'Balancing' the Democrats

...It accomplished exactly what they had wanted, deletion of the section directing that failure to achieve balance in making up a convention delegation should not lead to the presumption that it had been chosen undemocratically...

...The Democratic party re-created in the new charter is basically the same decentralized, coalition, non-ideological political organization that we have known for two centuries...

...Quinn reported...

...While the Vance amendment was presented as nothing more than a means of preserving the common practice of dividing state committee seats between men and women, the amendment was cleverly worded so that it also permitted the equal division of convention delegations between men and women -a delicate issue deliberately skirted by the governors...

...True, the party did get through a national convention without a brutal battle on national television, a feat it last accomplished 10 years ago...

...Although these lapses may have seemed small in 1974, their importance could increase as competition for residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue grows...

...Several other proposals that would have given the national party significant new powers for regulating the affairs of state and local bodies were similarly turned down or significantly weakened, prompting Wattenberg to observe after the December meeting: "Basically, we Democrats have spelled out the peculiarly limited roles and duties of an American-style national political party, and it is pretty much what existed before...

...it is not the radically reconstructed, disciplined, ideologically compact unit sought by many early advocates of a written charter...

...The new charter calls for "affirmative action" and bans "mandatory quotas," as did the earlier McGovern rules...

...This year, with short hair and a tweed suit, he looked like a Whiffenpoof "And when a reporter solemnly asked a member of the Democratic National Committee if they expected much trouble from the crazies, the guy just threw his head back and howled with laughter...

...Moreover, the news spread that members of these caucuses would walk out of the convention if it did not delete the offending paragraph...

...Strauss and Minnesota's Govnor Wendell Anderson, the chairman of the Democratic Governors' Conference, then invited the labor leaders to present a compromise proposal to a DGC meeting on November 18...

...It was approved overwhelmingly...

...When there is neither melodrama in the script nor crazies in the cast, serious conflicts over rules or ideology may appear to be insignificant...

...This has helped reestablish a moral climate in the party that could prove to be of considerable significance...

...Yet slowly it is becoming increasingly apparent that in failing to successfully settle the quota issue, and in deepening labor's disenchantment with party leaders, the Charter Conference left the Democrats something less than unified as they move on to '76-even though Warren Beatty has acquired tonsorial respectability, and nobody staged a walkout...

...As most of the delegates cast about in search of its contents, the three caucuses jubilantly endorsed the new compromise...

...When the conference reconvened the rules were immediately suspended and the new formulation was overwhelmingly adopted...

...But when the showdown came on the issue of future national policy conferences the vote was regulars 1,006, New Politics 823, or roughly 55 to 45 per cent...

...But none of the party leaders, who moments earlier had sermonized on the immutable character of the governors' compromise, dared oppose the amendment...

...and a large committee majority dutifully proceeded to vote down the amendment...

...So was the idea of requiring quadrennial national policy conferences between Presidential election years...

...Once the concession was made, party leaders had no choice but to put the best face on it...

...For some years the Democratic party-along with many other American institutions-has wrestled with two contradictory definitions of affirmative action...

...Nevertheless, all except a handful of "dissident unions" had been dealt out of the action...

...It arose from a misconception, shared by many moderate party leaders, that the only real danger to party unity is to be found in the confrontations of style, rhetoric and tactics which wracked the '68 and '72 conventions...

...Jacob Clayman of the AFL-CIO's Industrial Union Department protested the adoption of this deviation, warning of its potentially damaging effect...

...That same evening, according to a New York Times report, "a group of black delegates sensing that further pressure on Mr...

...This is probably not an accurate reflection of the latter's backing among the Democratic rank-and-file either...

...The very people who for two years had been citing the need for the rule of law in party affairs, upon realizing that their proquota approach was about to be outlawed, prevailed by resorting to threat of disruption...

...Their efforts may have bought the appearance of unity last month, but the conflicting factions are already preparing for further battle...

...This moderate outcome reflected the simple arithmetic of the conference's composition: The New Politics wing, which generally favored a more radical restructuring of the party, had failed to elect a majority of the delegates...

...The governors gave them assurances that they meant to prohibit all quotas, at the same time insisting that "mandatory" could not be deleted...

...Apparently neither Strauss nor the black spokesmen were aware that the figures they were discussing were inaccurate, the result of arithmetical errors by the party's office of minority affairs...

