Rus and Lloyd --

It was with some interest that I read Jake Mooney's account in the Daily Progress of the Charlottesville Democratic Committee meeting.

I was particularly interested in your description, Rus, of the explicit mission of the Charlottesville Democratic Committee as "finding candidates and winning elections."

The theme of finding candidates and winning elections was one of the recurrent themes at the recent Albemarle/Charlottesville Democratic breakfast on the future of the Democratic party in Virginia. Another recurrent theme was the need to stand behind the candidates chosen.

In the past, not all members in the city party have chosen to stand behind the party's candidates.

It is a matter of fact and a matter of public record that some Democrats in the Charlottesville City Council election sat out and in some cases supported Republican candidates.

It is a matter of fact and a matter of public self-testimony that some city Democrats supported Green candidate Ralph Nader for President and not Democratic candidate Al Gore.

While I do not believe this is the best way to build a strong party [see Lloyd Snook's statement last August], it does not bother me so much. At heart, it seems we are a fractious bunch.

However, I do believe it is proper to ask whether Democrats in Charlottesville should be able to expect their leadership, as vested in the Charlottesville Democratic Committee, to stand behind candidates chosen by the party.

I was not at the City Democratic meeting the other evening, but it is my understanding that it was left to the consciences of individuals putting
themselves forward to serve on the Charlottesville City Committee as to whether they were qualified to serve, given their activities in the last several elections and that all of the individuals putting themselves forward were voted on unanimously or, at least, very close to unanimously.

I take no issue with this vote or with the decisions made at the recent Charlottesville Democratic Committee meeting. But I am curious about the meaning of those decisions over the next two years, particularly in the context of city council elections.

Is it your position and the position of the party that individuals on the City Democratic Committee who publically support candidates running against candidates chosen by the party will be asked to step down?

Is it your position and the position of the party that individuals on the City Democratic Committee who publically support candidates running against candidates chosen by the party can step down and come back on once the race is done?

It seems to me, if we are "to build on that which unites us", we will do well to take great care about handling those issues which divide us.

Best regards,

George Loper (electronic mail, December 16, 2000).

Dear George:

We talked at length before we even discussed serving as co-chairs together about how to handle the problem that we knew was going to arise
-- the problem of City Committee members who did not heed their obligation not to support a candidate who is opposed to a Democrat. We both feel that having a battle royale to eject Committee members who supported John Pfaltz and/or Ralph Nader would be a mistake, for reasons that we wish to make clear.

The State Party Plan and the City Bylaws specify that anyone holding a leadership position in the party -- an officer, a committee member, or an elected official who has run under the party banner -- must not publicly support a candidate who is opposed to a Democrat. There are some important distinctions contained within that formulation.

1. This applies to leadership positions, not to "rank-and-file" Democrats. If you want to have a leadership position -- including City Committee member -- you must acknowledge yourself as being bound by this provision.

2. Party leaders -- including City Committee members -- can still vote for whomever they wish. What they cannot do is to publicly support someone who is opposed to a Democrat. City Committee members should not have publicly supported John Pfaltz or Ralph Nader. (Or, for that matter, Virgil Goode.) "Public support" would include signing an advertisement, writing a letter to the editor, or putting a yard sign in your yard, for example.

3. If there is no party-endorsed Democrat running, you are on your own. In 1990, Nancy Spannaus, a Lyndon LaRouche supporter, ran for Senate against John Warner. She called herself a Democrat, but she was not endorsed by the Party. Democratic leaders were free to publicly support whomever they wished, because there was no Party-endorsed Democrat in the race.

