Organizing Legislative Districts to Perform Their Functions

To accomplish their mission, Legislative Districts (LDs) must organize to implement their strategies and tactics. They must define positions, clarify their roles and make assignments. We begin by examining (through their websites) the positions that various LDs have created.

All LDs have a chair; one, two or three vice chairs; secretary; treasurer; and state committee man and committee woman. Some have county delegates, alternative delegates and recognize their past chair. At least one has an executive board consisting of these officers.

Beyond these positions, wide variation occurs among LDs.

Many have no other positions or only a few. Others have many. They may all be categorized as follows:

1. Platform and Legislative Action: politics, elections, district campaigns coordinator, King County Legislative Action Committee Representative, platform and resolutions, endorsements

2. Membership and Precinct Organizing: officers or groups concerned with membership, recruitment, PCO, PCO recruitment, PCO development, PCO activities, affirmative action

3. Community Outreach: community outreach, young democrats, progressive activism, affected group relations, people of faith, union relations, veterans and active military service, legislative action

4. Information, Communications and Training: officers and groups concerned with records and records and technology, communications and technology, newsletter, webmaster, PCO development. It is interesting that no LD defines a blogmaster, who would facilitate communication among members.

5. Publicity: publicity, editorial and media relations

6. Meetings and Events: program, programs and issues, precinct caucus planning, events, dinners, hospitality

7. Finance, Budget and Fundraising: finance, budget, treasurer, fundraising, raffle

8. Procedures: officers or groups concerned with bylaws, parliamentarian, sergeant at arms, and administrative officer.

As the primary grassroots level Democratic Party organizations, the primary responsibilities of LDs concern (1) platform and legislative action, precinct organizing including recruitment of members, and (3) community outreach to work cooperatively with other groups. LDs are successful to the extent they perform these three functions.

The remaining 5 functions are support functions for the first 3, although publicity might also be included with the first three. These support functions are means to the ends of accomplishing primary legislative, precinct and outreach objectives. To the extent they are necessary, they are also important.

To be effective, any LD must have some way of performing these 8 functions. To receive necessary attention and effort, an individual or group should be assigned to each. If any function does not have such an assignment, we should ask whether it is being performed and if so, by whom. Each assigned group and individual should have a job description, and be held accountable to performing it. Assignments should be made at the end of the planning process and evaluations made at the end of the planning period.

Performing these functions appears to require a lot of people and effort. But the last 3 or 4 functions might be performed by the chair, vice chair(s), secretary and treasurer, leaving 4 or 5 others to each have a separate person or group. The most labor intensive is also the most important: precinct organizing.

As with the other Legislative District Tools in this series, this commentary is meant to be suggestive, to stimulate reflection and enhancement of our effectiveness. With your experiences with various LDs which have widely differing resources, your suggestions are important. Please send them to me for publication. Dave Thomas