Neighborhood Democratic Caucuses
Thanks for attending your caucus!
Many North Seattle Neighbors for Peace & Justice members and friends attended neighborhood Democratic caucuses on Feb. 7. This was an important step in selecting our next President. A number of our members were elected as delegates or alternates for the next step in the process, the King County Convention on May 8. Many also introduced resolutions on important topics like the Iraq war, civil liberties, sustainable energy policies, and more.
More information about Convention Process on KC Democrats site
Do you want a primary election?
We are selecting our presidential candidates through the caucus process this year since our state's blanket primary election was successfully challenged in court by the major parties. Would you rather go to a neighborhood caucus, or go to a poll and vote in an election? Do you value the ability to vote for any candidate who earns your support, or would you rather stick to one party's candidates?
Our state lawmakers are currently attempting to create a new primary election system that will preserve your right to help select candidates and will be constitutionally valid. They are struggling to balance the popular freedoms of voting for any candidate and not publicly declaring party loyalty with the parties' right to determine their own candidate nominations. If you are concerned about this topic, please learn more and contact your state Senator and Representatives to let them know which primary election system you prefer.
More information about the primary election:
- A primary-election change could reshape legislature, Seattle Times
- Third option pitched for new state primary system, Seattle P-I
- Blanket Primary information from Secretary of State
Help us register voters and get people to the caucuses
You can help with our get-out-the-vote campaign.
Why go to the caucus?
- It's democracy in action. Learn from your neighbors, and find out what issues are important to them. Talk to them about your concerns.
- Support your PEACE candidate of choice, so we can work towards defeating the WAR candidate in November.
- Help select someone (yourself?) as a candidate to the next level of the caucuses (Congressional District - wide). Precinct Committee Officers are automatically selected.
- Help generate a PEACE platform. Questions were raised about - why bother with a platform? Nobody reads it, candidates are not bound by it, it's only symbolism. A platform debate is like writing letters to the editor. It is a way to get exposure for our ideas and to get people talking about what's important.
- Ideas which are consistently supported by the bulk of the Democratic party - the grassroots (that's us!) cannot be ignored by candidates and by officeholders. These ideas may affect positions taken by local and statewide officeholders more than presidential candidates.
More information about caucus locations:
36th District: The Thundering 36th District Democrats
46th District: King County Democratic Central Committee
Other caucus links:
- Anti-Patriot Act sample resolutions (Word doc)
- SNOW Coalition sample caucus resolutions
- West Seattle Snow has some caucus info.