4. We need to distinguish between this provision for City Committee members and the so-called "loyalty oath" that we insist on for participants in mass meetings and conventions. The "loyalty oath" requires that participants swear that they are Democrats, that they believe in the principles of the Democratic Party, and that they do not intend to support any candidate opposed to a Democrat in the next ensuing general election. This "oath" is of course a matter of personal conscience, but we have always said that you could participate if you did not have at the time of the meeting an intention to support a non-Democrat. In the mass meeting in February, therefore, you could sign the "loyalty oath", and then if your candidate(s) lost, support someone else in the election. So it was entirely permissible for people who felt strongly that the Meadowcreek Parkway was the overriding issue in the May race to try to nominate Democratic candidates who agree with their position such as Peter Kleeman, and then, when he did not get the nomination, support a Republican who agreed with them (John Pfaltz) instead. No provision of the bylaws or the party plan prohibited a Democrat from supporting a Cox, Lynch, Pfaltz ticket, or a Richards, Bright, Fortune ticket. However, any Democratic City Committee member who intended to support such a ticket should have resigned his or her position on the Committee.

Now, for some of your specific questions.

We believe that anyone on the City Committee who publicly supports someone opposed to a Democrat in any election is honor-bound to resign his or her post while they are in that conflicted situation. If anyone on the City Committee publicly supports someone opposed to a Democrat, we will ask that person to resign from the Committee.

If someone resigns from the Committee, supports someone opposed to a Democrat, and then seeks to be elected to the Committee, that person would be eligible for election. However, the people who would have to vote on that person's efforts to rejoin the Committee would certainly be well advised to take into account that person's unwillingness to commit themselves to the good of the party and its nominees.

We thought long and hard about whether it was appropriate or wise to take disciplinary action at this time against some members of the Committee who had supported John Pfaltz and/or Ralph Nader. Under the Party Plan, someone who wished to expel a member can initiate a procedure to do so. We hope that such efforts will NOT be initiated, for the following reasons:

1. Some of the people at whom such a motion would be directed are not even members of the Committee -- they are alternates. At the moment, the Bylaws do not even authorize having alternates, so it is not even clear those people have any obligation that they violated, or that they occupy any position from which we could expel them.

2. Last spring, we talked at length about the nature of the loyalty oath, and we noted that it was only a "present state of mind" requirement rather than a long-term commitment. We understand that some members of the Committee, including some public officials, may not have been clear about that distinction.

3. The party has never enforced this provision before. Not even when John Conover was beaten by a very narrow margin in 1984 -- in large part because of Margaret Cain's "Citizen's Party" candidacy -- did we take action against some City Committee members who supported Margaret.

4. We want to start our partnership on a positive note rather than by having a witch hunt. 5. The Party Plan calls for 10 days' written notice, followed by a hearing before a subcommittee of the City Committee, followed by a recommendation from that subcommittee, followed by a vote of the entire Committee to expel the offender, followed by a right of appeal to the Fifth District Committee. At a time when we have many other things that we need to be doing, it seems that spending this much energy on this matter right now is probably counter-productive.

This does not mean that we don't intend to take seriously the pledge that all City Committee members make when they become Committee members -- we do. We intend to make sure that every Committee member knows what he or she is obliged to do and not do. Then we can enforce the pledge without hesitation.

We also want to strongly discourage Democrats from playing an "in-and-out" games. It is important that we function as a party rather than as a collection of factions that come together from time to time. It is important that we begin to develop some loyalty to and respect for one another. We have said before that we want all Democrats to realize that there are many more things that unite us than that divide us. It is in that spirit that we ask the Party NOT to start a witch hunt for people who may have supported other candidates in the past, and we ask the Party to come together to elect a solid, progressive Democratic ticket in the fall.

Thinking also of the full range of obligations of the members of the City Committee, it also bears mention that our bylaws require attendance at meetings and the payment of dues. These are both obligations that have occasionally been ignored, but they are important. We will be having meetings during the winter and spring to get organized for the coming campaigns, and it is important that we have full attendance. It is also important that we collect dues so that we can keep our office running between campaigns.

Thank you for bringing these issues up for public discussion. It is useful to clear the air, so that we can get on with the business of making the Charlottesville Democratic Party as strong and as vital as we all know that it has the potential to be.

Lloyd Snook cvllelaw@rlc.net
Russell Perry rperry@mcdonough.com

(electronic mail, December 17, 2000).