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S6 Bonus: Debriefing the Party Chair Election: Otter Voice Meeting Notes

S6 Bonus: Debriefing the Party Chair Election

Lynda Woolard1h 7min

Lynda Woolard

00:08

Welcome to Louisiana Lefty, a podcast about politics and community in Louisiana, where we make the case that the health of the state requires a strong progressive movement fueled by the critical work of organizing on the ground. Our goal is to democratize information, demystify party politics, and empower you to join the mission, because victory for Louisiana requires you. I'm your host, Lynda Woolard. Our bonus season continues as I welcome back our progressive Professor Stephen Handwerk to the podcast to debrief the Louisiana Democratic Party, Democratic State Central Committee and party chair elections that happened over the last couple of months. Here Stephen and I come full circle from our January 2023 conversation on demystifying party chair elections. We break this episode down into three sections where we discuss the march 23 DSCC election results, the April 13 state party reorganizational meeting where Randal Gaines when the chair race and first steps for newly elected members of party leadership at the start of their four year term. Sidenote, please excuse my are sound quality issues. I'm in the process of moving and all my equipment is packed. But that's a story for another day, as I mentioned in this debrief, and as I link to in the Episode Notes for the most accurate account of the party chair election read Piper Hutchinson's piece in the illuminator. Piper was the only reporter in the room as the meeting took place and made a point to interview several key players on the day. I cannot recommend it enough. It's well reported. properly informed, and a concise quick read. Stephen Handwerk or professor Handwerk Welcome back to Louisiana lefty

Stephen Handwerk

02:13

Lynda Woolard! It is a pleasure, it is a pleasure. I'm so happy to be back with you.

Lynda Woolard

02:19

Well, I hope we can just have some fun today with this conversation. Not that we don't always have fun with our conversations. But I'd like for this to be a little bit of a fun and rambling conversation. You and I started talking about the need for reform of the state party in January of 2023. And so I wanted to bring you on for a debrief because we're on the other side of most of that. I mean, there's still a lot of work to do. Don't get me wrong, but the first step that we've been talking about is essentially done at this point.

Stephen Handwerk

03:02

Yeah, look, and I'm incredibly excited. I mean, the amount of work I think everything that we had talked about earlier as an aspirational type thing, of people who want to make change, just getting involved and not seeking permission, just doing the work. I think that that ultimately paid off.

Lynda Woolard

03:22

I want to kind of hit this in three segments. So one, the first will be the the DSCC elections, and then we'll talk about the chair election. And then I want to talk about what the DSCC and the DPECS shouldn't be doing moving forward so we can comment within those terms. Love it. And I think as we're in Louisiana, watching this legislative session happen, it bears out the importance of why this matters, why making that change mattered. And the incredible up hill climb we have ahead of us, but you can't start the climb if you don't take the first step. Right.

Stephen Handwerk

04:04

That's so true. That is so true. And yeah, I'm super excited about having those opportunities. And you're right, this legislative session has just been a beast, talked about every single Republicans, you know, worst ideas all coming to the forefront. So yes, we need a functioning state party now more than ever.

Lynda Woolard

04:29

So let's talk a little bit about those DSCC elections. I wanted to preface some of this and this will kind of be come in and out weave in and out of this conversation. I found it very interesting that the local media, I mean, certainly the national media would have no idea how our state party works, but the local media really wasn't that up to speed on how it works. And I guess mostly because people don't pay as much attention to these races as they come in. By but there was a lot more focus and, you know, attention paid to it this year, but I found people contacting me frequently just on the nuts and bolts questions of how many people are going to be elected? When does this happen? When does this happen? What happens about if this happens? And so there was this educational piece of getting the local media and press to just understand what this was and how it functions?

Stephen Handwerk

05:28

Yeah, it's so true. And I think we alluded to this in some of our, in our breakdowns on the nuts and bolts of things in the past that, you know, because this is something that is only done once every four years, even party insiders forget about this stuff. Because it's not it's not muscle memory at this point. And in order to be able to conduct this, it was quite interesting to see I talked to a lot of reporters on background on trying just to educate them, like you said, on the nuts. Like, if this happens, then what if that happens, then what? And it was kind of interesting to see that sort of interest? And not just from like, one reporter, it was, yeah,

Lynda Woolard

06:10

it's all on them. And some of the issue with some of this is state law and some of its party by law, and then you have the National Party bylaws you have to contend with as well as the state party bylaws. So I even was going back and forth, like when a reporter would be like, 'Okay, you told me this, but where is that written? Okay. Where do I go find that? Which place?' So I was having to go back and forth between all those sources to try to find those pieces, just, you know, because reporters did want to be accurate to their credit.

