THIS PAST WEEKEND, as Chelsea Clinton cavorted through Oregon
to campaign on her mom’s behalf, Democrats from across the state
gathered in the Eugene Hilton and quietly hammered out a legislative
agenda for the next two years.
Laboring over ideas and organizational strategy, nearly 300 state
delegates attended the biennial platform convention. In small groups of
a few dozen people, state delegates voted on their top six
priorities—called “action items” during the conference—for
each of 13 broad categories such as “Foreign Policy and National
Security” and “Human Rights.” All day Saturday, April 12, the
subcommittees scrutinized phrasing and intent and eventually approved a
list of top action items. From there, the agenda items would head to
the entire group of delegates.
Then, the six action items that receive the most votes in each
category will make the 2008 Democratic Platform—a written
document that provides all elected Democrats a reference guide as to
where their party members stand on the issues. (The ballots were
collected on Sunday and the results will be released this Thursday,
April 17, on the Democratic Party of Oregon’s website, oregondemocrats.org.)
Jill Thorn, the vice chair of the Democratic Party of Oregon,
optimistically described the process as an “ongoing work of art” with
the results acting as “something we can give to candidates and say,
‘Here, this is what we as a party would like enacted into law.'” Though
Thorn admits it is far from perfect, she believes the process is vital
to a unified Democratic Party.
In previous years, the party used a different format in which all
300 attending state delegates deliberated together in one large room.
This proved to be chaotic and inefficient, and often the platform
convention concluded with an unfinished legislative agenda.
Teresa Hepker, party chair of Wasco County and a facilitator of the
Foreign Policy and National Security subcommittee meeting, says the
current system is much more desirable. “I’d subject myself to being a
facilitator of 30 people any day [compared] to two days of standing in
line at the microphone to have a debate about a few words.”
Most Democrats seemed to agree, though some took issue with the fact
that many of the subcommittee meetings were scheduled at the same time.
One delegate from Clackamas County was conflicted over which meeting to
attend: “I picked the Energy and Transportation meeting, but I really
wanted to get to the Ecology and Natural Resources meeting,” he said.
“With six meetings scheduled at the same time, its frustrating to pick
just one.”