Precinct Chair question

My strong interests lie in doing grassroots work in my county. The precinct chair in my precinct has been doing it for years and her apparent interest is in being there during primaries and general for the vote process. There's almost no activity that goes on any other time. I spoke with the interim county chair today (the other one had health problems and passed it over a few months ago) and was told that's the job the precinct chairs think they have, ie, elections and the county chair wants to work in slow for anything else.

Realistically, I'm not sure I could beat out someone in this county that has been doing it forever and is known to everyone. I had thought that the precinct chair, though, had other jobs besides, like making sure the precinct was worked, all people registered, rides to vote or meetings. But none of the precinct chairs do any of that.

Are they supposed to? Or is my idea about grassroots efforts at the precinct level an extra duty?

I've been told by the county chair that I could be in charge of grassroots efforts for the county and maybe that's a good substitute. Only have one more day to think about this.

what is called by various names but what I will call precinct captain.

The precinct chair (and I am one) has both election (judge) and electioneering (captain) responsibilities, but there happen to be many people who are precinct chair who really only want to do the 'judge' part of it. Fortunately for me, there are plenty of people who want to do this. Of course, we need to change this in Harris County just as you do in yours; i.e. whatever the interests of the chair, if all they want to do is be an election judge, then they ought to be willing to accept an interested person who wishes to serve as precinct captain.

(Ideally, a perfectly organized precinct would have a chair, a judge, and a handful of captains.)

Volunteer to do whatever you feel confident doing well, l.o.t.

edited because I'm confused between what is IDEAL
ie, if I'm reading this right

County Chair
Precinct Chair/Captain
Additional captains and/or volunteers

The only official formal position in Texas Democratic party rules, I believe, is that of Precinct Chair. But we NEED people who are willing to do the work and not necessarily serve as Precinct Chair. Those people get called Precinct Captains or Block Captains. It's an informal, unelected position. Precinct Chair is the only formal elected position.

If your Precinct Chair is willing to support you and you are willing to do the work of a precinct captain, i.e. get out the vote, rides to polls, blockwalking, absentee ballot, etctera, then that's a good alternative to you.

If you don't think that this person would be willing to work with you then please consider running against them. Remember that the only people who vote for Precinct Chair is the people actually IN the Precinct.

You have until Monday to decide. ;)

I've been told that the only job REQUIRED of precinct chairs by state elections code is to hold the precinct caucus convention the night of the primary election. And quite commonly they will run the elections, but are not required to do so. (Bear in mind that this is what I've been told is the rules/traditions for Dallas county.)

But doing the bare minimum will never get you anywhere academically, professionally or politically, and while we were sleeping the fundie grassroots were taking over the Republican party a precinct at a time, and now (they think) they rule the world. We have to do better. We have to organize and mobilize our majority base to take our country back. Just running elections might have been enough in the yellow dog days, but the battlefield has changed.

Can you work with your precinct chair in an unofficial capacity to organize your precinct? It could be that your offer of help is all she needs to get motivated. It's easier to get a job done when you have help or someone is prodding you.

Your county chair's idea is excellent too, and you can have an impact far beyond your own precinct. If you have leadership and organizational skills, you can create grassroots teams all over your county.

Good luck! It'll be a lot of hard work, but we all have to do something to get us out of this nightmare.

The Democratic Primary and the General Election present two different issues entirely. These are my recommendations and the reasons for them, based on over 30 years active experience.

In the General Election, the Democratic Precinct Chair should be organizing the Democratic turnout in the precinct so as to make sure that by the close of the polls on election day EVERY voter who is going to vote Democratic has voted. This is not just a one-day job, or a one-month job. It is a constant year-round job, peaking on election day with the satisfaction that every Democratic voter in the precinct has voted. It is THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!

In order to be free to do this, the Precinct Chair should not be Election Judge or Alternate Election Judge, whicher is applicable (if the precinct went Democratic in the last governor's election, the Democratic Party gets to pick the Election Judge; if the precinct went Republican, the Democratic Party will be picking the Alternate Election Judge). The Precinct Chair should recommend another qualified Democrat in the precinct besides him/herself to be the Judge or Alternate Judge whichever is applicable.

On the other hand, in the Democratic Primary election in the spring of the year, it is not Democrat vs. Republican, so it is not a matter of turning out the Democratic vote to win the general election over the R's. However, the Precinct Chair should still be in mobilizing turnout rather than serving as Election Judge. The reason for this is that organizing people to vote in the Primary is what it takes to get people to the Precinct Conventions the evening of the primary, to get the grassroots involved in governing the Democratic Party. Getting people to the Precinct Conventions is vitally important for the reclamation of the Democratic Party as the party of the people. It has to happen from the ground up, and getting people to the precinct conventions is where and how it happens.

The duty of the Precinct Chair at the precinct convention is not to chair it, it is to open the convention. The convention will elect its own chair, which often is the Precinct Chair but is not necessarily. Sometimes the election of the Precinct Convention Chair gets confused with the election of the Precinct Chair. They are not the same. The Precinct Chair is elected in the Primary on the ballot, for a two-year term, and may or may not also be the Precinct Convention Chair. The Precinct Convention Chair is elected at the precinct convention to chair that convention, and for that role only. Both are important in the party-building process.

The Precinct Chair has another extremely important duty that has not been mentioned yet in this thread, I don't believe. That is, representing the Democrats of the precinct at the County Executive Committee, as a member of the County Executive Committee, which should be governing the County Party in democratic fashion.

David Van Os

run for precinct chair. the only way we are going to see change in the democratic party in texas is if we take the bull by the horns & do it ourselves. i got a bit miffed at my cousins over christmas. they live in another state & were going on & on about how neither party meets their needs, blah blah blah, but didn't seem interested enough to jump on my suggestion to get involved in whatever party they chose at the grassroots level so that they could help effect those changes. whatever. :eyes:

if you think running would create too much of a disturbance in your local party, then by all means, find alternative ways around your current precinct chair. we had to do this in my county for the 2004 race because our party chair REFUSED to do anything!

i just had two people come bang on my door to make sure i filed to run for precinct captain of my precinct & other than my 2 appearances on local tv about my trips to crawford, i don't think i'm all that known in the area. most people don't even know who their precinct captain is & might vote for you because they like your name or decide on a coin-toss...you never know. we had a run-off here for party chair a few years ago because too many people voted for mickey mouse! (i'm not making this up.)

dg

My name's on the ballot for PC in my precinct, but I think any motivated Democrat running for PC shouldn't wait for the primary elections to get started. Get busy organizing local Democrats and motivating them as though you already are PC.