Progressive Populist Caucus 11/29 Houston

The Progessive Populist Caucus-SE Texas group will meet on Monday, November 29, 6:30 pm in the Community Room (upstairs) of Central Market, Weslayan and Westheimer.

Business includes nominations for local Chair based on the resignation of Julie Jackson Lusby, founding local Chair when the PPC formed in 2002. Bob Turney has offered himself for nomination to this position, which includes a seat as a Vice Chair of the statewide PPC Steering Committee. Other nominations for Chair will be taken from the floor.

Additionally, we will report on the statewide Nov. 20 meeting, current developments with the State Party, a reiteration of local initiatives agreed to by the statewide Steering Committee and discussion of other local initiatives in accord with our organization's strategic plan. We will also give a report on very exciting developments with the national group with which we are affiliated, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA). Votes taken will involve only current PPC members but all are invited to participate in discussion.

Join us. RSVP by reply to this address. sfm@airmail.net

Like it did in 2002 when David Van Os ousted the "undesirables" he did not like from the Dallas organization?

Had local ideas and initiatives that were not in accord with the State group and their campaign to oust Molly Beth Malcolm as head of the Texas Democratic Party.

To thwart the Dallas chapter, Van Os and others instituted loyalty oaths as a condition of membership.

The Dallas chapter lost many good progressives as a result and it left an indelibly bad taste in the mouths of many.

Below is a comprehensive list of projects to consider for the PPC going forward that came out of our "Brain Dump" meeting in San Antonio on Nov. 20, and in Houston on Nov. 29th.

The PPC Steering Committee will contemplate these for our very likely next meeting on Jan. 8 in conjunction with with SDEC meeting on that date in Austin. Enough work to choke a horse but there are some really great ideas here. This and a similar list of reforms urged upon our State and County parties is being edited now and will be posted on our web site: www.texaspopulists.com. Please consider joining our texasppc@yahoogroups.com discussion list where these and other ideas will be discussed. -- Stan Merriman, Chair, PPC


SUGGESTED PPC INITIATIVES SUMMARY

The following initiatives were recommended by the 70 person planning session, broken into 13 work groups, for the Steering Committee to immediately take under consideration for implementation over the next 12 months. These will be taken up by the Steering Committee, at the very latest, at our next Statewide meeting scheduled for January 8. Some suggestions overlap into projects already underway with the PPC and are described with bold notes.

--Distribution of PPC motion urging support of Gov. Howard Dean as DNC Chair to all Texas DNC members should he decide to run for that post.

--Advocate to the State and County Parties voter verifiable paper trail systems with electronic voting systems as well as open source code. Underway since June State Convention Resolution sponsored by the PPC was adopted.

--Advocate State Party audit of 2004 election in search of anomalies, mal-distribution of electronic voting machines as well as removal of voters from registered voter rolls and allocation of HAVA funds.

--Work with Green Party and others in advocating Instant Runoff Voting.

--Collaborate with Democracy for Texas, Move-On and other such affinity groups within the Party. Collaboration started at State Convention with Dean and Kucinich forces and continues with presence of DFT at our Nov.20 meeting.

--Support independent media outlets such as Pacifica, Indymedia, Texas Observer, and others friendly to the progressive movement.

--Collaborate with other progressive organizations including election reform and healthcare groups. Doing so in concert with Harris County Democrats, Progressive Democrats of America, ProTex, the Green Party Steering Committee and their State Convention and assistance in forming Houston Progressive Action Alliance as well as PFAW Election Protection and KPFT’s Pokey Anderson and Rice Prof. Dan Wallach’s electronic voting security movement and leadership of Healthcare For All Texans.

--Support Boycott of Fox Cable News advertisers.

--Challenge FCC licenses of right wing media broadcast outlets and restoration of Fairness Doctrine. PPC member Tom Blackwell inserted Fairness Doctrine restoration successfully in DNC national platform.

--Access media fax distribution service available from PPC Austin Chair Karen Hadden.

