The take - home lesson from the California Democratic convention

The recent controversies at the California Democratic convention underscore how few people understand the current system, and  how few are actually involved.

Every two years,  California Democrats elect 7 self-identified females and 7 other than self-identified females from each Assembly District  as delegates to the California Democratic party.  Only a tiny proportion of registered voters participate in these elections.  There are almost 8 million registered Democrats in California.  Of those, less than 400,000 voters participated in the last  elections, held in January of this year. That’s one half of 1 percent.  In my Assembly district, the elections were held on Shabbat, effectively disenfranchising  traditionally observant Jewish voters.  This is in violation of the parties own guidelines.

There is little transparency and little accountability in these elections.  Assembly District Delegate Elections are not regulated by the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

Those who are elected  can vote for Party officers, endorse candidates for statewide, legislative and congressional office, attend the annual convention, and to introduce, endorse and vote on resolutions and ballot measures.

This is how extremists like David Mandel  in Assembly District 7 , Ronald “Chris” Yatooma in Assembly District 6 and Yassar Dahbour in Assembly District 9 are elected.   This is how bigoted and one sided resolutions are introduced into Democratic party policies.  And we can expect this to continue until moderate members of the Democratic get more involved.