As ashriver alludes to in his most recent diary, there was some controversy over the Saint Louis Young Democrats endorsement of incumbent Mayor Francis Slay. The St. Louis American went further and called it corruption. Ashriver asked for a coherent story, but this is a little more like Rashomon; everybody has their own version of what happened.
According the ashriver/St. Louis American version, the YD’s are in the pocket of the Slay machine, and those in charge pushed ahead an endorsement to make sure no other candidates could swoop in and grab the endorsement. According to Martin Casas, the president of the Saint Louis Young Democrats, the organization couldn’t hold a regular meeting until the end of January because holidays got in the way each time, and with only two meetings left before the March primary, waiting any longer to get involved would have left them with little effect on the primary. I corresponded with several other members of Young Democrats, and while they did voice a great deal of respect for Martin and what he has accomplished in re-establishing the organization, some were uncomfortable with the decision to endorse Slay without a vote by the full membership, including supporters of Mayor Slay. I also heard from one member who is pro-Slay that he understood the group’s charter to forbid such an endorsement.
My own sense of the situation is that Martin is a guy who likes to make things happen. He’s played a big part in making sure the Saint Louis Young Democrats are very active and visible, and he wanted to continue that effort in the city primaries. Since the mayor’s race is the most visible race in the city (if not the most closely contested) he and other board members felt it proper to endorse a candidate and there was a broad consensus among the board that if anyone, it would have to be Slay. If there had been more time and more meetings not cancelled because of holidays, I believe that he would have brought in the respective candidates to make their case for an endorsement.
Another real issue is the definition of a member. As I understand it, the group reconstituted in August and held another meeting in September. I believe the rules for an endorsement require a member to have attended two meetings and to have paid their dues to be eligible to vote. This measure keeps candidates from packing endorsement meetings at the last minute with supporters who have no real connection to the group and no willingness to help with the work that comes with an endorsement. But with these rules, few aside from the board members were eligible to vote for an endorsement.
None of this is to defend him and the board. They will have to answer to the full membership in the next meeting, which should be very interesting indeed. Naturally, if enough members are upset about the endorsement or unilateral decision-making process, the disgruntled will either hang in there and remove Martin in a future election, or they’ll take their ball and go home, rendering the group less effective in the future. Most likely what will happen is that grievances will be aired and lessons will be proclaimed to have been learned on all sides, and the group will move on. In any event, I sure hope it doesn’t end up like the Amalgamated Order of Real-Bearded Santas.
This seems like a pretty fair treatment to me. I personally still don’t think there’s a very coherent story for me (based on the other information I’ve gotten), but that’s not the fault of the diarist. A few things to add:
(1) I agree that Martin’s done a great job building the Young Dems. I don’t know what they were like before him, but they seem to be pretty active in the last few years. I’d be happy for him to stay as the leader of the group, as long as people learn that this unquestioning support of good ol’ boy machine politics needs to end.
(2) I don’t know when their campaign work began, but as far as I can tell the messages asking Young Dems to help with the Slay campaign began going out around January 22 (and I received a personal message from Martin asking for people to help with the Slay campaign on Jan. 17th). The next Young Dems meeting was scheduled for January 26, which means they easily could have waited to have a vote at that meeting (that meeting, BTW, was cancelled because of the snow storm, but they wouldn’t have known that before the meeting). Since that was the first official public support of Slay from the Young Dems, I think they easily could have waited. Perhaps they felt like they already needed to be recruiting people to volunteer with the campaign before then in order to “stay relevant,” but then there’s no reason Martin and Mary Ellen Ponder (the Communications Director for the Young Dems, and an employee of Slay’s campaign) couldn’t have done that as individuals, rather than as an official emissaries for the Young Dems.
(3) Martin was not very forthright about what was going on. I asked him on Jan. 17th if the Young Dems had endorsed Slay, and he did not answer. I know a member of Irene Smith’s campaign had asked him earlier if they had endorsed, and he did not answer for a while. In fact, though he has now sent me a message saying that the Young Dems had endorsed Slay, I haven’t received any public messages from the group that have explicitly said, “The Young Dems Endorse Slay!” Rather, I’ve only received advertisements for Slay events. Furthermore, though the message I got on the 17th said that they (the Young Dems) had paying jobs for the Slay campaign, a message to the whole Young Dems a few days later said that “they were trying something new” by “paying people to work on local campaigns” with no explicit reference to Slay. I have to admit that all of these circumstances make me at least question whether even the exec. board had an official vote on Slay before certain members began working on behalf of the campaign, or whether a few members started working on the campaign first and only decided that the exec. board better endorse after they started receiving public criticism. Perhaps someone who knows more about the situation can clarify this for me.
(4) I wouldn’t say the Young Dems were “bought off” by the Slay campaign. But they did receive $1000 in street money from Slay late in 2008, and had received more money earlier in the year. Mary Ellen Ponder is one of the top people in Slay’s campaign. I’ve read a lot of social psychology experiments for my studies, and the fact is that people are very clearly influenced by all kinds of things that they are not explicitly aware of. So while no one in the Young Dems might have thought, “I’m going to avoid the Democratic process in order to make money. muhahahahahaha!,” we know that these things can influence people’s decisions. Since this kind of thing can influence people’s decisions, then it is of the upmost importance that people follow the rules and avoid any signs of impropriety. This clearly is not what the leadership decided to do.
