Democrats Have a Chance To Revive The Party. Will They Seize It?
Published on
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
by
Washington Post
Democrats Have a Chance To Revive The Party. Will They Seize It?
Most are rallying around the bolder agenda articulated by Sanders, including
a $15 minimum wage, Medicare for All, a green New Deal, balanced trade,
getting money out of politics and more.
by
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton participate in the Univision News and
Washington Post Democratic presidential primary debate last year in Miami.
(Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
President Trump's unpopularity masks a harsh reality: Across the country,
the Democratic Party is in its worst shape since the 1920s. In 2016, Hillary
Clinton won just 487 of more than 3,100 counties nationwide. Can Democrats
come back from the deep hole they are in? The growing reaction to Trump's
grotesqueries and the Republican-led Congress' extremism is promising, but
the Democratic Party won't revive itself unless it changes. The good news is
that - against entrenched resistance - reformers are beginning to force the
party to open up. Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I-Vt.) 2016 campaign - and the
reaction to Trump's victory - unleashed new energy and roused new activists.
Remarkably, instead of turning their backs on the party or giving up on
electoral politics in disgust, many have decided that it's time to reform
the Democratic Party from the bottom up and top down.
Last weekend, members of the party's Unity Reform Commission voted on final
recommendations for reforming the national party. The commission is the
creation of an agreement made by Sanders and Clinton at the 2016 national
convention to help heal the deep wounds the primary had left with Sanders
supporters.
Not surprisingly, the Sanders delegates drove the reform agenda, pushing to
open the party up to new voters and new energy. The resulting
recommendations make important changes in three major areas. First, they
slash the number of superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention -
delegates who can vote for whomever they want - by 60 percent, limiting them
to sitting legislators, governors and former presidents, vice presidents and
DNC chairs. In addition, in each of the 57 separate state parties (parties
include territories and Democrats abroad), activists will push to demand
that the remaining superdelegates be pledged to vote for their state's
choice. In 2016, superdelegates gave Clinton 30 percent of the votes needed
for nomination before the first caucus or primary. Going forward, insurgent
candidates such as Sanders will have a more level playing field.
Second, the commission suggested changing the rules for caucuses to open
them up and make them more transparent. Sanders won nearly all the caucuses,
but his nominees pushed to open them up even further. State parties holding
caucuses will be required to allow same-day voter and party registration and
to offer absentee ballots, reducing the disadvantage for workers with
inflexible schedules.
The commission was not able to codify similar reforms for primaries, as the
state parties control those. However, the commission sent a message with its
strong objection to closed primaries like that of New York, where
independent voters must register as Democrats months before the primary to
be eligible to vote. (For the 2018 primaries, it is already too late: The
deadline fell on Oct. 13.) This system is intentionally designed to
disadvantage a candidate such as Sanders capable of bringing new voters to
the party. The commission urged primary states to adhere to the same rules
as those imposed on caucuses, and called for penalties against state parties
that do not do so.
Third, the commission would curb the license of DNC insiders to spend money
on cronies and consultants without accountability. Jim Zogby, who has been a
voting member of the DNC for more than a decade, notes that he had never
seen a DNC budget. The commission recommends an Ombudsmen Council to
investigate conflicts of interest, and empowered the Budget and Oversight
Committee, with elected DNC members, to review any expenditure exceeding
$100,000 to outside contractors or consultants. It required that budget
documents be made public to the committee and that meetings be open to all
DNC members. It also expressed clear disapproval of consultants serving both
the DNC and a Democratic candidate, as exemplified by the law firm of
Perkins Coie that somehow found no conflict of interest in representing both
Clinton's campaign and the DNC during the Democratic nominating process.
The commission, of course, doesn't have the final say. Its recommendations
will eventually have to be approved by two-thirds of the entire DNC. The DNC
is where reforms go to die, particularly those calling for curbing the
privileges of DNC members. This time may be different, however. A broad
range of grass-roots groups pushing to transform the Democratic Party has
vowed to continue driving the reforms. The first step is pressure on the
existing DNC to approve the commission's report.
Many bemoan the growing intra-party fights over direction, procedure and
candidates, but this new energy may well be the party's salvation. Our
Revolution - which grew out of the Sanders campaign - has more than 500
chapters in 47 states, with a growing capacity to drive issue campaigns
while also pushing to take over Democratic Party committees and recruiting
and supporting candidates. Its president, the charismatic Nina Turner, has
pushed them to build infrastructure in red states as well as blue. As John
Nichols reports in the Nation, it has made Texas its first formal affiliate.
There, old populists such as Jim Hightower are combining with young
activists to mobilize voters, drive a platform and run candidates, even in
areas Democrats have neglected for years.
Our Revolution isn't alone. The Working Families Party, People's Action,
MoveOn, Democrats for America and a spate of new organizations such as
Indivisible are recruiting and supporting candidates. Most are rallying
around the bolder agenda articulated by Sanders, including a $15 minimum
wage, Medicare for All, a green New Deal, balanced trade, getting money out
of politics and more.
As Trump continues to trample all bounds of decency and betray those voters
who supported his economic populism, and congressional Republicans escalate
their class war on working people, progressives have every reason for
despair. But as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. taught, it is always darkest
before the dawn. And if the Unity Reform Commission's ideas are codified,
Democrats may begin to see the light.
C 2017 Washington Post
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Katrina vanden Heuvel is an American editor and publisher. She is the
editor, publisher, and part-owner of the magazine The Nation. She has been
the magazine's editor since 1995.