The Caucus-Happy Democrats

...But they don't give affirmative action to anybody, and maybe we'd be better off there...

...The purpose is not [to get] a piece of the action to keep up with the other caucuses," says Campbell...

...The central requirements included a petition of support from 10 percent of the 377-member DNC, a constitution, and official operating procedures...

...Diversity need not be a weakness...

...Impatient with DNC business-as-usual, elected politicians from the West and South have taken a first step away from caucus-think...

...The executive committee assumed the 10 percent threshold would prevent too many splinter groups from requesting recognition...

...The malady also causes uncontrollable fits of delegate selection reform (five major attacks in 15 years) and cancerous growth of the presidential primary schedule...

...I represent a lot of Democrats," says Stafford, "as many as some state chair from Mississippi or some other state or region ." Alluding to a recently formed Democratic policy study group headed by Governors Charles Robb of Virginia and Bruce Babbitt of Arizona, Stafford adds, "They're an interest group, and if they get recognition as white males, we should get recognition for our interests...

...We might as well become Republicans" The fact is that more than five people "out there" know about and have some opinion on the DNC caucuses...

...Efforts such as the Babbitt-Robb policy council may succeed if they demonstrate that traditionally excluded groups can contribute to party dialogue without the caucus crutch...

...But now Campbell is helping mount the drive for a Hillel Caucus to represent Jews and supporters of Israel...

...We thought that would control things, set a limit," says Lewis, who now heads Americans for Democratic Action...

...Well, there's more: "After a Women's Caucus meeting," says Aisenberg, "women will come up to me and tell me it felt like it had some meaning, like they really did something" In regular DNC meetings of the last several years, she explains, "the discussion has been zero and participation about the same...

...If they knew," she adds, "they wouldn't care...

...Active membership rolls, drawn from DNC ranks, generally fluctuate in the high double digits...

...I don't think [formal recognition] was an absolutely necessary step...

...Says DNC member Richard Koster: "The whole thing was particularly disgusting because it elevated the caucuses symbolically without having any common-sense benefit ." In practical terms, the resolution was unworkable...

...The thing that bothers him is that if someone else is going to get up a group to talk shop, well, then he wants one, too...

...A growing number of people within the party have begun to admit that the caucuses create an image of factionalism and petty procedural obsession...

...It wasn't worth fighting," he says...

...They'd be hurt, justifiably, and they wouldn't have relations with us...

...Unfortunately, the group has already permitted itself to be categorized simply as a moderate-to-conservative breakaway from the DNC...

...Ann Lewis, one of the architects of the official caucus apparatus, acknowledges that "when the script doesn't attract the interest of the audience, and the actors don't create excitement, then everyone concentrates on criticizing the scenery and the stagehands" Paul Kirk has already taken the message on the road, telling southern party leaders recently: "The proliferation of caucuses makes diversity a weakness...

...Some parliamentary junkies belong to several groups...

...People were getting pretty frustrated...

...We were wrong...

...They participate in state and regional politics, raise campaign funds, hold dinner-dances...

...But as long as others exist, there should be one for those who are concerned about Israel and issues related to Jews...

...Some caucuses are more equal than others...

...It envisioned committees that would be expanding constantly to accommodate a potentially endless list of caucuses...

...Still, politics is a lot more fun when you've got a committee you can call your own...

...What else is a political party for...

...Michele Aisenberg, for example, stops to ponder the question: What's the advantage of having an official caucus rather than operating outside the DNC umbrella...

...Bettie Baca, a DNC staff member who works for the Hispanic Caucus, points out that Hispanic political groups have operated nationally and within the party for the past 15 years...

...Except for a few passing references in campaign speeches by the chairman candidates, little mention was made of President Reagan's 49-state sweep—the fourth Republican victory in the last five outings—or how to begin picking up the pieces for 1986 and 1988...

...But, warns Aisenberg, if Paul Kirk, the new DNC chairman, follows through on his promise to decertify her group along with the other caucuses, then you'll see a special-interest problem, brother...

...A handful of male WASPs even collected signatures last summer for an "All-American Caucus...

...What you find is that 10 percent of a large group, especially one like ours, will sign anything of that sort ." Create a bureaucratic procedure, and someone's bound to use it...

...The Babbitt-Robb policy council will itself fall into the factional fracas if it becomes a mouthpiece for southerners and conservatives who resent sharing power and simply want the party to mimic the GOP...

...The caucuses create more than a public relations problem...

...Give someone a chairman's gavel, and the rest of the gang will want on...

...They wanted to discourage caucuses . . . [but] what they did was tell people how to be a caucus," says Billie Carr, chair of the Liberal/Progressive Caucus...

...Paul Kirk's first significant gesture as DNC chairman was to rebuff the Black Caucus in a major turf war (see "Loyal, But Angry," by Paul Wieck, page 26...

