The Democrats Divided

...The proposed article, many members believed, would conscript local officials into an all-consuming national affirmative action crusade, eclipsing the role they should play m electing their candidates, raising money and building party structure The regulars also saw in the phrase, "as indicated by their presence in the Democratic electorate," a suggestion that the 1972 quota system might be continued in practice O'Hara even argued that the proscription of only "mandatory" quotas was really meant to establish the practice of quota-making while formally renouncing it The ordinary state or local party official, detecting in this fog the suggestion that some demographic standards might be applied to the composition of his committees and delegations, would see to it that women, blacks, youth and other vogue groups would be properly—l e , proportionally—represented He would not, to be sure, impose "mandatory' quotas, they would be voluntary'' But they would indeed be quotas Accordingly, the regular caucus, after long debate and many votes drafted the following alternative language with the aim of restricting nationally supervised affirmative action programs to the selection ot delegates to national conventions, and of dispelling any doubt about the use of quotas Mimeographed by an intern at the DNC on a pink sheet and circulated to all caucus members Saturday night, it read "In order to encourage full participation by all Democrats m the delegate selection process, the Democratic National Committee shall adopt and implement affirmative action programs The goal of such programs shall be to encourage full participation by all segments of the Democratic electorate and to encourage all Democrats, regardless of sex, race, religion, economic status or ethnic origin, to participate m the Democratic party and to aspire to leadership positions therein These goals shall not be accomplished either directly or indirectly by the imposition of quotas ' This move produced an outcry the next morning from New Politics adherents, who detected an opportunity to run their other unpopular proposals behind the interference of the black caucus Alan Baron the former Westwood aide who coordinated the efforts of the dissidents, quickly distributed a statement recasting as civil rights issues other reform measures that had never before been presented as having anything at all to do with race On the affirmative action debate he wrote "Minorities have been compromised, compromised and compromised on this question This proposal is rape " Willie Brown, remembered for his impassioned speech at the 1972 convention against a proportional distribution of McGovem's winnertake-all California delegation, announced he would implement the "no-compromise" line by walking out There was no doubt m anyone's mind that other blacks would follow him With Brown and Baron agitating over the likely return of Bull Connor and the white primary, the atmosphere ot the meeting turned fractious The regulars huddled repeatedly to consider ways of averting a black walkout Their leaders had held some exploratory talks with New Politics and black members, and several possible compromises were being floated One, initiated by the regulars, would have deleted the implied quotas while allowing the requirement for affirmative action in all party affairs, as defined by the by-laws" to remain This gambled that the DNC, in drafting by-laws at some future time, would develop reasonable guidelines for the implementation of affirmative action The black caucus' first response was to reject the regulars' compromise and counter with one of their own that the original language stand and the majority who objected to it so indicate in a minority report This, of course, was too much for the regulars, and some ot them were shaken by the intransigence of the blacks Discussion drifted from the merits of the various proposals to what the press might say about Democrats if the blacks walked out Eager to avoid such a confrontation, the regulars offered to send both the draft article and their own compromise proposal on to the December conference as alternatives ot equal status The blacks, however, sensing panic among the regulars, decided to hold out for total victory ? e , a formula that would artificially give the implicit-quota language the advantages of "majority" status even though it had the support ot only a minority They moved that three separate versions of the affirmative action article be forwarded to the mini-convention, none with official recommendation the reformers' original, the regulars' compromise, and a rigidly pro-quota formulation to be written by the black caucus This maneuver would have placed the original draft, unacceptable to the regulars, in the favorable middle-of-the-road position tor consideration in December Meanwhile, some of the state chairmen had been conferring with the blacks on their own Finding them unrelenting, New York's Joe Crangle and Florida's Jon Moyle began to advocate accepting the three-version plan Their defections had a powerful psychological effect on the regular leaders, who started to doubt their ability to hold a majority through a floor fight and possible walkout The concern proved to be well founded At a final regular caucus meeting other state chairmen scurried behind Crangle and Moyle, prompting adoption ot still another compromise agreeing to the reformers' essential proposal that alternatives be placed without recommendation before the December convention, but with the addition of a fourth alternative—namely, the position originally taken by the regulars When the commission reconvened, a line of New Politics adherents formed at the microphone to denounce the regulars Brown, shouting that the November election would be "covered with the blood of blacks and women,' threatened to organize a black boycott of candidates in states that voted against him Nonetheless, the regulars' proposal carried in the closest balloting up to that point of the meeting It was a Pyrrhic victory, for the regulars had surrendered their majority rights and permitted a serious issue of party governance to be distorted into a debate over racism And the threatened walkout came anyway over a motion by the regular caucus to delete from the draft charter a series ot specific rules governing the selection of delegates to national conventions As in the preceding dispute, the argument was organizational and procedural rather than primarily political The section in question would have required (1) that proportional representation be imposed in each state's system of selecting national convention delegates down to the very lowest levels, (2) that state committees which pick convention delegates must themselves be chosen in the calendar year of the national convention, and (3) that the unit rule—permitting a majority to impose unanimity on the minority?must not be used in any phase of delegate selection While virtually all regulars oppose the unit rule, many have doubts about proportional representation and believe it should be tested before it is cast m iron But their argument here was merely that delegate selection rules properly belonged in the party's by-laws, where they could be amended by a majority vote of the DNC, and not in the charter, where they could be amended only by a convention vote As soon as the regulars announced their position...

