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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Dems using racial quotas for convention? When you watch the Democratic National Convention this summer and see the diverse ocean of faces, keep in mind that the diversity you're witnessing didn't happen by accident. Instead, it will be the result, in substantial measure, of a very strong affirmative action program within the Democratic Party which at times seems virtually indistinguishable from the use of quotas. This comes through in an informative Wall Street Journal story by June Kronholz about the other campaign going on in the Democratic Party currently, the effort many people have undertaken to become delegates to the party's national convention in Denver. The story explains how some candidates for delegate spots host parties at restaurants, bake cookies or produce campaign videos for cell phones in order to win a delegate position. It also explains how various state party organizations go about filling their delegations. But here's a key passage that speaks to the use of what many would view as quotas. At that convention, the Obama delegates elected seven Obama delegates to Denver -- three men and four women, to meet party rules that require each delegation to be gender balanced. Mr. Rodgers did not win a spot. The 37-year-old new-technology tester for Adobe Systems Inc. has one final chance at the state party convention in June, when Washington's 27 at-large delegates will be elected from among a pool of applicants. "It's an all-you-can-eat buffet of democracy," he says, "but I want to see the process through." The odds are long: The party's big-tent diversity goals reserve six of Washington's convention seats for blacks, 10 for Hispanics, and others for Asian, American-Indian, young, disabled, and gay, lesbian and transgendered Democrats. Any diversity seats that haven't been filled at the congressional-district meeting will be plugged at the state convention. This will probably surprise quite a few people who didn't realize that the way the Democratic Party ensures diversity at its conventions is to use something that looks very much like quotas. As you probably have figured out by now, Rodgers is white. That's why his chances of being chosen are bleak. Among the interesting aspects of Washington State's Democratic Party reserving seats for racial minorities is this: it appears to violate the spirit of the national party's call for delegates. Here's what the national call says on page 7: 2. This goal shall not be accomplished either directly or indirectly by the Party's imposition of mandatory quotas at any level of the delegate selection process or in any other Party affairs. If a state is reserving six seats for blacks, 10 for Hispanics etc, it's difficult to see how that's not a quota. All the state party's have submitted affirmative-action plans to the national party as required by the Democratic National Committee. While those plans have different numbers as goals for racial, ethnic and other minorities, there's one area in which they follow the hard and fast goal (quota might be the better word) for gender. The national party calls for delegations to be split 50-50, male-female. Getting back to racial and other "goals," California, for instance, has the following targets for race, ethnic and sexual orientation that can be found on page 21 of its 2008 delegate-selection plan: African Americans are 4.6 percent of the Democratic electorate in California--the goal for their representation in the delegation is 16 percent; Hispanics are 21.1 percent of that electorate and the goal for them in the delegation is 26 percent; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered individuals are 11 percent of the Democratic electorate in California and the goal for them in the delegation is 12 percent. Goals like these aren't necessarily quotas as the reserved spots in Washington State's delegation arguably are. But if the goals are interpreted strictly, they could certainly have the same effect as quotas. Others in the blogosphere noticed way before I did the similarity of these goals for Democratic National Convention delegations to quotas. For instance, this is from blogger David M wrote about it in March and referred to other bloggers who also noted this Democratic Party practice. In any event, I'm guessing a lot of people, including Democrats, don't know about this feature of the Democratic delegate-selection process. It probably won't surprise anyone that Republicans don't have the words in affirmative action, diversity or gender in their call for delegates.
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