...Carr of the Liberal/Progressive Caucus says her outfit gets no such assistance...

...But if they show us they don't represent us, we should get the hell out of there...

...The caucuses do reflect politics by separation...

...At the same meeting, a proposal by Richard Koster to decertify the caucuses altogether failed to reach the full DNC for a vote...

...Richard Gephardt, among others, the 41-member Democratic Leadership Council plans to generate fresh ideas in a "serious think-tank atmosphere!' Babbitt explains the "two missing links" in the party: "One is sustained attention to some overarching, unifying themes of the party in the national interest...

...The danger of institutionalizing caucuses is that they alienate voters who don't feel bound to one or another sanctioned cause: It's not that I don't want blacks or Asians in my party, thinks the wavering white middle-class Democrat...

...In fact, DNC members have been in the caucus certification business for only three years—and they got into it, ironically, hoping to keep special interests in check...

...The staff person . . . and the budget [drawn from funds allocated generally for women's affairs] ." Losing that would stifle the women's movement and send Democratic loyalists running into the arms of the GOP...

...Anne Campbell, a member of the executive committee, opposed the formalization of caucuses, although she says discussion of the idea was "simple and pro forma...

...Such informal sessions have long been common among a variety of groups, as they have been among the loosely organized "auxiliaries" of the Republican National Committee...

...There can't be much dispute that we failed to articulate common goals," says Governor Babbitt...

...With the leadership of Governors Babbitt and Robb and Rep...

...Stafford echoes other caucus chairs in terming the upshot a compromise: nothing lost except some committee seats that no one was very serious about in the first place...

...party affairs ." Speaking on behalf of the Lesbian/Gay Caucus, Stafford himself supported a successful measure rescinding his resolution at the midwinter DNC meeting in Washington...

...There was confusion over by-laws and how the elected chairs of the caucuses went about getting what they wanted . . . . An official recognition process was an effort to bring things under control" In February 1982, the DNC Executive Committee established a formal procedure for achieving caucus status...

...Rick Stafford of the Lesbian/Gay Caucus recalls how he and some DNC colleagues proposed at the 1984 national convention that each recognized caucus receive a designated seat on the three standing committees of the DNC: Rules, Resolutions, and Credentials...

...Gavels for all The official caucuses are seven in number— just enough to constitute that favorite pundits' punching bag, the litany of special interests...

...Organized labor, after all, boasts no official caucus yet has a loud voice in party discussions...

...With few exceptions, the spectacle in San Francisco highlighted narrow-minded infighting rather than unification...

...They push platform planks, organize primaries, and attend presidential nominating conventions...

...To be honest, we had no idea it would pass," says Stafford...

...There's my seat on the executive committee, that's an advantage...

...If the Democratic party wants to represent us, good...

...But Democrats did these things before February 1982...

...The big three—blacks, Hispanics, and women—hold designated seats on the DNC Executive Committee, a privilege separate from the traditional reservation of a vice-chairman's slot for a member of each of those groups...

...And you'd be right...

...Having inflamed Jews in the "Hymietown" and Farrakhan incidents, Jesse Jackson battled vehemently on the convention floor for long-shot platform amendments...

...heterosexuals, for example, work with the Lesbian/Gay Caucus...

...The emotion and energy spent on forming, serving, and preserving caucuses are resources not spent on shaping substantive policies and a coherent vision of the country's future...

...You don't have to fit a caucus's label to join...

...Second is the procedural question: Wouldn't it be better to allow all of these groups to blossom on their own without subsidizing them and ossifying them...

...Voters focus on the only apparent action the Democrats offer: intramural jousting among interest groups...

...Those sifting through the wreckage from November for signs of Democratic rebirth find instead bloodied survivors wrestling over arcane rules, while still more caucuses line up for recognition...

...Says Thomas Hsieh of the Asian/Pacific Caucus, "Asians get squeezed between the privilege of whites and the affirmative action given to blacks or Hispanics . . . .We want to be a part of the society, and we feel the Democratic party could have done better for us . . . . [The Republican party] doesn't give a shit about helping anybody...

...What the Democrats should learn from the Republicans is not hostility or cynical condescension toward interest groups...

...Hispanics threatened mutiny because Walter Mondale couldn't express emphatically enough his opposition to immigration reform...

...Members of the party's left fringe had gathered for years on an informal basis, says Carr...

...Rick Stafford, chair of the DNC Lesbian/Gay Caucus thinks the party might survive without official caucuses...

...Products of what DNC members concede was a procedural miscarriage, the caucuses are infected by that peculiarly Democratic strain of Rulesmania...

...If you're going to have caucuses, you should have them all...

...Kiss the gender gap goodbye: Women "would be very angry...

