|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Table of Contents
September
Co-Chairs' Report
With so many people campaigning throughout the night, it was difficult to have our scheduled presentation, "Convention Delegates Tell All." But many of the delegates did attend and told their stories to members mingling after they had voted. We also had a fun reception at Martuni's, where candidates waited for the results of the vote-count. In next month's newsletter, we'll have biographies of each of the candidates we have endorsed, but here's a little bit of information on each of Alice's supervisorial picks. District 1: Lillian Sing District 3: Aaron Peskin District 5: Robert Haaland District 7: Sean Elsbernd District 11: Rebecca Silverberg Political Notes Leal Takes Charge: Susan Leal was approved at the beginning of August as Executive Director of the SFPUC. Officially starting last week, Leal is taking over one of the largest departments in San Francisco, with over 2000 employees, a $400 million budget and a $4 billion re-build of the region's water system. Bustos taps Alice: Alice Board member Luke Klipp has started as Campaign Manager for Miguel Bustos, with Alice Board member Jerry Fuller also working part-time for Bustos. Haaland taps Alice: Alice Board member Tom Runge will be working with the Haaland campaign to coordinate Alice members and other volunteers to tell Hayes Valley and other neighborhoods of District 5 why Robert Haaland should be their choice for supervisor. Democrats tap Alice: Alice Board member Lisa Williams is now the Democratic Party coordinator for San Francisco and Alice Board member Owen Stephens is working as the Volunteer Coordinator…expect a call from him to fill out our Alice-sponsored phone banking nights. Alice Phone Banking: The California Democratic Party is doing Phone Banking every weekday night at the HQ-with food and drink! Alice is formally sponsoring every fourth Thursday:Thursday, September 23 Thursday, October 28 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm California Democratic Party HQ 1844 Market Street, next to the LGBT Center To reserve your place, please contact Owen at 522-0223 or o.stephens@gmail.com.
See you on the campaign trail. Laura Spanjian & Rich Kowalewski Reese's
World: Perspectives from the Editor
Yes, this has been a rough month. Another one in the many rough months we've had many times over the years. So what do we do with these disappointments? And how do we deal with loss? First, a loss is never the end. It is a reminder of what's at stake, and a beginning of the next go-round. For there is always a next go-round. Justice is never finalized, nor certain, but always possible. Paraphrasing Jefferson, justice and liberty require constant vigilance and continued hope. Secondly, we, of all people, know how to deal with disappointment. We've seen discrimination and hate first hand. Each of us and all of us, the same, we know it well. We've known the hurt of friends turning their backs. We've known the abandonment by our families. We've known the pain of our partners being torn away from us due to laws, society, prejudice, inequalities, shame. We've known the maltreatment of others. We've been beaten and bashed and burned and bombarded and battered and bullied, from childhood through adulthood. We've known early death. We know how to deal with disappointment because we've had to do so in order to survive. It's not easy and it sucks, but we keep on keepin' on. And we do keep on keepin' on because we have also known the power of inner strength that comes from after the hurt. We've known the wisdom and courage that forms following a storm. And that's what we must take from these political and social setbacks. These are disappointments and losses, indeed. But we know in our hearts that we have the ability to handle them squarely, and that they only strengthen us in our souls. And with that knowledge, we can withstand the setbacks of this month, the future setbacks that will occur, as there will always be setbacks, and continue on to the future holding strongly to that eternal dream. Thirdly, and as awkward as it may sound, we are a people of faith. We are a people of faith because we have been through hell and we have pulled ourselves out. We believe in the future. We live our every day fulfilling the next page in our tome towards a haven of equality and betterment. We are a people of faith who forge our own sense of serenity full of eternal hope for better days. We, of all people, are a people of faith. And that is how we know to keep on keepin' on. I end with this quote from President Clinton, which has always been a favorite of mine. He spoke it just after the Democratic losses in 2002. Read it with faith, read it with hope, read it with a smile for the possibilities of tomorrow: "Martin Luther King said the arc of history is long, but it
bends toward justice. The people who want to be the benders toward
justice have the harder burden… So we lost a couple of elections.