--Explore on-line radio for progressive message. DFW PPC had been exploring this relationship with Radio Left in Dallas.

--Improve Communications with PPC membership. Have promoted texasppc@yahoo.com to members but only small percentage have signed on. Routinely distribute individual emails to approx. 1,000 state widelist on meetings, activities of note.

--Update PPC web site to make it easy to find; activities in each area, statewide news, books and on-line publications, links to other sites. Regional posting section already exists; little used by Regional Chairs.

--Wider distribution of links with other progressive web sites. Recently linked to PDA site.

--More outreach to young people, minorities and rural areas. Have addressed national YD’s, recruited youth and minority leaders to meet 2.5 hours with State Party Chair, routinely communicate/collaborate with State Tejano leadership and African American Caucus and Asian Democrats.

--More PPC publicity.

--Letter writing campaigns to pressure Democrats who act like Republicans. Did so to State Reps. endorsing Speaker Craddick and those failing to join Killer D’s.

--Poll PPC members and other Democrats on issues. Polled Delegates to State Convention on progressive issues and received 800 responses.

--Exhibit and Display at public events geared to progressives. Exhibited at State Convention, County Chairs Assn. Annual Meeting, Dean Rally in Houston.

--Use Democratic Underground as model. Several PPC Steering Committee members are active with DU.

--Establish a media committee.

--Generate Op-Eds and letter to the editor. Early 2004 Op-ed with PPC byline published in Houston Chronicle on state tax reform.

--Go to fundamentalist churches and establish dialogue on progressive issues.

--Establish coalitions with progressive groups in other states. Chair and membership Chair in regular conference calls with PDA state leaders as well as Backbone Campaign.

--Recruit members and create a database of members which identify skills. Build membership from Dean and Kucinich campaigns. Engaged Dean and Kucinich leadership and key State leaders are members of PPC.

--Organize PPC Chapters throughout Texas. Include County PPC organizations. Currently have chapters in DFW, Central Texas/Austin, SA, Houston/SE Texas and a brand new unit in Corpus Christi/South Texas.

--Help County Chairs with training Precinct Chairs in organizing precincts. Houston PPC developed a training template called “Winning One Precinct At A Time”; helped train 200 Harris County Pct. Chairs; provided to State Party Grassroots Committee.

--Lobby SDEC more. PPC has had a large physical presence at every SDEC meeting for 2.5 years, at least doing so quarterly; regularly attend key committee meeting and make presentations.

--Encourage PPC members to be State Party Sustaining Members.

--Encourage PPC members to donate to PPC. Have had several internet fund drives and raised sufficient funds to support booth and major literature presence at State Convention as well as help fund start up of PDA.

--Recruit Progressives to run for vacant Precinct Chair and County Chair positions. PPC unit in Houston and San Antonio did so with County Party and recruited many new precinct chairs in build up to 2004 election.

--Link State Party and County Party web sites to PPC web site.

--Launch a progressive issues education campaign across Texas.

--Recruit progressives to run for party, local and state wide offices. Train them in campaign techniques. A stated goal of DFA.

--Encourage/prod candidates and officeholders on progressive issues.

======================================

And PPC-Houston has been hard at work addressing e-voting insecurity in Harris County:

VerifiedVoting.org Media Release
http://verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5344

EFF, VerifiedVoting.org Push for Post-Election Tests on E-Voting Machines

Independent Tests by Counties May Answer Lingering
Questions About Accuracy, Machine Failures

San Francisco - On November 2, voting machines in many
states -- both "red" and "blue" -- had problems that led
thousands of citizens to call a national voter protection
hotline. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the
VerifiedVoting.org (VVO) were at the other end of the line,
and the two organizations are very concerned about they
heard. In several states, voters who chose one presidential
candidate were presented with confirmation screens that
listed another candidate's name. In others, machines
crashed and were rebooted repeatedly, but nobody knows
whether votes were lost.

