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2015 – A DPVA Year of Opportunity

2015 offers the Democratic Party of Virginia many opportunities for improvement because – let’s face it – 2014 wasn’t so good. Fortunately, many Democratic committee members and other party activists are dedicated to strengthening the party structure, electing Democrats, and spreading the Democratic message. An important first step will be a “retreat” for the DPVA Steering Committee early in the year to discuss needed improvements and present a framework for discussion and implementation by the members of the Central Committee, local committees, and other good Democrats. Here are some issues for potential discussion.

Raise money and build staff – to achieve most of the goals discussed below, we need to increase DPVA staff, including hiring a Political Director, Regional Field Directors, more Finance staff, and making more use of interns. And to get more staff, we need to raise more money – a new Finance Committee can lead this effort, including focusing on small donors and regional fundraisers, but it’s everyone’s job.

Increase effectiveness of local committees – the city and county Democratic committees are the front line of the party and there is wide range in effectiveness. During last year’s voter photo ID and voter protection efforts, we worked with local committees – some embraced the program, others were completely unresponsive. Much of what we have to do involves strengthening local committees, including:  Improving communications between DPVA and its committees, including programs for rapid response to pressing issues and needs; growing more broadly based and stronger local committees; and continuing the effort of helping local committees access technologies, including webpages and voter files; Implement training, and provide access to guidance and manuals at the DPVA website (secured portal if necessary).

Improve party governance, transparency, and communications – the DPVA needs to formalize procedures regarding fiscal affairs and decision making, and creation of a budget (as well as finance) committee is an important step. Central Committee members should have more information about the party’s priorities and resources. We also need to increase communications among committee members, through the website, Facebook, googlegroups, or whatever; we’re not taking enough advantage of the resources our fellow Democrats can provide.

Voter Expansion – last year, for the first time, DPVA set up a Voter Expansion Task Force. Cheryl Zando and I chaired the Task Force, which focused on education and voter contract relating to the new photo ID requirement. The Task Force should continue with a more formal structure and can mobilize DPVA and local committees to implement voter registration, restoration of rights, as well as voter protection initiatives, and advance regulatory and legislative efforts.

Voter Protection – In 2014, working with the coordinated campaigns’ voter protection coordinator, Georgina Cannan, we were able to implement a solid voter protection effort. But we need to set up an ongoing program within the DPVA, so we don’t have to redo efforts and rush to recruit every year. Moreover, in 2015, we are on our own and need to provide support for key legislative races. I am working with the DNC Voter Expansion office to set up a Virginia Democratic Lawyers Council. It would be a year-round membership group that would work on administrative/legislative and legal efforts and provide the core for Election 2015 voter protection effort. Stay tuned.

Issues/Resolutions – I’ve written on this issue a number of times, see here, here, and here. We need to have an issues page on our website that will feature issues requiring prompt response (e.g. General Assembly voting legislation) and have links to more information about the legislation, other groups focusing on the issues, and legislators. We can work with an enhanced DPVA Communications office and our Democratic elected officials in focusing on the most important issues. The DPVA resolutions process doesn’t need any formal changes, just procedures for fairly and expeditiously considering resolutions and respect for others’ views and time. Also, we need to adopt a Party Platform, at least in the Presidential election year (the one on our website dates from 2008).

Special elections and non partisan endorsement best practices guidance – Last year demonstrated the need for clearer procedures for special election nominations. Non-partisan office (local and school board) endorsement processes also vary from none to committee endorsements to full-participation firehouse primaries with instant runoff voting. Local committees should have flexibility, but a group is working on standardized guidance for implementing different options.

Outreach – Every year demonstrates more and more that the Democratic Party must continue to reach out to various constituencies. In 2015, DPVA will draft and start implementing our 2016 Democratic National Convention Affirmative Action Plan, which provides a framework for some outreach efforts. Our current caucus structure is fine, but our caucuses can be more effective if all local and district committees adopt and implement their own outreach plans.

Candidate recruitment and support – obviously this is a priority right now for local and General Assembly offices. DPVA works with the State Senate and House caucuses, but there should be communications with local committees as part of this process. We need to again implement training for candidates as well. Finally, we should activate the Local Elected Government Officials organization.

Alternative dispute resolution – I’ve been thinking about this since the 2012 Convention. The DPVA Party Plan has formal challenge and appeal procedures, but a lot of local and district committee disputes would benefit from an ADR approach.

Upgrade the website – thanks to our VP for Technology Dave Leichtman, we updated the Your Vote page for this fall, but the site needs major modernization.

Change the logo – it’s well past time to get rid of the anime-mutant-laser-eye-donkey. I actually like the (D) + Virginia map concept.

What do you think?

1 thought on “2015 – A DPVA Year of Opportunity”

  1. I applaud that you include “improve party governance, transparency, and communications” in your list of opportunities. The last Central Committee meeting was joke asking us to vote on a document that we had never seen.

    As to logo: What is the (D) + Virginia map concept? Do you mean the logo you included in this post? I would vote for that.

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