Big deal. Compared to the sacrifices others have made to be agents
of constructive change, so what? So I say, take a deep breath. Decide
what you believe. Rear back and go on." Reese Aaron Isbell, M.P.P. Reese's
World Extra The headline for the day: "Cheney breaks rank on same-sex marriage; Vice president refers to daughter as lesbian publicly for 1st time" The reality: don't trust anything he says.
This is just part of an overall ploy, right around convention time, to make him and Bush and the Republicans look moderate.
The whole point of their upcoming convention is to 'moderate' their message. This is part of that. It's calculated.
They don't take questions from the audience that aren't planned in advance. They don't come up with answers and statements that aren't planned in advance.
They know they are losing moderates. They know that they want the convention to put out a moderate face.
This is the beginning of a long line of 'moderate' image-makeovers that we're going to see in the next few weeks and beyond.
Yeah, it's good to hear nice things, but his policies and activities are what count and he is diametrically opposed to our wellbeing.
And it's completely opposite of what their policies have been for the last four years. I've said this before and I'll say it again, don't believe the hype.
THEY LIE all the time.
This is a calculated stunt a few months before the election. Nothing more.
Reese Aaron Isbell, M.P.P. Membership vote on Prop H at next meeting 9/13 San Francisco Proposition H was formalized just before Alice's membership endorsement vote on August 9, so there was little information and no recommendation by the Alice PAC, resulting in "No Recommendation". The PAC has met and authorized a re-vote on Proposition H, recommending a "No" vote. It is important to note that the proposition is worded to prohibit
renaming, thus the PAC's recommendation is a "No" vote,
which allows the sale of naming rights to "Candlestick Park",
providing $3 million more to the Parks and Recreation Department.
Voting is between 6:30 and 8:00 sharp.
Alice Endorsements - November 2004
September General Membership Meeting Preview Two Noteworthy Guest Speakers:
Steven Hill is senior analyst for the Center for Voting and Democracy,and
author of Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take
All Politics (Routledge Press, August 2002), which author Michael
Lind has called "the most important book on American democracy
that has come out in many years." He also is co-author of Whose
Vote Counts (Beacon Press, 2001) and his articles and commentaries
have appeared in dozens of newspapers and magazines, including the
Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, The Nation,
Ms., Roll Call, American Prospect, Z Magazine, San Francisco Bay
Guardian, New York Daily News, Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle,
San Jose Mercury News, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle
and many others. He was campaign manager in San Francisco of the
successful effort that passed instant runoff voting for local offices,
and was one of the organizers of San Francisco's successful ballot
measure for public financing of local elections.
Aaron Belkin is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director
of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military
at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has published
in the areas of civil-military relations, social science methodology,
and sexuality and the armed forces. His recent studies include analyses
of aerial coercion and strategic bombing, the conceptualization
of coup-risk, and the relationship between coup-proofing strategies
and international conflict. His publications have appeared in International
Security, Armed Forces and Society, the Journal of Conflict Resolution,
Parameters (the official journal of the U.S. Army War College) and
elsewhere, and he has made presentations on gays in the military
at the Army War College, National Defense University, Naval Postgraduate
School, and U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Ranked
Choice Voting (RCV) Comes to San Francisco In November 2004, San Francisco voters will elect seven seats on the Board of Supervisors using ranked choice voting (RCV, also known as instant runoff voting). Proposition A, passed by San Francisco voters in March 2002, enacted ranked choice voting for all local offices, including mayor, district attorney, city attorney, and others. With a change to the electoral process like this, the public, prospective candidates and political activists all want to know "how does RCV work?" There has been much speculation about who gets hurt and who gets helped by this change. First, let's review some of the basics about RCV. HOW RCV WORKS: RCV allows voters to rank their candidates, 1, 2, 3, and uses the rankings to run a series of runoffs to determine the candidate who is supported by a majority of voters. A majority is defined as 50% of the vote, plus 1 more vote; so in an election with 100 voters, a majority would be 51 voters. Every