Health & Fitness
Becoming a Delegate
The Delegate selection process happens in the spring ... but the process is grueling,
Yesterdy, at Manuel's there was a lot of hurry up and wait. Giving out 220 tickets to 450 people is not as easy as it might seem. There was time to chat with folks I had never met before. Since I was sporting a Georgia Delgate name plate I was grabbed repeatedly and aske if I could get some one some ticket to the spech on the sly, but a lot of people asked me how I got to go.
One of the unique elements of this process is that there is very littly Cronyism involved. THere are actually two elections for Delegates. First there is Congressional District Caucus election, where the party comes together and elects members of the community to go to Charlotte. Effectively anyone can run and anyone can vote. and it can be a free for all. If you can bring a busload or two of friends you can win. That simple.
The other path, the path I took, is as statewide At-large election. In this election anyone can run, but the people voting are Members of the State Committee of the Democratic Party of Georgia, That's a day long affair where we get to hear people speechify for about 3 minutes each but there are 100 candidates all saying essentially the same thing. The state Party the elects the 24 At large members and then we have another round where we elect 9 alternates.
Find out what's happening in Decatur-Avondale Estateswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
There are some automatic elections. Current Federal office holders (5 Current Congressman), All eight members of the Democratic National Committee, Former President Jimmy Carter, Finally, there are 14 PLEOs (Party Leaders and Elected Officials) Those are elected by the State Party as well. They include CEO Burrell Ellis alog with House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams and Senate Leader Steve Henson. Senators Gloria Butler and Emanuel Jones along with State Rep Pamela Stephenson ll from DeKalb are among the 14 PLEOs.
Find out what's happening in Decatur-Avondale Estateswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The Delegation then meets to elect a Chairman and Members of various Committees.
The full Delgation is listed here. http://www.georgiademocrat.org/delegate-information-station/.
