Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Now THERE's Democracy for you!
Congressman Tom Tancredo R-CO, a delegate at the RNC, wanted to get a few planks added to the Republican platform. When the platform committee voted them down, he decided to try to get them submitted for debate on the convention floor. Shouldn't be TOO big a problem, or so Tancredo thought:
via Kevin Drum at Political Animal
A Maplewood note: This isn't a whole lot different than the way Chairman Doug Bland runs the Maplewood "Democratic" Committee.
There are two ways to bring a matter to the floor: One is to convince six state delegations to support the motion for a floor debate--a virtual impossibility, Tancredo realized; the other is to get 19 members of the platform committee to support bringing a matter to the floor. This latter route seemed doable to Tancredo, save for one problem: The congressman couldn't find out who, exactly, was on the platform committee. Running the platform process with all the discipline and secrecy that's come to be expected from the Bush White House, the RNC, citing security concerns, refused to divulge the identities of the handpicked delegates who served on the platform committee--even, in some cases, to other members of the platform committee.It's all of a piece with their actions of the last 3 1/2 years. George Bush's Republican Party won't be happy until the government of the United State is entirely opaque and its oligarchs are completely anonymous.
Jason Zengerle at TNR's Republican Convention Blog
via Kevin Drum at Political Animal
A Maplewood note: This isn't a whole lot different than the way Chairman Doug Bland runs the Maplewood "Democratic" Committee.
