2024 Washington State Democratic Convention general session convenes to consider platform, resolutions, governance changes

Wel­come back to NPI’s con­tin­u­ing cov­er­age of the 2024 Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­ven­tion. Today, the gen­er­al ses­sion con­vened to allow del­e­gates to dis­cuss res­o­lu­tions and hear from Demo­c­ra­t­ic com­mit­tees and par­ty leadership.

The ele­va­tor doors at the Mey­den­bauer Cen­ter opened to a bee­hive of activ­i­ty, and I was swept up into a long line of del­e­gates wait­ing to pass through a secu­ri­ty and bag check before enter­ing Cen­ter Hall B, the room that’s host­ing the gen­er­al session. 

Once inside the hall, del­e­gates took seats at either round tables or in rows fac­ing the main stage, where a pan­el of par­ty lead­ers and con­ven­tion com­mit­tee chairs slow­ly assem­bled. To accom­mo­date secu­ri­ty screen­ing needs, the first gen­er­al ses­sion did not begin until around 9:30 AM, about half an hour after the adver­tised start time, so del­e­gates wait­ed in antic­i­pa­tion of today’s speak­ers, which will include U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Suzan Del­Bene, and the par­ty’s items of business. 

As with the gala din­ner last night, Par­ty Chair Shasti Con­rad opened the proceeding. 

Three open­ing speak­ers, who dis­cussed issues of the envi­ron­ment, Washington’s trib­al com­mu­ni­ties, and immi­gra­tion, were fol­lowed by a Girl Scout Col­or Guard (who were not quite tall enough to be seen on the livestream cam­era but could be seen in the room) and singer Parisalexa, who sang the nation­al anthem.

Before Shasti Con­rad reclaimed the mic to give the chair’s report, she wel­comed U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Suzan Del­Bene to the stage to say a few words.

Suzan Del­Bene, who rep­re­sents NPI’s home con­gres­sion­al dis­trict, cred­it­ed her suc­cess as a Rep­re­sen­ta­tive with the hard work of Democ­rats in the room. “It’s a tes­ta­ment to your amaz­ing work and folks work­ing togeth­er to get it to this point.” 

Del­Bene high­light­ed impor­tant races in Wash­ing­ton, Alas­ka, and Ore­gon, includ­ing Mary Pel­to­la, Marie Glusenkamp Perez, and Andrea Sali­nas’ cam­paigns for reelec­tion to the U.S. House, and praised the increas­ing num­ber of Demo­c­ra­t­ic women present in the con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tions from those two states. 

“We know we have an impor­tant job to do. Because this elec­tion is about our rights, our free­doms, our democ­ra­cy and our future, and we all have a role to play in mak­ing sure we stand. We need grass­roots lead­er­ship by all of you to make sure we’re suc­cess­ful,” Del­Bene told the del­e­gates and guests. 

Con­rad then spoke again, cel­e­brat­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic suc­cess­es in fundrais­ing, strength­en­ing diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion, and flip­ping key offices, such as win­ning the may­oral­ty of Spokane. Since Con­rad became chair, Democ­rats have rolled out their 2024 coor­di­nat­ed cam­paign, fea­tur­ing thir­ty com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ers across the state. The par­ty has suc­ceed­ed in rais­ing $6 mil­lion and recent­ly achieved the best fundrais­ing month in par­ty history. 

How­ev­er, Con­rad urged the del­e­gates in atten­dance (of which there are over 500 here in Belle­vue and anoth­er 400 join­ing remote­ly) to not be com­pla­cent. Con­rad ref­er­enced a man in Belle­vue that cut a $1 mil­lion check to Trump fol­low­ing his con­vic­tion on 34 felony charges in New York this month, and remind­ed the audi­ence that they are fight­ing against very rich right wing men who have made it their mis­sion to get Trump back in.

Con­rad also con­demned Glue­senkamp Perez’s expect­ed oppo­nent Joe Kent, who is a con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist and has expressed extreme views about defund­ing the Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion and pre­vent­ing the aging Inter­state 5 bridge across the Colum­bia Riv­er from being rebuilt because the new bridge would be an “antifa super­high­way.”

Con­rad closed with a list of Demo­c­ra­t­ic goals for the elec­tion in Novem­ber: “We must elect Pres­i­dent Biden and Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris. We must keep con­vict­ed felon Don­ald Trump out of the Oval Office. We must elect Bob Fer­gu­son Gov­er­nor. We must ensure that every statewide office remains in Demo­c­ra­t­ic hands. We must expand our majori­ties in the state leg­is­la­ture and flip seats like in LDs 10, 14 and 17. We can’t just yell ‘Go vote!’ at peo­ple. Our job is to give folks hope for what is pos­si­ble. That we can and will do better.”

