The New Castle County Democratic Convention
Well. That was quite the morning. Let me just say that I might be an unreliable narrator here, since I was there as a participant.
And, yes, I won’t bury one of the ledes: I did shout at the Speaker of the House. We’ll get to that.
Today’s convention was scheduled to approve proposed rules changes (nothing there engendered controversy), and to elect officers for Chair, First Vice-Chair, Second Vice-Chair, Secretary and Treasurer
Both Italo Carrieri-Russo and Aja Ajavon recently announced that they would run for Chair and First Vice-Chair respectively. The County Party had announced a slate comprising of Kat Caudle (incumbent) for Chair; Chris Haas, First-Vice Chair; Josh Whittaker, Second Vice-Chair; Maddie Campbell, Treasurer; Joe Daigle, Secretary.
The Call To Convention was sent out 30 days prior to the election.
Those are the facts. What follows is opinion and my take on what happened.
First, here’s my opinion. The announced candidates should have had the chance to speak. Especially since Kat’s welcoming remarks could clearly be construed as a campaign speech. That policy must change going forward.
However, if you’re running for office, you really should run. Like Evelyn Brady is running for State Chair. Attend committee meetings, reach out to the voters (committee members), even hand out lit at the convention. None of the candidates chose to do this. (Well, Kat was at one of our recent committee meetings, but in her role as Chair, not as a candidate.)
I tried to find out why Italo, as challenger, did none of this. The answer as best as I could piece together, was that he instead chose to play the inside game–and to hope for a small turnout so that his folks could win. The strategy didn’t work.
We had gotten nothing until about three days before the election, which is when Italo and Aja sent something out to announce their candidacies to our committee officers. We immediately shared it with all of our members. Next day, we got the report of the Rules Committee. We immediately sent it out to our members. The next day, we got the announcement of the candidacies of the proposed Party slate. We immediately sent it out to our members. It is safe to say that not every committee followed the same protocol.
However, it was up to the candidates to reach out. They had thirty days. They did not.
Following the election of first Vice-Chair and during ballot distribution for Second Vice-Chair, the controversy boiled over. Specifically that the process was unfair, that the candidates should have been allowed to speak. It then degenerated into demands that the convention be halted, rescheduled and/or a couple of other things. I am counting on others to both fill in gaps and to call me out when I’ve mischaracterized something. It was at this point that Speaker Minor-Brown grabbed the mic and said that the process was unfair, and argued that we can’t have this kind of division within the Democratic Party. At which point my temper (my Kryptonite) got the better of me, especially as I’d been stewing about her performance during the debate on the Musk-pass Bill. I didn’t drop an f-bomb (first time for everything), but I said something like ‘YOU were the one who gaveled down your own caucus members in order to pass that Musk bill’. In other words, as a former contributor here used to say, “Pot, Meet Kettle”. (We actually had a pretty decent talk afterwards. After all, she’s still better than Val Longhurst.)
Anyway, a large group of attendees demanded that we suspend the meeting at that point. The Parliamentarian pointed out that, were we to do so, the votes we had already taken were still valid and part of the record. Meaning, we in theory would have had to return at some point to vote on the Secretary and Treasurer. No way we could ever get a quorum for that. So cooler heads prevailed, the motion to suspend was defeated, and we finished our business.
Anyway, that’s my perspective. Isn’t it Rashomon where everybody has their own perspective on an event? Yep. As in:
The witnesses’ unreliability and subjectivity are a result of situational, social and cultural differences. The term “Rashomon Effect” was coined after iconic filmmaker Akira Kurosawa first utilized the storytelling technique in the film Rashomon (1950).
Which is precisely why others’ perspectives will likely be far different from mine. If you were there, what was yours?
Heard Mimi brown had a hissy fit and started screaming at people…..which is apparently not uncommon.
Just because people didn’t follow the rules doesn’t mean you get to make up your own rules the way you want them.
As El Som pointed out Mimi getting mad at people for gaveling people down is quite the hoot.
Not to mention, she was out of order, and had her mic shut off.
Honestly, though, we calmed down and talked after the convention.
Besides, if she was out of order, I was out of order.