...And an attempt to give the Democratic National Committee authority to "establish criteria for participation" in the organization-possibly reviving the membership idea-was overwhelmingly defeated on the floor...

...Warren Beatty two years ago had long hair and blue jeans when he campaigned for George McGovern," Ms...

...The first requires party leaders to assure that each committee or delegation contains proportions of blacks, women and youth as determined by "their presence in the Democratic electorate...

...Even more important, it did write a new party charter that wisely builds on the successful traditions of Democratic politics in America...

...The laborites finished work on their position November 17, and were about to depart for the meeting when a phone call from Strauss informed them that the governors, who were already in session, had just adopted a position...

...The second definition holds affirmative action to be a process of encouraging participation in open, unrestricted elections...

...Anderson presented the governors' proposal in the Rules and Amendments Committee, emphasizing that it banned all quotas...

...This is to be accomplished through scheduling meetings at times and places convenient to rank-and-file Democrats, through vigorous publicity and educational efforts, through clear procedural rules at meetings, etc...

...It had been the most enthusiastic supporter of a written charter, and many believed it would have a far easier time than the regulars turning out troops in precinct meetings and primaries to elect delegates to Kansas City...

...Throughout the day delegates' attention was absorbed by rumors of behind-the-scenes negotiations involving Strauss, governors and self-appointed spokespeople for the three caucuses...

...Finally, just in time, the governors gave in...

...The convention foundered on the question of how best to insure minority group representation in party affairs...

...But it is also clear that the thorny quota issue was not resolved, and that the moderate party leaders again demonstrated their inability to stand up to intimidation from New Politics militants...

...They had anticipated a little blood, and it was slowly becoming clear that nothing was going to materialize...

...One governor argued that to change the least provision of their compromise would "open a Pandora's box.' Another said that to shift even a word would "spill a can of worms...

...The governors promised, though, to state for the record that the intent of their language was to forbid all quotas...

...Wattenberg proved right...

...But as soon as labor's proposal was smothered, Robert Vance of the State Chairmen's Association presented another amendment that would authorize the use of quotas by sex...

...But the governors' resolution banned only "mandatory" quotas, while labor's would have banned all quotas...

...But beneath the public relations smiles of Chairman Strauss (who indeed had held out against the critical concession) and some of the governors, there was growing concern...

...The implementation resolution passed by the Charter Conference states that the delegates selection rules for 1976-the Mikulski Rules-shall stand, "except insofar as they may be inconsistent with the provisions of this new Charter...

...As one observer put it, "The new charter has 12 written articles, and one unwritten article: Decisions in the Democratic party shall be made under threat of walkout...

...The conclave closed in a celebration of Democratic unity...

...One wing of the party clearly feels that precisely what this means in relation to quotas (Mikulski includes the antiquota guarantees) still remains to be resolved...

...If a committee or delegation is not properly "balanced,' then the program is presumed to have failed and a challenge is in order...

...Others saw the shift differently...

...Several of the blacks expressed great indignation over what in their view was inadequate black representation at Kansas City...

...A proposal that the party be restricted to card-carrying members, abandoned some time ago even by the most ardent "Europeanizers," did not make even a token reappearance in Kansas City...

...But whether the new rules will result in creative approaches to minority-group representation or will bring a revival of the manipulated quotas of 1972 remains to be seen...

...The difference was not a small one...

...At Kansas City everything seemed to be going according to Strauss' and the governors' plan...

...The acceptance of the Vance amendment had two immediate consequences...

...Some labor Democrats, uncertain of the value of such "legislative history," decided they would propose deleting the disputed word in the Charter Conference's Rules and Amendments Committee...

...The prospect of loosing this savage menagerie was compelling-"mandatory" had to stay...

...If they lost, they would support the governors' position on the floor...

...The three caucuses sought deletion not merely of a word, but of an entire paragraph-the one denying a presumption of guilt against any delegation not demographically balanced...

...A third protested that to tinker with even a semicolon would "dump a whole kettle of fish...

...Debate over these two concepts ended in a walkout of the proquota members of the party's Charter Commission at its final meeting last August (see "The Democrats Divided," NL, September 16, 1974...

...Labor had proportionally a greater number of delegates on the floor than at any previous Democratic convention-over 10 per cent of the total-and had provided the moderate leaders their margin of control...

...A Gallup poll released on the first morning of the December convention showed registered Democrats picking George Wallace, Hubert Humphrey and Scoop Jackson as their three favorite choices for the '76 nomination...