...LOOKING TO 76 The Democrats Divided by josh muravchik Kansas City In the space of 10 days in August the outlook for the 1976 Presidential race turned around completely Richard Nixon and Watergate were suddenly behind us, and a new Chief Executive was welcomed effusively by the American public Though understandably less widely noted, at the same time the paper that had covered over the fissures in Democratic ranks during the past year began to give way here at the fifth and final meeting of the party's important Charter Commission Thus the Democrats and Republicans appeared to be moving back toward their relative standing of 1972 The 167-member commission was established by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to draft a charter, or constitution, for presentation to the 2,000-odd delegates who will assemble in Kansas City tor a "mim-convention" in December During the past year and a half New Politics Democrats have gotten most of what they wanted out of the party's internal machinery as a result of former National Chairwoman Jean Westwood's efforts m the closing days of her tenure But as the August meeting approached, the reformers found themselves facing the prospect of their first major setback in an intra-party dispute since Robert Strauss was elected to replace Westwood immediately after the 1972 election They responded with a series of disruptions, walkouts and parliamentary maneuvers that succeeded at least partially in thwarting the will of the panel's majority and set the stage for further bitter struggles Their strategy was aided by two factors familiar to those who observed George McGovern's nomination victory in 1972—the inability of the moderates to stand firm and the gullibility of many political reporters, who showed little zeal for the "investigative journalism" that is so highly touted by the media these days From reading the papers one would have learned ?A "conservative coalition" led by Strauss and directed by the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education (cope) took control of the commission (New York Times) ?This group packed the meeting by adding new members at the last moment (Washington Post) ?The conservatives and regulars provoked the ire of the blacks by opposing a charter provision that would allow minorities to participate m all party affairs (Associated Press) ?The old guard further alienated the libera] members by trying to restore the discredited "unit rule' (New York Times, Knight Newspapers) ?The conservative group sought to "gut" all party reform, thereby driving the black, female and liberal members to walk out in protest (Washington Post, Knight) Actually, this "conservative coahtion" included four Northern liberal congressmen, among them Tom Foley, the current chairman of the House Democratic Study Group, and James O'Hara, one of its previous chairmen, the state party chairmen of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Nebraska, and South Carolina, a number of labor leaders, most actively Jacob Clayman of the Industrial Union Department (heir to the CIO), Evelyn Dubrow of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Umon, and Helmuth Kern of the Amalgamated Meatcutters, the president of the National Federation of Democratic Women's Clubs, and most of the commission members with Hispanic or Oriental backgrounds Indeed, the only element not represented were conservatives —with the sole possible exception of Hall Timanus, the lone Wallacite, who occasionally sat in on sessions of the regular caucus but never took the floor Paradoxically, the charges of packing grew out of a New Politics attempt to knock 10 regular votes off the panel During the weeks prior to the meeting 10 members, most of them elected public officials with schedule conflicts, submitted resignations so that aides or associates of theirs might attend in their stead This was standard procedure for the earlier sessions, and numerous members of all points of view had been unanimously replaced m this fashion With the stakes getting higher, however, the reformers seized on the opportunity for a parliamentary gambit that would enable them, if supported by only 20 per cent of the party's Executive Committee, to postpone the replacements—temporarily, but long enough to render them inoperative The ploy was foiled by the full Executive Committee Nevertheless, New Politics spokesmen—led by Americans for Democratic Action Chairman Don Fraser?repeatedly accused the regulars of "stacking" at the opening session This set the tone for the rest of the weekend The reformers were defeated by majorities of 2-3 to 1 on three key votes the first day removing the appointment of the national chairman entirely from the influence of the party's Presidential nominee, holding mandatory quadrennial national policy conferences, and establishing a "judicial council" to replace the DNC as arbiter of major internal party disputes By evening it was clear that most of the reform proposals were not acceptable even to many of the liberal Westwood appointees In the face of this, the dissidents' strategy shifted to the issue that has