Forgot to mention, the officers elected today:
Kat Caudle, Chair
Chris Haas, First Vice-Chair
Terrell Williams, Second Vice Chair. He was the beneficiary of the backlash, and defeated Josh Whittaker. All I can say is he’d better work five times harder than he has on his own campaigns in order to be a plus for the committee.
Treasurer: Maddie Campbell
Secretary: Joe Daigle
You pretty much nailed it.
I didn’t realize that Kat’s welcoming remarks wasn’t her pitch for votes (I voted for her). Maybe in hindsight she regrets not offering the mic to Italo to say a few words. That said, all the candidates for party offices should learn from Evelyn Brady.
Italo was First Vice Chair, seems safe to assume he could have sat on stage with them and helped run the event? Was glad to see Evelyn there, did not get to get her view on things though.
Seemed pretty strange to me to decry division during the process of a leadership contest, especially because the speech felt like it wasn’t exactly intended to smooth frayed nerves .
Anyway, my congrats to all the winners of the election today. I look forward to what they plan is to grow the party and make New Castle County blue in every direction.
There is no circumstance under which Italo speaking would have actually helped him get votes
So why the support for him?
Was it just an anti-incumbent vote?
This was a confusing event. I feel bad for most people, this is all volunteer work and despite everything it seems like they tried their best — we all know the state party wasn’t being any help to them (includes all the attendees…)
Also candidate’s picking and choosing who they let know ahead of time about their interest instead of all of them just using the list from the state party was weird and left people out, but how do you require that everyone only use one email group?
The State Party being there, and seemingly doing nothing but count votes? Did Betsey not step in at the last convention when dozens of people were arguing about vice chair nominations because of gender identity? I think she did.
I saw two (as far as I know ) prospective State Chairs in the building. Interested in how they viewed this.
What was the count between Williams and Whitaker? I was really hoping Whitaker would win.
51 Williams 43 Whittaker.
I had video of that particular exchange, and what you said was:
“It was the same thing you did to the representatives on that Musk bill. You told them to shut up. You told them they were out of order. So here you are up here [inaudible] all this outrage …. [Mimi said something, Kat talking over both of you] yes, you did!”
For the event, I think a few things were true:
– A lot of people are feeling scared and fragile due to national level politics, and this was one area they felt like they could have a say. Which led to a lot of people grabbing the mic out of order, and generally being more heated than usual. This fragility also led to several people looking to someone or something to blame, and there were a few missteps by the committee in handling this process that made the people running the meeting an easy target.
– I don’t know why Frank Cooke was so concerned about the meeting start being delayed by 15 minutes so we could reach quorum. That was a perfectly reasonable decision for the parliamentarian to make IMO.
– A lot of people don’t understand the role of the parliamentarian. (Seems like Cooke was one of those people; several people who grabbed the mic also did not understand the parliamentarian’s role.)
– It seemed like Mimi is used to being in charge as Speaker, so she tried to control the meeting. However, state electeds are separate from the party business managers, and they shouldn’t have power in that arena. This line was blurred.
– Kat really doesn’t know how to deescalate. Sigh.
– Well, I guess none of our electeds that took the mic know how to deescalate either.
– People who were nominated should have had 1-2 minutes to say who they were.
– Like you said, people who were running should have, well, RUN before that day. If you won’t put in the work to run for an office, I don’t trust you to put in the work to do the office.
– Bless the parliamentarians for trying to gracefully handle the anger directed at that stage, and for reminding people that the Rules Committee is open and they really really want participation.
Hopefully in future, the committee will start meetings like this by going over the procedures. And I agree that those who are nominated should be able to introduce themselves with a few sentences.
Following Cooke’s, pardon the expression, logic, they should have locked the doors promptly at 9, this ensuring that a quorum would not be present, and that they’d have to reschedule the convention.
Gotta say, in a race to the bottom, Cooke could well be the bottom-feeder.
It was a truly bizarre conclusion to reach
I was there on Saturday and what a shitshow.
First, Kat emailed the chairs of the RD’s and told everyone they had to be inside ready to go at 9 AM or they could not participate. I understand the keeping the doors open until a quorum was reached which doesn’t say much about some part of New Castle County Dems or their leadership if that number took so long to be achieved. Normally, when Kat says she is closing people off at a certain time, that is exactly what happens in person or via zoom. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people were running late and decided not to go.
