George:

I have previously offered my reasons why I think that it is permissible for party officers to make endorsements of candidates -- even local ones. I will not rehash them here.

I write mainly to correct a misunderstanding in Waldo Jaquith's note to you. Waldo wanted to go back to the language of the 1988 Bylaws. They read:

"13.03 Endorsement for Appointive Office: In matters of patronage, the Committee will use its influence as a committee to secure the appointment of qualified Democrats. No member of the Committee may, as an individual sign a petition or letter of endorsement for any person seeking the endorsement of the Committee; but such Committee members may urge the Committee to endorse any Democrat."

First, I have to note that this language would have no relationship to the question of whether a party officer should endorse a candidate for elected office. By its terms it refers for endorsement for APPOINTIVE office only, not for ELECTIVE office. Of course, that old language would not have applied to this situation; the "City Committee" didn't "endorse" candidates for City Council; the caucus made a nomination. 11.03 would not have applied.

When David RePass and I were revising the Bylaws last year, we came to this passage, and we both tried to edit it. We decided to delete the language for three reasons -- it was anti-Democratic, ungrammatical and nonsensical.

Anti-Democratic: If someone whom we liked was being considered for an appointment to the Commonwealth Transportation Board, the Committee might wish to send the governor a letter of endorsement. It seems that what this provision would do is to impose a gag rule -- that if the Committee is considering an endorsement, no member of the Committee may sign a private letter to the governor, even if it is in support of the same candidate. (No prohibition on calling the governor, though.)

Ungrammatical: Where are those commas supposed to go, anyway?

Nonsensical: Does it really matter if a committee member endorses a candidate for appointive office orally, rather than signing his or her name to a letter endorsing that candidate?

We gave up trying to rewrite it, because we couldn't figure out what it was supposed to mean, or what evil it was intended to prevent.

I would like to comment also on one other unfortunate thread in Waldo's e-mail -- the notion that a party officer who openly supported one candidate cannot be trusted to fully support a different nominee.

One of the problems that I see with the Party at the moment is that I fear that we have been losing the ability to disagree agreeably. I fear that we are losing the ability to look one another in the eye after a nomination fight, and to say without equivocation, "You are the nominee of the party -- I opposed you an hour ago, but now I support you and will work hard for you." And I fear that we are losing the capacity to accept such a statement from another Democrat at face value. I have seen that attitude dominate at the state and national level, but Charlottesville had always been something of an exception. That is why Nancy O'Brien and Francis Fife have been holding those post-convention parties for the past 20 years -- so that we can work on patching things up after a nomination fight.

This lack of civility became a serious problem in 2000. When Kevin, Maurice and Meredith were nominated, the bitterness was such that many
people did NOT look each other in the eye and say without equivocation, "You are the nominee of the party; I will support you." And when some did so, the response was one of distrust rather than acceptance. However, my experience has been, over many years, that 2000 was the exception rather than the rule.

Waldo has agreed to help us work on turning out the youth vote in this campaign. I accept his help without hesitation or mistrust, and I assume that Blake and Alexandria will as well. That's the way that we do things here in Charlottesville.

I have to say that when I made my endorsements, I had no idea that it would provoke such a strong response from some people. Although I continue to believe that there are times when it is appropriate for a party leader to make endorsements, the fact that other people feel otherwise would certainly be a consideration in trying to decide whether to do so at some time in the future.

Lloyd Snook (electronic mail, March 31, 2002)