proved most difficult for the Democrats—race The second day was to begin with a discussion of a draft article calling for "full participation " This not only contained provisions prohibiting discrimination at all levels of the party, which the regulars strongly favored, but it further demanded "In order to encourage full participation by all Democrats in the delegate selection process and in all party affairs, as defined by the bylaws, the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic parties shall adopt and implement affirmative action programs The goal of such programs shall be to encourage full participation by all Democrats as indicated by their presence m the Democratic electorate in delegate selection processes and in all party affairs, as defined in the by-laws, but such goal shall not be accomplished either directly or indirectly by the imposition of mandatory quotas at any level of the delegate selection process " The regulars saw several dangerous possibilities in this murky language First, the requirement that affirmative action programs be implemented "m all party affairs" was viewed as an unjustified, unworkable and potentially mischievous intrusion by the national organization into local matters Would this, they asked, require county committees to comply with nationally established standards m slating delegates, say, for precinct committeeman...

...And wouldn't local party leaders be vulnerable to charges, lawsuits and challenges contending that the requirement had not been properly fulfilled...

...Blown and several other members ot the black caucus—having previously alerted the radio and TV reporters—staged their walkout New Politics spokesmen then took the floor to accuse the regulars of seeking to restore the unit rule O'Hara promptly explained the purpose of the motion and offered an amendment to preserve the anti-unit rule provision Though reform leaders tried to block a vote on the amendment through parliamentary maneuvers, it passed with the unanimous support of the regulars But the contusion over the unit rule was just what the New Politics faction needed to break up the meeting The vote on the provision was still in progress when some of the more alert reform members followed Brown out At the conclusion of the balloting Commission Chairman Terry Sanford, former governor of North Carolina and a New Politics partisan, took the microphone to announce that the meeting would have to adjourn if a quorum was not present Immediately there was a request from the floor for a roll call and 30-40 reform delegates hurried out of the hall By the time a count could be completed, no quorum was left in the room Sanford adjourned the meeting, ruling as he did that the seven draft articles not acted upon—several of which the regulars wanted to amend —would be considered adopted Had such maneuvers been executed by labor or, say, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, the press assuredly would have plumbed ulterior motives Yet of all the reporters present, only UPI's Arnold Sawislak accurately explained the real basis of the walkout David Broder, the Washington Post's highly respected political correspondent, gave this account "No sooner had the compromise been worked out than the Foley caucus members went back to their pattern of attacking each of the organizational reforms in the remaining charter One after another, members of the caucus offered amendments listed on the so-called pink sheet' prepared and distributed yesterday to members ot that group by John Perkins, top assistant to Alexander E Barkan, head ot AFL-CIO cope Perkins, conferring frequently with Foley, appeared to be coordinating the voting and lobbying of almost three dozen labor members of the commission and sideline operatives " Those three sentences contain five inaccuracies (1) The "compromise'' referred to, presumably the tour-alternative proposal on affirmative action, was rejected by the New Politics caucus and carried by the regulars' majority—and hence was not really a compromise at all (2) The words "one after another" suggest at least several amendments, in fact, the walkout occurred over the second amendment to be offered after the vote on affirmative action (3) Each of the organizational reforms was not attacked, indeed, many were supported by all sides, while in other cases each side had its version of the same reform (4) The "pink sheet" was neither prepared nor distributed by John Perkins, but by a democratic caucus of some 60-70 members (5) There were only 18 labor members and two sideline operatives—including Perkins himself—on the commission, and three of these participated in the New Politics caucus But if the press revealed an inability to debunk the reformers' posturing and maneuvering, the regulars demonstrated the weakness and disunity that cost them heavily in 1972 For their part, the New Politics forces showed a continuation of the intransigence that won them the nomination that year—and lost them the election None of this bodes well for the Democrats in 1976, especially now that they don't have Richard Nixon to kick around any more...