...Despite their diminished numerical strength compared to '72, the New Politics forces did not leave Kansas City unhappy...

...That the caucus of black Democrats had endorsed the full text of the governors' compromise at a meeting in Washington seemed to have been quickly forgotten...

...Sally Quinn, who covered the press for the Washington Post, may have touched on the answer when she wrote: "They had come for a story...

...labor representatives moved to delete the word "mandatory...

...Most labor leaders reacted bitterly: For them the governors had been unwilling to delete a single word, even while professing full agreement with the substance of the proposed deletion...

...If Kansas City failed to heal the party's basic divisions, why were so many good reporters taken in by the great unity promotion...

...Once such requirements have been fulfilled, the legitimacy of a fairly-elected committee or delegation may not be challenged, no matter what its demographic composition...

...Instead of Europeanizing the Democratic party," wrote Ben Wattenberg, a theorist of the Democratic center, before the Kansas City meeting, "we are about to witness something else entirely: the codification of the Americanization of the Democratic party...

...The governors' resolution, like much of labor's, was based on a formula taken from the Mikulski Rules for '76 delegate selection-drawn up by a commission appointed at the end of '72 under the chairmanship of Barbara Mikulski, Baltimore Councilwoman...

...What they got, however, they got only through the considerable number of compromises made by the party leaders-and, in one crucial case, through outright intimidation...

...They said that under their '72 quota approach, blacks accounted for 15 per cent of the convention delegates, while of the Charter Conference delegates, who had been chosen under an affirmative action system precluding quotas, only 9 per cent were black...

...This caused great anxiety among party leaders, and at the urging of National Committee Chairman Robert S. Strauss several key labor Democrats from both sides of the dispute subsequently met several times in Washington to attempt to work out an approach that would prevent a battle at the December conference...

...The labor leaders believed a total ban in one section of the charter would balance another section requiring the representation of groups "as indicated by their presence in the Democratic electorate"-a phrase that suggested quotas...

...So they had to make the best of it" At least in part, the reporters' frustration was self-inflicted...

...Strauss might gain them more ground, argued in the Chairman's hotel room for dropping some of the antiquota provisions of the Mikulski Rules...

...Moreover, the impact of the governors' compromise may not be confined to such intangibles as moral atmosphere...

...party leaders invoked the danger posed by the word change...

...The leaks indicated that the governors were standing firm on their opposition to any further changes in their proposal...

...And it signaled to New Politics strategists the deep and tempting vulnerability of the party leadership's unity stance...

...The difference in the percentage of blacks elected as delegates to the two conventions was no more than 2.5 per cent...

...The affirmative action article was moved to last item on the conference agenda so that negotiations could continue...

...The governors tried to avoid offending either group by settling on perfect ambiguity...

...More remarkably, AFL-CIO leaders had not even been consulted...

...another wing obviously not only approves of quotas but is convinced it has skillfully-if not quite democratically-exerted the pressure necessary to settle the issue in its favor...

...Strauss paraded a bevy of party leaders to the microphone to proclaim the virtues of the compromised compromise...

...And it has become apparent that there are grounds to doubt the optimism of those who came away from the Charter Conference feeling that what took place there would have no effect on the struggle for the Democratic nomination in 1976...

...The full conference got underway amid reports that black, Latin and women's caucuses had met and all three were dissatisfied with the governors' proposal...

...Penn Kemble is Executive Director of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, and Josh Muravchik is coordinator of CDM's Charter Conference Clearing House...

...These conferences would have established the basis for an ideological party line: Democratic office-holders would have had to choose between supporting an adopted policy or defending themselves against accusations of disloyalty...

...Yet under threat of a New Politics walkout, the governors changed a whole paragraph -the one that gave clear meaning to the new rule on affirmative action...

...Leaders of McGovern's Presidential campaign swaggered through the aisles, claiming vindication for the 1972 Miami convention and for the party reforms that had helped shape it...

...Yet as thoughtful party leaders look to the new year-which will open the Presidential campaign of 1976-the mood is turning sober...

...The chair announced a recess so that the black, Latin and women's caucuses could meet to consider a new "compromise.' (Where, asked Representative Frank Annunzio, of Illinois, should the Italian, Irish and Jewish caucuses meet...

...It stirred black leaders to ask, with some justification, if quotas are acceptable for women, why not for blacks...

...Since these failed to develop, it was assumed unity had been achieved...

...They had been promised a good floor fight...