Brian’s Utah Weblog

The 2005 Utah Democratic Convention took place Saturday at the Salt Palace. More than 1200 Democrats came together to elect new leadership for the next two years.

The fun started around 7:00 AM when the doors opened and was really hopping by 8:00 AM when the caucus meetings started. Two new caucuses were organized this year—the new Health Care Caucus and the revived Rural Caucus chaired by Rep. Brad King (D-Price). The Health Care Caucus was well attended and the Rural Caucus was completely full with some overflow. The other caucuses I visited—including Environmental, Stonewall, and Labor—were much more full than I remember at the last odd year convention.

Utah Dems Executive Director Arlen Bradshaw organized the caucuses and candidates with a coordinated schedule of speaking times. This was a great success compared to previous years where it was very hard to have a chance to speak to all the caucuses. The time for caucuses was extended for all the extra candidates, but the primary cause for improvements was the schedule. I heard a little grumbling, but I didn’t hear any complaints at all from people who had experienced the old uncoordinated system.

I dealt with the old system at the 2004 caucuses while I was running for Congress. Fairly often I would try to get a time to speak at a caucus and then get preempted by a candidate for a different office who went to the front of the line by being a member of the caucus or find that the time I arrived was reserved for caucus business. A few caucus chairs even had to track down candidates they wanted to hear from to fit them into available times crossing paths with representatives of the candidates trying to reserve time on a schedule.

Thanks to Arlen for improving the system.

Scott Matheson Jr. was visiting caucuses with Senator Hale and Robyn Matheson to thank everyone for supporting his run for governor last year. I asked Scott if he would have been able to remember what legislation he signed and was reassured that he would. Matheson was a class act on the campaign trail and we would be fortunate to have Scott offer to serve the people of Utah again, in any capacity.

Three fellows wearing T-shirts identifying themselves as members of the Southwest Council of Carpenters waited outside the Rural Caucus to confront chair candidate Wayne Holland as he emerged. The men were holding out the tag of a “Wayne Holland for Chair” T-shirt and surrounded Wayne to interrogate him about why his campaign shirts were manufactured in China. Wayne ignored the question and demanded the carpenters tell him why the United Brotherhood Of Carpenters And Joiners had endorsed Bush for President. Wayne recounted his work in Arizona for Kerry while the president of UBC promoted Bush in Arizona. The carpenters denied any endorsement of Bush and still wanted an explanation for the shirts.

The tension was rapidly building in the hallway. Then just when I expected to hear voices being raised, Wayne took a step forward. He said the T-shirts had been a mistake made by some young volunteers and stood his ground on his trouble with UBC national leadership. And the tension was dissolved. Wayne is a skilled union negotiator and seemed to know exactly how far he could go and still come back around to peace.

Most of the AFL-CIO was supporting Wayne Holland, who works for the Steelworkers, for party chair. The Teamsters were mostly behind Nancy Jane Woodside. The Southwest Council Of Carpenters, which withdrew from the AFL-CIO about five years ago, endorsed Jan Lovett for chair. And Kent Anderson, president of Communication Workers of America Local 7704 (AFL-CIO) endorsed Craig Axford. At the Labor Caucus, an AFL-CIO affair, there were some speakers on the floor who disparaged breakaway unions for lacking solidarity.

On a personal note, CWA and Local 37083 are the major national group working for people in my profession.

The main body of the convention came to order at 10 AM and Congressman Jim Matheson (D-UT) soon gave his congressional report. Jim was fiery and the crowd appreciated it. He recounted the many ways Republicans are betraying Utahns by promoting a new round of Nuclear Testing and underfunding Education. Then he exhorted us to organize in rural and suburban Utah and win in the places Republicans are hurting Utah and elect more Democrats for him to work with. There were no open dissenters as at last year’s convention.

Incumbent Vice-chair Nancy Jane Woodside invited the National Rifle Association to set up a booth at the state convention for the first time in my memory. I enjoyed talking to Brian Judy of the NRA about Democratic lawmakers in the Alaska Legislature who sponsored the law that liberalized the concealed carry statutes in the Last Frontier. I heard afterward that Janalee Tobias had been there too, but I missed her.

The Wayne Holland booth had a fantastic pencil drawing, about four feet square,

showing what we’d like to see in November of 2006.

The Jan Lovett campaign has been committed to a plan called “A Blueprint For The So-Called Red States” by Dow Patten. It’s an outrageously ambitious organizing plan and it would be interesting to see Jan and her band of relative newcomers try to implement it.

Vik Arnold from UEA told me about fighting for money for our school kids in Utah at the legislature. The Republicans wanted to pour money into roads to replace Centennial Highway Fund money cut in previous years, but refused to start putting money back into education. Republicans think that once you start investing enough money to do right by our kids, they will just expect adequate resources every year. Republicans don’t want to commit to supporting our schools next year or the year after that. Though disappointed over funding, Vik was pleased to have beaten the big tuition tax credits bill.

Each of the candidates for state party office spoke to the convention. Highlights included the very first speech—Dow Patten’s energetic nomination for Leon Johnson—the endorsement video with most of the party’s past and present notables for Wayne Holland, the Jan Lovett volunteer corps showing their numbers lining the walls of the room, and crowd response to Craig Axford’s demand that “a party must stand for something.”

Before the speeches were over, hundreds of delegates were already lined up to vote. Next convention, we should find a way not to reward the delegates who skip the last few speeches with the best prime places in line. Delegates have a responsibility, whenever possible, to consider each of the candidates before voting.