Next, the location was perfect for me (10 minutes away) but a distance for the larger part of NCC delegates. I believe a more central location in Bear or New Castle might have increased participation.
The whole meeting was bizarre. I don’t see how any group can agree that a person running for office should run the meeting, at least until that office is voted. The Chair should have called the meeting to order, asked for the credential report, had the parliamentarian explain the reason for the delay and then turned it over to someone not affected to run the election. All other Officers except a secretary should have vacated. The person in charge should have read election rules so that everyone had an understanding of the process and proceeded to the first office for election. The only other person on the stage should have been a secretary to record the results.
Kat, as previously discussed, was able to give a five-minute or longer speech on her and the Board’s accomplishments and name drop which was completely unfair to any challengers. I agree that the other candidates should have been campaigning to all delegates in the weeks leading up to vote, but this just falls in the category of unjust. A simple 2-5 minutes for each candidate who has been nominated might have kept the meeting from erupting.
Some other inconsistencies, at the announcement of the delegates, it was stated that “there are over 111 delegates” which made a quorum. Interestingly, there were never at least 111 votes for any candidate. It could have been that some persons chose not to vote or that some ballots were found to be improper, but that was never communicated. It could have also been that the delegate announcement was incorrect and a quorum was never reached. We will never know because of all the inconsistencies. The vote for Kat was 61-48 with no discussion or improper ballots or number of non voting. Every other office had significantly less people voting because of mass of confusion and anger. Changing parliamentarians during the meeting only added to the confusion. Running out of ballots halfway through the process didn’t help. Having candidates counting the ballots is usually a no-no.
Many delegates were so turned off by the process that they might not participate when we need them at elections. That should never happen. It is hard enough to find volunteers at any time. No wonder we couldn’t beat Trump. Dems are too worried about their small fish in a small pond leadership instead of working together. Transparency should have been the word of the day. I’m not sure if any of the results would have been different, but we could have trusted the system.
Yep. Things could have been handled a lot better by all parties.
ARRRGH. Intolerable horseshit. How is any of this not in violation of some set of party procedural election-convention regulations somewhere?
Exactly, and I am glad that “El Somnambulo” used his typical big mouth during the convention and was then confronted by someone. He quickly “cooled his jets” and sat down after that person had a few direct words with him. He was definitely scared and I’m sure that is why he later spoke with the Speaker. Delaware Liberal’s best!
You are completely full of shit.
I made my point, which was that Mimi Minor-Brown, in her attempt to shut down the convention, was deploying the exact same tactics that she supposedly deplored when running roughshod over members of her own caucus when she railroaded through the Elon Musk-pass bill in the House.
She was out of order, she had her mic shut off, just as she shut down reasonable attempts by members of her own caucus to add amendments to the Musk bill.
BTW, the entire ‘spontaneous protest’ was engineered in the back by Minor-Brown and her supporters. It was her husband who commandeered the mic and only gave it to those intent on shutting down the proceedings.
Oh, confronted by ‘someone’? That someone was Mimi’s chosen Sergeant-At-Arms in the House. The Speaker was the one who actually had to back down. You know, after having her mic shut off.
She once again demonstrated why she, like her two predecessors, lacks the temperament to be Speaker of the House.
Ya want some more? I’d thought about doing a follow-up piece, but figured I’d let sleeping dogs lie.
You want to know WHY Mimi Minor-Brown did what she did? It has nothing to do with Italo Carrieri-Russo. It has to do with a beef between her and Kat Caudle.
Specifically, a meeting dealing with the Delmarva rate increases that the Speaker joined with R reps Michael Smith and Kevin Hensley during the heat of the election season. Minor-Brown said that she wasn’t going to let a meeting take place near her district w/o her participation, Kat said she was hurting the chances of both of the challengers.
How do I know? Because I spoke to BOTH the Speaker and to Kat after the meeting. I take no sides on this b/c it sounds like the real problem was the lack of communication between the two.
However, it shows that Minor-Brown had a vendetta, she saw a chance to take advantage of it at the convention, and, well, we saw the results.