The chair’s report was fol­lowed by a final cre­den­tials report, which count­ed 1,023 checked-in del­e­gates, 703 of which were in person. 

Next, the con­ven­tion moved on to con­sid­er sev­er­al pro­posed amend­ments to the bylaws of the state par­ty. The bylaws, along with the char­ter, are the par­ty’s top gov­ern­ing doc­u­ments. Chang­ing the bylaws at the con­ven­tion requires the affir­ma­tive votes of an absolute major­i­ty of the seat­ed delegates. 

NPI’s Andrew Vil­leneuve, a long­time state com­mit­teemem­ber and an auto­mat­ic del­e­gate to the con­ven­tion, offered two bylaw amend­ments to improve com­mu­ni­ca­tion and trans­paren­cy between the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee and its larg­er State Cen­tral Com­mit­tee, which gov­erns the par­ty in between conventions.

Vil­leneuve explained that the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee (which he is a mem­ber of), has tak­en on a larg­er role in run­ning the par­ty since the onset of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, when the state cen­tral com­mit­tee stopped reg­u­lar­ly meet­ing in per­son. The com­mit­tee now meets more fre­quent­ly than in the past and most of its meet­ings are held remote­ly, rather than in per­son before or after ses­sions of the state cen­tral committee. 

Accord­ing­ly, he pro­posed two amend­ments to improve trans­paren­cy and com­mu­ni­ca­tion, both devel­oped in con­sul­ta­tion with DNC Mem­ber David McDon­ald and State Par­ty Sec­re­tary Rob Dolin. 

His first amend­ment requires the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee to noti­fy the state cen­tral com­mit­tee when Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee meet­ings are sched­uled, and pro­vide SCC mem­bers the oppor­tu­ni­ty to observe upon request. The amend­ment also requires the Sec­re­tary (cur­rent­ly Dolin, who is a for­mer NPI board­mem­ber and cur­rent NPI Advi­so­ry Coun­cilmem­ber) to send out the draft min­utes of Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee meet­ings with­in sev­en days, which must include an atten­dance report. 

The sec­ond pro­posed amend­ment would define a report­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for exec­u­tive com­mit­tee mem­bers rep­re­sent­ing a con­gres­sion­al dis­trict. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (or their designees) would have ten days to report back to their con­stituents in writ­ing fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of an exec­u­tive com­mit­tee meet­ing. Cur­rent­ly, the posi­tion of exec­u­tive com­mit­tee rep­re­sen­ta­tive has no defined respon­si­bil­i­ties in the bylaws.

Both amend­ments were rec­om­mend­ed “do pass” by the Rules Com­mit­tee and nei­ther received oppo­si­tion on the floor from any oth­er del­e­gates. The amend­ments passed by votes of 806–29 and 753–82, respec­tive­ly, with Vil­leneuve offer­ing his pro­found thanks to the del­e­gates for their sup­port and empha­siz­ing that the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty has an oblig­a­tion to mod­el respon­si­ble gov­er­nance in these times of ris­ing authoritarianism. 

Two oth­er amend­ments, sub­mit­ted by Tim Noo­nan, were with­drawn with­out objection. 

An amend­ment on DNC mem­ber elec­tions from Amy Mad­den was ruled out of order because it would cause the bylaws to be in con­flict with the char­ter if adopted. 

The final agen­da item before lunch was par­ty nom­i­na­tions, which are the par­ty’s means of telling the state that an office­hold­er is a Demo­c­rat so that the par­ty retains its right to nom­i­nate replace­ments for them if they leave office before the expi­ra­tion of their term. (The Wash­ing­ton State Con­sti­tu­tion gives the par­ty a key role in fill­ing vacan­cies in par­ti­san leg­isla­tive and coun­ty offices.) No del­e­gates stepped for­ward to debate the slate of pro­posed nom­i­na­tions, so the list was adopt­ed with­out objection. 

Stay tuned for more cov­er­age of the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­ven­tion. The del­e­gates have recessed for lunch, but will soon be back in ses­sion to work on the 2024 plat­form and con­sid­er res­o­lu­tions. The par­ty has until 4 PM to com­plete its business.