Democrats failed to override the Governor’s veto of a bill that would have required hospitals to give Emergency Contraception information to rape victims.

The Michigan House is planning to vote on a bill that would require adding the option of ultrasounds and fetal photos to the state’s informed consent law. The Michigan governor opposes the bill.

In Oregon, the House passed a parental notification bill, requiring parents of minor girls to be informed 48 hours before an abortion is performed on their daughter.

The next Planned Parenthood meeting is on the 3^rd Thursday of the month.

David Cohen reported: the Operation Rescue protest in SF starts this Saturday, when the American College of Ob/Gyns kicks off their national meeting. http://acog.com/ACM2005/

Operation Rescue is bringing their "Truth Trucks" to San Francisco, and our side needs to be there to greet them.  Below is the letter from Operation Rescue regarding the protest.  WARNING: the letter is scary stuff; read with discretion...

If you want to see their website, check out http://www.operationrescue.org/?p=197

P. DTV Report: Steve Chessin

Democratic Television Producer Steve Chessin reported that our April taping was with Mountain View Mayor Matt Neely.

Our guest in May will be Congressman Mike Honda.

We will be on San Jose AT&T Channel 15A May 5^th with the show we taped with Judge Sharon Chatman on Building Peaceful Families, May 19^th and June 16^th with the show we taped with Mayor Neely, and June 2^nd and June 30^th with the show we will tape with Congressman Honda.

See the sccdp web site for the schedule in the other communities.

We are on Gilroy Channel 20 four times a week! See the web site for the full schedule.

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):

2005:

May 5 DTV 122 Building Peaceful Families

May 19 DTV 123 Hon. Matt Neely

Jun 2 DTV 124 Hon. Mike Honda

Jun 16 DTV 123 Hon. Matt Neely

Jun 30 DTV 124 Hon. Mike Honda

See http://www.sccdp.org/dtv.php for the full schedule.

Q. CDC Report: Jay Jackman

Reviewed the minutes from the Region 5 meeting:

California Democratic Council

Region 5 meeting

Saturday, April 23, 2005

The meeting began just after 9:30 A.M.

Present at the meeting were Clarence Madrilejos of the Moorpark Democratic Club (DC), Nell Selander and Dean Wallace of the Stanford Democrats, David Wilkes of the West Valley DC, Rich Watters of the Peninsula Democratic Coalition, Charles Walton of the West Valley Democratic Club, Carol Garvey of DAWN, Alicia Lanier of the Santa Clara County DC, Bill Ferguson and Deepka Lalwani of the Milpitas DC, Doug Winslow of the LGBT DC, Bill Hoeft of Reclaim the Debate, and CDC officers Jay Jackman, Region 5 VP, Herb Engstrom SF Bay Area VP, and Chris Stampolis CDC President.

Jay began the meeting with a brief history of the CDC indicating that it began in the 1950s when California was a deep red state. Alan Cranston was one of the founders. He went on to say that the CDC is focusing on grassroots activism: precinct work, get out the vote, and voter registration. People involved in these activities come traditionally from Democratic clubs based in their communities. Santa Clara County is a little different: there is a mix of geographic and affinity clubs. The CDC goal is to tile the state with geographically focused clubs so that every Democrat in the state has a neighborhood club to join. Also our goal is to have 3% of the Democrats in the state belong to clubs. Since there are about 350,000 registered Democrats in the county, our goal is to have clubs with a total of about 10,000 members.

The attendees then introduced themselves, indicated what clubs they belonged to, and said a little about the activities of their clubs.

Jay then introduced Mary Hughes of Seton-Hughes campaign consulting firm. She was the main speaker at the meeting and spoke on "Winning elections precinct by precinct." She said that there were three challenges from the national context that affect local grassroots activities: 1) cultural conservatism; 2) the cult of the personality; and 3) what she called "commotion communication."

Cultural conservatism: Analysis of the election results shows that there are many blue counties throughout the U.S., but these are mainly ones with major urban centers. We must understand that cultural conservatism is very common. Without those heavily populated counties along the coast of California, this state voted for Bush. Another example of the prevalence of such conservatism is the series of 16 Christian novels beginning with one called "Left Behind" by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. These novels deal with such apocalyptic events as the second coming of Christ. Some 16 million people have read these books, and we must be aware of them. The notion that everyone thinks like us is politically debilitating. Many people are overwhelmed by their lives. We need to make politics relevant. For many people such things as church and little league are more important than politics. We need to be willing to listen to them.

The cult of the personality: The U.S. is drifting away from the culture of ideas to that of the personality. We now ask, "Who will be our leader?" We look to strong leaders. Politics is interpersonal. What sustains people is attachment to each other - having a colleague or work mate. The social aspects of politics are very important. People want meaningful communication. This accounts for success.

Commotion communication: People are now spending very much time on their cell phones, on e-mail, the internet, etc., and that time drain allows little bandwidth to engage people. It makes it harder to recruit volunteers. We compete with commercial entities, such as radio and TV that are much better funded than we. Yet there is nothing more powerful than personally engaging a neighbor.

Of these three critical components of a successful campaign, Howard Dean got two out of the three right. He was a strong personality and was good at communication. He missed on the cultural conservatism.

Are we talking to the same old people or to new people? We are right for the country on many issues, but if we do what we have always done, we shouldn't be surprised if we get the same results. Ann Richardson, in her successful campaign for governor of Texas, realized that the most noticeable thing about herself was her hair. She went to the beauty parlors in every town she campaigned in and made every one of these in Texas a campaign headquarters. For us politics is our bowling league; it must be fun.

There are four concepts to organize around:

First, engage people one to one - at their front doors, tabling, be visible. Farmers' markets are a great place. People there believe in supporting their communities.