EFF and VVO have responded by sending letters to voting
officials in the eight counties that experienced the worst
technical problems, urging the officials to allow
independent testing of the machines. Such tests could
reveal what went wrong and whether anyone tampered with the
devices. Prominent technical experts including Rice
University computer science professor Dan Wallach and
security guru Bruce Schneier have agreed to help conduct
these tests.

In addition to petitioning the county officials directly,
EFF and VVO are calling on the public to let voting
officials know that they would like to see truly
independent testing of the machines used in this election.

The counties in question are Broward and Palm Beach in
Florida, Mahoning and Franklin in Ohio, Mercer and
Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, Harris in Texas, and
Bernalillo in New Mexico. Concerned citizens who live in
these counties can contact their local voting officials or
add their signatures to the EFF/VVO electronic petition.
When 10,000 people have signed the petition, the groups
will deliver a copy to the officials in the target
counties.

"The election is over, but voters can still make a
difference for our democracy," said EFF Legal Director
Cindy Cohn. "Asking that these machines be tested
independently is a crucial first step."

VVO Executive Director Will Doherty added, "We now have a
chance for qualified voting technology experts to help
remedy the problems we documented with paperless e-voting
machines in the 2004 election."


Sign the petition:
http://www.eff.org/e-vote/petition/


About EFF

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil
liberties organization working to protect rights in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and
challenges industry and government to support free
expression and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported
organization and maintains one of the most linked-to
websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/


About VerifiedVoting.org

VerifiedVoting.org is a nonprofit organization
championing reliable and publicly verifiable elections.
Founded by Stanford University Computer Science Professor
David Dill, the organization supports a requirement for
voter-verified paper ballots on electronic voting machines
allowing voters to inspect individual permanent records of
their ballots and election officials to conduct meaningful
recounts as needed. The organization's website is at
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/


Contact:

Cindy Cohn
Legal Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
cindy@eff.org
415 436-9333 x108 (office)

Will Doherty
Executive Director
VerifiedVoting.org
press@verifiedvoting.org
415 695-0543 (office)

I can see why you said to view this post. :-)

I am planning to attend tonights Meet-up and I am a member of Democracy for Texas, I will print your summary report and share it with the other members.

- Collaborate with Democracy for Texas

If there is anything else I can do help, just let me know.

Had a late appointment.

These here boards offer all the opportunities to get involved that anyone could want.

to let you know what happened at todays meeting.

Attendance was very high, there were about 60 people showing up to the meeting.

I did bring the summary report to the meeting, but I really did have to. Stan Merriman attended the meeting. He basically told the group the same thing you wrote on your summary. However, he added that the PPC and the Democracy for Texas were going to merge and form the Populist Alliance. He explained that the Alliance was going to act more like an umbrella group.

The role of Democracy for Texas
- find the candidates to run
- run the grass root efforts

The role of the PPC
- more of the policy and platform strategies

Therefore, those who like policy will stay and help form the progressive movement. And those who are interested in politics and running for office will have there say.

I gathered that this Meetup group and leaders do not feel as if they are really part of Democracy for Texas. They really were at a lost of what is happening with DFT and kept referring this group as being part of the Democracy for America. When I went to train help by Democracy of Texas, I asked about the Houston chapter, I was told there was one but it really not sure how organized it was because it does not keep in touch with Austin that much. And tonights meeting confirmed it. It is really too bad, I think we in Houston have a lot to offer to the Upcoming DeanFest.

We later broke up into group to write down we I came and what I want to see come out of the Democracy for American - Houston. I said I would really like to to see this organization utilize the power of the Internet. I explained that Internet is one way to reach the large number of Generation X. Although I was the only young adult in a room full of baby boomers and pre-baby boomers that did not mean young adults are not interested.

After that, we talk about the book How not to talk like an Elephant. It was kind of hard to do that, 3/4 of the group never read the book :) So a lot of people were lost. That was about it.

Nothing about the recount in Ohio. The thing that was brought about recount was how Vo won his.