September 27, 2018 County Committee Meeting Recap

This meeting was everything I could have hoped for - and yet not much happened.

County Committee meets twice a year and after the primary elections in September 2018, when may of the new members were elected, we joined our cohort at the Kings Borough Community College Arts Auditorium. In this first meeting, the County Committee votes on new measures to update the Brooklyn Democratic Party, District Leaders present individuals into unfilled County Committee seats and they are voted in, and select judges that will appear on the ballot Election Day.

What did this look like? Loud, excited, chaotic, the strictest of meeting leads on stage, and to run to every last letter of Roberts Rules of Order.

In prior years, very few people ran for County Committee seats -- perhaps owing to the fact that so few people had ever heard of it! This lack of engagement allowed Party leadership to basically do whatever it wanted, with no accountability to Brooklyn’s Democratic voters. But this year, after years of organizing by local reform clubs, many new candidates ran for County Committee and won! The County Committee’s General Meeting on September 27th was well-attended by hundreds of engaged members, ready to revitalize and reform our local Democratic Party.

The meeting was held in the far reaches of the borough, but we gathered together en masse - thanks to amazing transportation planning by Rep Your Block. We were there to keep County Committee accountable, to change the current system, to show that the representation of Brooklyn is not part of that small few who have historically run these meetings keeping up the status quo.

If you are unable to attend the meeting in person, you are invited to submit a proxy card. The proxy card states that you would like someone specific in the room to vote on your behalf. Most of these cards are sent in name of Brooklyn Democratic Party Chairman, Frank Seddio. The meeting was held up for hours while hundreds of proxy votes were counted by one individual. In many cases this seemed to be a tactic to empty the room and lower the number of reform-minded individuals in the room (most of us where there in person, while Frank Seddio's votes were counted mostly from those who voted by proxy). You can learn more on the proxy data here.

Proxies and accessibility to the meeting itself are just two things that reformers on County Committee are looking to change.

County Committee is not only a convoluted political body, it is a body that is - for now - resistant to change.

No matter how much we stood up and voted for what we wanted or sat down for what we didn't, yelled out for pauses in the meeting for clarification or voting for new resolutions, our voices couldn't move the old guard.

We did, however, cause them to worry about their votes - which showed up as County Committee executives pausing the meeting for HOURS in order to ensure that the proxy cards were counted properly. Counting each properly was one man in the lobby scanning each card individually. The tactic was used to push the length of the meeting and try to get more of our reform-minded and new members to leave early and further add votes to their lot.

Through a Slack group we kept in touch with each other from across the auditorium, experienced members explained what was going on during a vote or why one person was shut down for a point of order or another, and keep each other strong in our wait for the continuation of the meeting.

The meeting was a first for me and was everything and nothing like I expected. We did not get much changed in this meeting, but we were there in full force. A reform slate was even proposed as a secondary option for the executive committee, a first from what I understand and a huge win for getting our seat at the table (a spot in general area of the table). Outside of this, many of the newly elected County Committee members well acquainted with Robert's Rules of Order did their best to call out for points of order and be heard.

Our slate did not win and we didn't have the votes for other measures - and didn't even get clarification on what they were for - but we would not be moved. Many us stayed in the auditorium and many of us were further excited to expand our engagement, to find out how to make these reforms real.

The next meeting of the County Committee will be in January. I would love for you to join in the movement towards this reform, to learn, and to share you opinions and questions. We won't know until very close to the date of the meeting when and where it will be held (another item of transparency we would like to work on), but between now and then there are many meetings of reform groups to talk about what change we want to see and create.

Please reach out to me and let me know what you would like to know, what you would like to change, and how you would like to get involved. This work will not be accomplished just in the two meetings a year of the County Committee, but together and worked on year-round.

Want more information and color on the meeting? Here are a few articles:

- 112BK (podcast)

- Bklyner

- Brooklyn Daily

- Gotham Gazette

- The New York Times

(This post is based on my experience in the meeting, discussions thereafter, and some thoughts from Carey Tan.)