Welcome to the third installment of #NebDems News!
This week I am highlighting the ongoing candidate outreach, sustaining donor program, DNC Unity Reform Commission and the upcoming SCC Meeting.
We are still working hard on get to 200 monthly donors. We are getting so close to that goal—we need 11 more monthly donors. Sign up and help get Democrats elected up and down the ballot.
Candidate Outreach, Support and Trainings
Chair Kleeb, the NDP Officers and our Executive Director are committed to ensuring candidates have the support from the State Party needed to win their races. This includes everything from our Blue Bench Trainings and giving access to the Voter File for free.
Executive Director Eric Aspengren has been holding one on one meetings with candidates to make sure we are providing all we can to the campaigns and constantly improving services we offer at the state level.
We plan on creating a Coordinated Campaign for 2018 and all candidates—not just those who can afford to “buy into”the table—will be invited to participate in the meetings and discussion of targeting, GOTV and more.
We have two upcoming Blue Bench trainings for candidates and party leaders:
How to File for Office and Keep Your Campaign in Compliance: This training, on Dec. 21 from 2-3pm CT, is focused on how to file for office with the Secretary of State’s office and how to make sure you are meeting the compliance rules with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Committee. There will be staff from both of those offices in attendance to provide information and answer questions. We will Facebook Live this session, so you can tune into the training from the NDP Facebook page on Dec. 21, 2-3pm CT.
Identifying and Preventing Sexual Harassment: This training, on January 9th from 12pm-1pm, is focused on how to recognize and combat harassment. We are working with Planned Parenthood Voters of Nebraska to provide the training.
Sustaining Donor Program
Operations and Compliance Director, Ryan Krumel has been working hard with the Finance Committee to set in the process of how to identify and follow up with sustainers that might have lapsed with their donations. We now have this process in place are have earned back sustaining donors that have since renewed their donations. We are so close to having the 200 sustaining donors that we need to be able to provide all of the services we do for the candidates, community, and to get Democrats elected. You can help us hit our goal by becoming a monthly donor here.
Unity Reform Commission
Chair Kleeb was appointed to the Unity Reform Commission (URC) and worked with other members for the past year to bring forward strong reforms. The next step of the process is early next year, in January and February, the Rules and ByLaws Committee will review the document to make sure that all the reforms are in compliance with the current charter and/or that changes can be made to enforce the suggested reforms. Then the Unity Reform Commission report will be presented to the full DNC membership for a vote, possibly for the DNC meeting in March. Chair Kleeb will post the full Unity Reform Commission report early next year when she receives the final document from the DNC.
Chair Kleeb wanted to highlight these reforms with the clear note none of these are rules yet, we still need to ratify the document by the full DNC:
Superdelegates: The Commission recommends to reduce “unbound” Superdelegates by 60%. State-level DNC members, which are currently Superdelegates, would be bound by their State caucus or primary election results. The only “free agent”/unbound Superdelegates that remain will be Members of Congress, Governors, Former Presidents and Former DNC Chairs. This is a major step forward in bringing more fairness to the Superdelegate system while still having safeguards in place.
Primaries: The Commission is recommending to all State Parties that they advocate for election reforms to engage new voters and protect democracy. Some of these include; pushing for same day voter registration, same day party switching, and mail-in voting. The primary debate schedule and when states can set their dates for primaries/caucuses is set by the Delegate Selection Plan.
Caucuses: Only a dozen states and territories remain that hold a caucus (because larger states like Minnesota recently switched to a primary system). The URC heard loud and clear the need for changes at the caucus system to make them more accessible and transparent. Any state that chooses a caucuses must do the following now: allow same day voter registration, same day party switching, mail-in voting, firehouse caucus option (meaning you can cast your vote at the caucus site and leave).
Party Reform: This is a lengthy component of the Unity Reform Commission recommendations. Two major reforms are creation of Ombudsman Committee and strengthening budget transparency. The Ombudsman Committee will be a place that the DNC members can bring concerns when existing Committees are not a place for those changes. The current Budget and Finance committee will now, at every DNC meeting which happen twice a year, discuss and have available the budget, as well as any vendor contracts over $100,000 for all DNC Members to review.
SCC Meeting, Feb. 2-3, 2018
Our next SCC Meeting and trainings are on Feb. 2-3, 2018 in Springfield, Nebraska. The featured caucus is the Veteran’s Caucus which will hold a Friday night event to showcase Charlene Ligon’s new book about the brave work of her mom. You can purchase the FEARLESS book here.
We will have the registration link and agenda up over the next couple of weeks for the meeting. You can RSVP now on Facebook.
Thank you to everyone and we hope you have a great holiday season!