voter has one vote, which they always give to their highest ranked candidate who is still in the race. When a voter walks into a polling site or opens her absentee ballot, she'll look at a ballot that looks very much like the current Optech Eagle ballot, except it will say, "Ranked Choice Voting: Vote for a different candidate for each choice." Then the voter will see three columns labeled "First Choice," "Second Choice," and "Third Choice." In each column, you will fill in the arrow next to the candidate you have selected for each choice. To see an approximate version of what the ballot will look like, visit http://www.sfgov.org/site/election_page.asp?id=25997. HOW THE BALLOTS ARE COUNTED: Following is a brief explanation, but at the end of the explanation are links to a Flash animation and a flow chart SHOWING how the ballots are counted. Usually seeing it is better than reading about it, so we encourage you to check out those links. To start, only the first-place rankings are counted. If a candidate has a majority of these first-place rankings, she or he is elected (just like San Francisco always has done, when one candidate has a majority of votes in the November election). But if no candidate has a majority of first-place rankings, then the "instant runoff" begins. The candidate with the LEAST number of first-place rankings is eliminated from the runoff. Voters whose candidate has just been eliminated, instead of wasting their vote on a candidate who could not win, now can give their vote to their runoff choice -- their second choice, as indicated by their ranked ballot. These ballots are added to the totals of continuing candidates. Now if one candidate has a majority of votes (which in this case would be their original first-place rankings added to the runoff rankings from those voters of the eliminated candidate) that candidate is elected. If still no candidate has a majority at this point, another last-place candidate is eliminated, and voters supporting that candidate give their ballot to their next-ranked candidate. The vote counting proceeds in rounds, in essence a SERIES of runoffs, until a candidate has a majority of the vote. Here are the rules to remember: 1) rank your candidates, 1, 2, 3; 2) it is best to use ALL your rankings, to make sure you participate in each runoff round; 3) your lower choice cannot defeat your higher choice, so there is no advantage to "bullet voting" (ranking only one candidate or ranking the same candidate three times). You can view a flash animation of how the RCV ballot counting will occur by visiting this link: www.fairvote.org/sf/vote/. You can also view a flow chart showing this at www.fairvote.org/irv/flow.pdf THE VOTING EQUIPMENT: San Francisco will use the same voting equipment that it has used since 2000, an "optical scan" system (i.e. NOT touchscreens) with a fully voter-verified paper trail (your paper ballot). The voting equipment comes with "error notification" -- if you make a mistake on your ballot -- i.e. skip a ranking, or vote for the same candidate twice -- the equipment immediately notifies you and you can correct it. Try it! Cast a vote in a RCV demo. Vote online for all seven Supervisor
races with this link: http://www.demochoice.org/sf.html Alice B Toklas LGBT Democratic Club General Membership Meeting 2nd Monday of each month You can now join online www.alicebtoklas.org/abt/joinonline.asp, or fill out the application below Membership Application Yes, I want to join the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club! __$35 Regular __I am renewing my membership __I will be a new member __I am a registered Democrat Name ___________________________________________________________________ Address _________________________________________________________________ City _________________________________________State: ______Zip: _____________ Phone: Day _____________________________Eve: _____________________________ Email: _________________________________________ Please send checks payable to “Alice B. Toklas
LGBT Democratic Club” and mail to: |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
'Tis
the season for politics. Alice was the place to be at the beginning
of the month as we made our endorsements in the very heated supervisorial,
board of education and community college board races. Over 150 Alice
members came to vote, with what seemed like as many volunteers carrying
signs, handing out literature and trying to persuade Alice members
entering the building to vote for their candidate.
We've
had a rough month-the state Supreme Court invalidating our marriage
licenses, my home state of Missouri choosing discrimination over
equality, a newly-acknowledged Gay governor resigning amid scandal,
being vehemently attacked and degraded in the U.S. House and Senate,
and did I mention the marriage license loss? And, well, we better
brace for some other possible state losses around the country in
the coming months as several conservative states vote to constitutionally
amend our rights away. 
Steven
Hill, 
Aaron
Belkin of the 