...Taking away the caucus could only be seen as a threat to us!' Once caucuses exist as formal mechanisms within the party, their members concentrate on oiling their own little gears rather than worrying about what direction the larger vehicle should take...

...Having a caucus has made it more convenient to arrange general DNC meetings, she says, but "otherwise, it hasn't really made any difference at all ." Says Carr: "It might even be better if things went back to being more informal, without lines drawn" between different interest groups...

...There aren't more than five people out there who know what the caucuses are or what's going on with them," says Aisenberg, who herself heads the DNC Women's Caucus...

...You get notification of DNC happenings, mention on official agendas, reserved meeting space at DNC gatherings, and possibly an opportunity to address the full committee...

...Jewish members of the party do them now, and they don't have a caucus yet...

...Moreover, you'd probably guess that Democratic women, say, caucused with a small "c" long before the inhouse lobbying apparatus got so complicated...

...For example, Senator Sam Nunn, a member of the group, recently told The New York Times: "The moderate and conservative Democrats didn't make it past the first round of the primaries in 1984, and we want to change that !' An attack on caucuses easily can become a euphemism for an attack on the constituency groups whose names they bear...

...How are you going to not sign one of those petitions...

...And if caucuses are a reflection of politics by separation, that is a formula for defeat...

...Thomas Hsieh, who chairs the Asian/Pacific Caucus, says his organization provides the crucial link between the party and Asian- and PacificAmericans...

...A caucus comes with perks...

...Kirk has since told NBC News that "the caucus system . . . is political nonsense" and vowed to remove the groups' official status...

...Barbara Hansberry, a political division staff member, says she does some work for the women but spends "85 percent" of her time on Asian/Pacific Caucus business...

...In an interview for this article, however, Kirk backed off that promise and said he doesn't want to be "harshly on the record" as planning to dissolve the organizations...

...Rules of the game Caucus facts: Each caucus elects a chair...

...Rather than define themselves as Democrats, party activists split into factions that thrive on dramatization of intergroup rivalries and castigation of the party as a whole...

...Without it, his people might just walk: "It would be a stupid thing," Hsieh says with anger...

...Paul M. Barrett is an editor of The Washington Monthly...

...The Mondale camp, for its part, used the platform and the convention simply to soothe egos and smooth dissension...

...So do farmers and "ethnics" of European descent...

...And for all the flak the caucuses attract, they accomplish very little, even for the constituencies they represent...

...For example, in addition to their executive committee slots, which were specially awarded in 1983, the blacks, Hispanics, and women get staff help from the DNC Political Division...

...Although the DNC doesn't provide discrete budgets for caucuses, Aisenberg of the Women's Caucus says that she gets reimbursed for certain expenses, such as telephone calls...

...A degree of interest-group fervor fuels the party and adds vigor to its campaigns...

...In principle, the Stafford resolution violated the DNC charter's prohibition of mandatory quotas "in any...

...With her own ominous talk of mass female desertions, Michele Aisenberg demonstrates that the issue is more than just op/ed-page hot air...

...A pause...

...By definition, caucus members are party activists...

...But when the handicapped come to me, or the Jewish group comes to me, I sign every petition...

...The millions who watched the 1984 Democratic National Convention saw the caucuses at each other's throats, as well as Walter Mondale's...

...Politics by separation Stafford's gambit brought to a head the building unease among some Democratic officials over the impact of the caucuses on the party...

...Without official blessing, women have gathered to discuss tactics and policy for more than 50 years...

...During the midwinter meetings, for example, the caucuses fought over picking a chairman, designating a black vice-chairman, and staffing yet another delegate selection reform commission...

...The Democrats have established a proud history since the Depression of bringing excluded groups into the political mainstream...

...It wasn't a serious thing, and we were very surprised ." So were other DNCers once the dust settled...

...It was a gatekeeping decision," recalls Ann Lewis, former political director of the DNC...

...Others have indicated interest, including native Americans, farmers, Israel supporters, the disabled, and a polyglot European "ethnic" group...

...There was a program for every interest group but little that linked the prospective beneficiaries to each other or their party...

...Caucuses give DNC members an opportunity to pass meaningful paper—or at least something to argue about...

...But recognizing the role of organized factions does not require that factionalism be woven into the fabric of the party...

...They wonder whether it is worth the money to fly to a meeting where they get nothing done and there's no knowledge of the grass roots...

...The Asian/Pacifics, Lesbian/ Gays, Liberal/Progressives, and Business/ Professionals round out the current roster...

...Instead, Democrats should learn to speak to Americans as Americans...

...I just don't want their caucus poobahs claiming to speak for me based on some extremist agenda...

...Black and white women feuded publicly over who was strong-arming whom in the Women's Caucus...

...The list has an artificial ring to it...

...First, she's sure that altogether too much fuss has been made about the Democrats' special-interest problem...