Recap of the 2010 DFL SD36 Convention

The 2010 DFL Senate District 36 Convention ran very smoothly yesterday.

Every couple of years, we get together for the convention of people who chose to be delegates from the caucus. This year, about two-thirds of the delegates showed up to Farmington High School to participate in the convention.

That number of delegates floated around 80 all day. That was a smaller group than recent conventions, but it was also very manageable. The convention went very smoothly. Of course it helped that CD2 Chair Jeanne Thomas was the Convention Chair.

People arrived at 8:00 am to help set up what wasn’t set up by volunteers the previous evening, and registration officially began at 9:00. The convention planned start time was 9:45, but people we still registering so it was not officially called to order until 10:00 am.

The meeting started with a flag ceremony, a welcome announcement, the adoption of the rules and the agenda, and reports by the Chair, Secretary and Treasurer. After that the delegates began setting up the district leadership for the next two years.

Toby Nichols was unanimously re-elected to be Senate District 36 Chair. SD36 rules dictate that gender equity be considered, so the Associate Chair should be a woman. However, no woman was interested in the position at election time, so the associate chair remains open to be filled by the Senate District 36 Central Committee at a later date.

Clinton Kennedy was unanimously re-elected to be Secretary and Dorothy Benson was also unanimously re-elected to continue as Treasurer. The Affirmative Action Officer position was filled by a young man named Kevin Roberson.

After those individual positions were filled, six male and six female Directors were elected to join the executives to take the lead in helping to turn SD36 blue.

Finally, the last, or the expected last elections were held to appoint two men and two women to be DFL State Central Committee Delegates.

Throughout the day, representative of the candidates for governor and other state officers spoke, but the only candidate for state office to show up on his or her own was Mark Ritchie. Secretary Ritchie gave a great two or three minute speech and received a nice hand, with many of the delegates giving him a standing ovation.

One delegate was disappointed that none of the gubernatorial candidates came, and disappointed that a couple didn’t even have a representative give a stump speech.

Shelley Madore and Dan Powers both spoke. Shelley gave a very good speech, with the punch line of sending John Kline back to Texas and Dan made a good speech about what issues really resonate with CD2 residents.

After a break for lunch, the delegates began the tedious process of discussing resolutions to forward to the State DFL. A tweet was posted that said “OMG, we’re going thru all resolutions 1 by 1. Naptime. SD36”. That wasn’t exactly true, we didn’t go through each of them, but it was still probably pretty dull to some on the floor. Senate District 36 caucuses passed 60 resolutions, but the District is only allowed to forward 32 resolutions. Delegates were allowed to pull resolutions for discussion, amendment or clarification. Delegates pulled 11 resolutions for discussion, one for amendment and two for clarification. Up to six delegates were allowed to speak on each pulled amendment for one minute, however, the process was completed within the allotted 30 minute time frame.

After resolutions, the state house candidates that the nominations committee forwarded to the body for each house district spoke. Colin Lee in House District 36A was endorsed and teacher and excited new candidate Sigrid Iversen was endorsed to run against Rep. Pat Garofalo in House District 36B.

The final process of electing delegates to the Congressional District and State conventions began after the endorsements. The body decided to directly elect delegates rather than do walking sub-caucuses. Eight men and eight women were elected to be delegates and eight men, and eight women were elected to be alternates. That group will go to the State DFL convention in Duluth and the CD2 Convention in Chanhassen.

That was it. It was a great day in SD36, and the 2012 DFL SD36 Convention will be even better. Make sure you join us in 2012.

Advertisement