The line to vote assembled down most of the length of the Salt Palace. Voting went on for most of an hour and then another hour of counting revealed that we needed a second ballot. Delegates lined up for another vote without knowing who would still be on the ballot in the chair’s and vice-chair’s races. Two candidates for vice chair (including the eventual winner) were parading down the assembled line and declaring their mutual support on the second ballot if either one of them were on it.

Several hundred delegates had already left when we discovered which candidates survived to the second ballot. The chair’s race would be between Wayne Holland and Jan Lovett and the vice chair’s between Rob Miller and Josh Ewing. Nancy Jane Woodside stepped up to endorse Jan Lovett and other endorsements followed. Craig Axford and Tracy van Wagoner endorsed Wayne Holland. Laura Bonham endorsed Rob Miller.

When the final results were announced just after 4:00 PM, it was Party Chair Wayne Holland by 25 votes out of 700 and Vice Chair Rob Miller by 18 votes.

The multiple hours of vote counting and the hundreds of delegates who left between ballots indicate that it’s time for us to adopt instant runoff voting as the Republicans have. The new party officers should take the lead in making the change.

The new Utah State Democratic Party Officers are,

Chair, Wayne Holland
Vice Chair, Rob Miller
Secretary, Marco Xavier Hermosillo
Treasurer, Robert Jurek

We kept some geographic diversity on the executive committee with Jurek from Weber County and Miller from Davis County.

Senator Orrin Hatch gave the people more of his time than expected on his segment on KCPW today and I had to be bumped from Midday Edition Friday. We all like to hear from the Senator, so I’m happy to defer. I’ll let all the readers know when we reschedule.

Let’s consider what Orrin had to say.

First he contends that abolishing the filibuster in the Senate is necessary for the sake of ten more Bush judges (out of over 200). This is a little silly seeing as how Orrin is famous for blocking judges he doesn’t like by denying them even a committee hearing.

Second Orrin talked about high level nuclear waste storage. Orrin has voted for the Yucca Mountain project every time he can in an attempt to force the waste from Eastern nuclear plants onto our neighbors. He contends that waste will end up in Skull Valley if it isn’t going to Yucca, but then admits that Yucca will be fully booked the day it is opened.

Orrin, if Yucca is full the day it is opened, the how could it relieve pressure to store waste in Skull Valley?

In fact, Orrin is covering for his embarrassment. In 2002, he made a deal with Private Fuel Storage (the Skull Valley developers) that he would work to store waste in Yucca Mountain and they wouldn’t ask for federal money to build the Skull Valley site. Orrin and Sen. Bob Bennett cast the decisive votes to give Yucca a filibuster proof majority. Immediately afterward PFS gleefully announced that they had plenty of private money to build the site and they were going full speed ahead with putting waste from Eastern states in both Utah and Nevada.

Eastern Utility lobbyists were laughing and whooping it up at our expense that night, thanks to Orrin’s blunder.

Other Western Senators were upset and Sen. Bingaman (D-NM) and Sen. Reid (D-NV) blocked Rep. Hansen’s attempt to permanently block waste from Skull valley in a Military Authorizations rider that year.

Now we need the help of Sen. Minority Leader Reid if we are to block Skull Valley waste right in the path of flights from Hill Air Force Base and Orrin can’t admit his mistake and work for a better future. If we do end up hosting the dangerous castoffs of Eastern utilities that think of Utah as a waste dump, Orrin has to take the the biggest slice of blame.

Third Orrin discussed some Republican plans to phase out Social Security. He suggested that Republicans might have to cut benefits by 2018 if we didn’t accept benefit cuts sooner for all but the poorest seniors.

Of course, the Social Security Administration numbers show that if the economy continues on the track it has for the last fifteen years, we will never need benefit cuts. That’s why Orrin wants to make the cuts now; when the ‘crisis’ never arrives, Republicans won’t get the Social Security cuts they lust for.

There are programs with a crisis coming, and Medicaid is one of them. Lucky for us, that came up next.

Fourth Orrin said that a 7% increase in Medicaid funding is more than enough, even when health care prices are rising 10% to 15% a year.

The Senator suggests that rising health care prices are the result of bad government policy and we should fix it instead of just paying more. I agree one hundred percent. Orrin has acted as the pharmaceutical industry’s lackey on Capitol Hill, working hard to help drug companies charge monopoly prices and bilk consumers and health insurance companies as he drives more and more of our money into the pockets of drug company lobbyists.

This is the worst kind of corporate welfare. Drug companies develop some of the most important technology on Earth, but Orrin makes them dependent on government for their biggest profits. When patents are extended and price negotiations are prohibited and imports from lower cost countries are blocked and cheap old drugs are banned in favor of more expensive new drugs that don’t work better (except for pharma profits), companies invest in lobbying instead of innovation.

None of the money Washington is funneling to drug companies from our pockets is for innovation. It’s all in exchange for graft and campaign funding. How long can a drug company make its money through corruption in Washington and still retain its focus on creating health miracles?

We saw in the 1990’s the side effects of a bad poverty-fighting welfare program sapping initiative from people are far more expensive than the dollar cost. Today the worst thing about corporate pharma welfare isn’t even the trillions of dollars in waste, it’s the loss of vigor devoted to research and development that follows.

Just like Orrin says, rising health care costs are largely a result of bad government policy. Solution number one is the end the career of Senator Orrin Hatch in 2006.

Fifth Orrin talked about tenure and the power he holds as a senior senator.

One of his most important roles, he says, is defending Hill Air Force Base. But as I describe in number two above, the best thing Orrin can do for Hill is to apologize for how he has endangered it and retire.

Just like Orrin said today, seniority is great if a senator is voting for your values, but if he votes against you it is terrible.

That’s one more thing Orrin said I can agree with. Let’s take it seriously and defeat Orrin at the polls in 2006.