Second, mobilization. People expect to be used efficiently. Respect their two hours. Are the materials ready? Are people trained? Make their efforts easy and fun. You can't just send them out with 5 bullet points. First person testimony is the best recommendation. If a voter raises an issue, your best response is, "I just spoke with the candidate on that issue, and she told me that..." Use your elected representatives to build your credibility. Your volunteers are timid; they don't want to fail.

Third, training and launching. Organize by precinct. The web has given us many new tools, but a neighbor visiting a neighbor is best. That is how the Republicans have beaten us. They organized on religious and cultural grounds. We use technology best, but in the end we must persuade people. House parties are effective.

Fourth, we must be keepers of the flame. We know who showed up, but we lose the papers. We need continuity. We need to know at the outset of a campaign. Think ahead. Keep all those old election materials.

Most importantly we need to say what we want to accomplish, not what we are defending. Get up at every meeting and ask, "What are we for?"

In the discussion that followed, Charlie Walton said he'd like to have a list of arguments that work. He noted that in a debate between Al Sharpton and Jerry Falwell, Sharpton said that in the Bible Jesus mentioned poverty 2,000 times but never once denounced gay marriage.

Mary responded that John Edwards would run on an amalgam of those issues. He can speak to the religious constituencies. Donnie Fowler, who ran for DNC chair, has said that his faith made him a Democrat.

We have been too narrow. Many people have no strong party allegiance. Many decline to state voters agree with us, and even many people registered as Republicans do as well. In our area many decline to state voters are progressive on social issues but are fiscally conservative and are often Libertarian types. However, in Contra Costa County they tend to be conservative on social issues as well.

Clarence Madrilejos asked what we could do as clubs. Mary reemphasized that we need to meet people. Precinct captains are members of PTAs. Tell the president of the PTA that we are Democrats and we support their goals. We need to do what they want. Environmentalists are non-partisan but they vote with us. Find all environmental groups and talk to them.

After Mary concluded her remarks, SF Bay Area Vice President Herb Engstrom took the floor to outline a plan for turning more California counties blue. He told of the conversation that he had with CDC Region 11 vice president Jery Lacayo at the state party convention. There had been a number of suggestions that blue counties "adopt" and support Democratic campaign organizations in red counties. They thought that blue counties adopting red counties might be a good idea except for the great disparities in population. Blue LA County alone has over 6 million residents; red Alpine has only 1,208. It made more sense, therefore, that blue CDC regions should offer their resources to red regions because the CDC regions are somewhat more equal in populations. The plan is that the regional VPs in blue regions link up with the regional VPs in red regions. The red VPs then put together a list of ways that the blue sister regions could support the reds. Jery stressed that the red regions need to take the lead in defining what is necessary for them.

CDC State President Chris Stampolis then talked about some other of the challenges we face. He noted that if you can get Democrats in California to the polls, they vote right, but we have serious problems with voter turnout in LA County. There is no voter history for local elections. There is no electronic record of voter history even for special elections.

He went on to say that every Democratic club in California is automatically in the CDC,. The CDC will have its annual convention in San Bernardino June 17 through 19, and workshops there will have education, labor, and organizing tracks. A new web site is under development.

Jay then asked attendees how the CDC might be able to help their clubs. Among the responses were: communicating with other clubs, expanding membership, motivating existing members to participate, expanding the voter registration effort, getting LGBT people into the Democratic Party, better communication with members, more activities for members, mentoring candidates for office, compiling a list of effective political arguments. The most common needs were recruiting younger members, getting speakers, and candidate recruitment and training.

Minutes Submitted 4/30/05

Herb Engstrom

8. OLD BUSINESS

In honor of Jim McEntee, there will be a meeting on Wednesday, May 11^th from 3-5 and then 7-9pm to vote on one of the 3 choices: County to be called Jim McEntee facilities building, Jim McEntee Board Chambers, or the Jim McEntee Plaza. They want input from the public and to hear remembrances from people who knew him.

9. ANNOUNCEMENTS

Buu Thai: Assemblywoman Sally Lieber is hosting a reception for Senator and candidate for Lt. Governor Jackie Speier. Sunday, May 22^nd from 2:30 to 4:30pm at Mountain View City Hall 500 Castro St. Mountain View. No RSVP needed.

Jay Jackman: Move On had a protest last Thursday in front of federal court houses to protest the nuclear action. Our local rally had 200-300 people. We need to connect with the new people to get them active.

Peter A: There is a rally to take on Arnold, contact your local Labor Council to find out how to participate.

Alyson: May 7^th at noon Donnie Fowler, runner up to Dean for DNC chair, will be speaking on how we win in red and swing states in Cupertino.

Paul: Africans for a better Cupertino group fundraiser is on June 16^th.

Asian Americans for Community Involvement 32^nd anniversary celebration is on June 17^th at The Marriott. I am up for re-election to Foothill/DeAnza community college. My campaign kick off will be June 2^nd

Denise: The Cap committee drawing to raise money for candidates is on Sept. 23^rd.

Sabra: Joe Simitian will host a Town Hall this Saturday.

Adrienne: Thank you to everyone involved in the Lakeoff presentation, we had 11,000 people there. And a special thanks to Steve Preminger.

Steve: Saturday, May 14^th, is the annual food drive for letter carriers. This is the largest food drive in the country. Please leave out non-perishable food. Also, the Democratic Century Club luncheon is on Friday the 13^th and the speaker is Assemblymember John Laird. Thanks to everyone who participated in the dinner.

Next month’s refreshments from the Latino Democratic Forum

Congratulations to Even Low for his new position on the GLBT Democratic Club

10. EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING

The next Executive Board meeting May 18^th at David Cohen’s house.

11. ADJOURNMENT 9:40