(5) I don’t think it’s too late for the Young Dems to make things better. I asked Martin on February 4 why they couldn’t still hold a vote. You know they could reserve a restaurant pretty easily. But even if you don’t think that’s possible, why can’t they, given the strange circumstances of their endorsement, at least agree to send out information and event listings for other candidates? Shouldn’t they at least provide their membership with an opportunity to hear about the different candidates? I know that the Smith campaign has sent them event announcements and volunteer opportunities, and thus far they have not sent anything out to the larger group.
Ultimately, I think the actions of the Young Dems leadership is very consistent with the good ol’ boy style of politics. And what is the problem with such politics? It bends the rules and avoids democracy in such a way that not all candidates are given an opportunity to compete. And this allows candidates to win who are not the most qualified, nor the most expressive of people’s values. The people who win are simply the people who are supported by those who are already in power, or who have money to throw around to win favor, or who have played by the rules of the machine long enough to move up the food chain (although this quite often will be trumped by the other considerations). If Slay really is the best reflection of where St. Louis is at, then fine, let him win. But it’s not OK to bend the rules to get there, no matter how well-intentioned you are.
(no wonder my above comment was so short, eh?)
Based on the people I know in the Young Dems, I doubt that Smith or any other candidate would have “swooped in” and won the endorsement from the Young Dems (and, I should add, I don’t mean this as a criticism. Even though I personally am opposed to Slay, my conversations on Show Me Progress have convinced me that people who share most of my values and are generally very reasonable can still support him. And by “generally” I mean “in all cases except in their support of Slay 🙂 ). But this does not get the leadership off the hook one bit. Because it would have been so easy to have a legitimate vote where Slay still would have won, they really really should have had that vote out of respect for democracy. But the way the Young Dem leadership did it is entirely consistent with Slay’s campaign strategy, which is basically to pretend that no other candidates exist.
in the interest of full and fair disclosure 🙂 … I am too old to be a Young Democrat. So I have no dog in this fight.
But of course I have an opinion.
My opinion is that Martin’s explanation doesn’t cut it. Yes, there were holidays but guess what? They were planned and on the calendar for centuries. Literally. Yes, the snow storm was unplanned, but guess what? Snowstorms happen in St. Louis in January and anyone who wants to be active in the St. Louis primary race ALWAYS has to take snow storms into acct.
I suspect that if they had followed all the rules (including any rules meant to prohibit candidates from packing meetings during which endorsements were voted on) that if they had chosen to endorse anyone it would have been Slay. But that doesn’t justify not doing it the correct way.
Another thing, I’m not sure you are saying this or not – but it sounds like you are saying that an ‘active’ member had to attend at least 2 offical meetings but they only had 2 meetings?
I completely understand a rule that says you have to be an “active” member to vote on things. Paying your dues seems a basic thing to stay an “active member”. Attending some percentage of meetings in and of itself is not a bad thing.
But the rules and the normal course of operations of an organization should not, together, conspire to keep only a small group in the decision-making group. Attend 2 meetings a year is a fine rule if you have 6 meetings a year. That means someone who pays their dues and attends a third of the meetings has a say. That seems reasonable. It might even be reasonable to have quarterly official meetings and require you attend at least 2. (50%).
But an organization that effectively requires a person to attend 100% of their meetings in order to vote is an organization with a leadership that is trying to control all decision making.
My name is Patricia Bynes. I am the PR Director for the Irene J. Smith campaign. On January 30, I sent an email asking if the Young Dems would send an email to their membership to see if anyone wanted to assist the Smith campaign. I also questioned the endorsement process. Irene was never asked to come speak to the organization. She would have loved to opportunity to do so.
On February 2 he responded that he wouldn’t mind sending an email to the group. “Our endorsement of the Mayor doesn’t stop us from getting people involved in the process.” (quoted from his email) I sent an email to him with the appropriate wording by the deadline he requested. An email has yet to be sent to the organization.
If he never intended to send an email to the organization to notify them that another democratic candidate wanted to request assistance, he could have been honest and told me that. We would not have been surprised. Our campaign would have understood, especially since they have endorsed the current Mayor. While his rhetoric sounds good, there is a difference between what was said is what is being done.
I was really interested in learning how a group that is supposed to get people involved it the democratic process, made an endorsement in a very non democratic way. If I paid dues to this organization, I’d be outraged. Even if I supported Slay, I’d be saddened by the lack of principles for the democratic process it is currently showing. Is this the “do as I say and not as I do” type of thinking? Is this the type of leader this organization really voted to represent them? Democratic rhetoric without democratic process?
Sadly, it looks as if the young politicians of this area are learning the bad habits of old politics. I’d ask every member of the organization to ask to see the bylaws for the group. There is a due process by which an endorsement should be made. Was it followed and adhered it?
Every individual and group has the right to select who they support and endorse. If your group has an process and it is not followed, leadership isn’t honest, and they say one thing and do something else, is that the group for you? Is that the leadership you want?
Be sure to vote for your Mayoral candidate, who ever that maybe, on March 3, 2009! If anyone is interested in assisting the Smith campaign please go to http://www.irenejsmith.com and fill out the contact us information.
wondered if Martin is the real decision maker for the organization. The Young Dems have certainly had a revival and that is due in no small part to Martin but I often think of him more as a social chairman of a fraternity. For the sake of disclosure I think that I am too old to be a yound Dem but I have attended their events but nothing recent.