Stephen Handwerk

06:48

Yeah, for sure. And there were multiple places that you and I both found, and I'm sure that there's many others that we didn't, that those four entities or those four documents disagree with each other. And then, and then who supersedes, what supersedes it, we were done no favors by the previous committee. And they're, you know, frankensteining the bylaws. That was that was very problematic. But the good news is, is that at the end of the day, they were able to get through it. And they were able to get through it, I believe in a in a in a rather positive way. And it was really exciting to me to see people running real campaigns for these DSCC seats, Lynda, I mean, it warmed by little organizer, heart, seeing and hearing from so many people that were up and utilizing call tools, and that they were up and utilizing, and making sure that they were marking off names, and they were actually counting votes, and they were actually doing the work that's inspiring to me. And if nothing if we got nothing else out of this, I think we just you know, I think that you just helped give birth to another, you know, 50 brand new organizers that didn't know how to do these things. And now it can and do.

Lynda Woolard

08:07

Well. And I didn't want to mention because this was another thing I think the media kind of got confused about. And there were a few reasons why they did. But we did have that blue reboot. That was a support group for the candidates. Blue reboot did not recruit the candidates, it was a pack like entity that was their support, and to show what a coordinated campaign could look like, if you had a party that was functioning. So but often the media kind of was like, Oh, well, these people have joined this group. There were a lot of people involved. But there was one person that said Drew and I had gone out recruited all these candidates. And I was like, 'no, it was a huge effort.' And recruiting the candidates, I have to say, there were multiple Democratic Progressive and constituency groups, and then just one off individuals across the state who worked on that massive recruitment effort. And you know why that was important is because we were involving so many people and getting more folks out there to understand the process. And know this was happening and know that these rank and file Democrats themselves, even if they didn't want to run, they could participate and help folks who ran or just go vote in these elections and have some say through choosing their representatives at a party and who was going to lead the party. But that was another thing, the media and I'm not trying to call the media out, but I do want to correct the record, right? Because that was another thing I think the media didn't quite understand. We kept getting labeled a progressive group. And we had made a specific effort to not just be a progressive group, because we thought that would fail, right? If you want to pass progressive issues, laws values in Louisiana, you have to elect more Democrats and not all Democrats are progressive. So you have to think, more holistically like that. So we did try to correct that. And I had one reporter, when I told him it's not a progressive movement. It's a reform movement. Right? And he told me, I'll take progressive out of the piece. But I'm not going to use reform because that's a loaded term. And I'm like, 'well, like progressive is a loaded.'

Stephen Handwerk

10:48

Exactly. Exactly. Well, and that was the focus, right? I mean, the focus was, if you would like to see change in the party, help be that change. You can be that change and inspiring people. And demystifying is a term that we've used frequently, but demystifying how it is you can get on the ballot that how you can run for one of these seats, how many of the folks that were working with a group went out and qualified, and they won their seats without opposition? Right? Yeah, that was kind of exciting to see as well, that folks were actually putting themselves out there, and they were getting elected into the seats. And then then the key bit was seeing how many of those individuals that went and help their friends.

Lynda Woolard

11:32

Yes, yes. DeWitt was like the superstar of that, but got elected, unopposed. And then just went out and knocked a million doors and made a million phone calls. So shout out to her. I also want to shout out the DSA, the democratic socialists of America, who are obviously super progressive, but put some of that aside, in order to really be collaborative in this effort. They were one of the first groups that reached out to us and said, We want to help we had LGBTQ groups, criminal justice groups, repro rights groups, climate groups, regional Democratic groups helping with this effort. But DSA was maybe the first group that reached out and did the most and won so many of their races. And, and they really, you know, to borrow the phrase, they really understood the assignment. They really understood that in order to get a better Louisiana for the people, that they needed to be team players. Yeah, I was really appreciative of that collaboration and that partnership with them.

Stephen Handwerk

12:44

Yeah, and, you know, there are there were some exceptions. But for the most part, what I thought was also really inspiring is that a lot of folks left their egos at the door, and then just wanted to get to work. There were exceptions to that rule. But for the most part, people really wanted to just get in there. And a lot of folks were admitting, I don't know what I don't know. And they were willing to find out. There's a lot of folks that are, are really digging in and, and I God that is really inspiring, you know, for old hacks like us that have been around for a minute, you know, we have to fight you and I think have to fight on the regular of not becoming just like jaded about things right about? Well, it is how it is and you know, the powers that be, but I'm getting what real people can actually come in and all of a sudden relight that fire that was, you know, just kind of barely a smolder. And they certainly inspired me. I'm certainly excited to be working with so many of them now, as they try and figure out now this new role, right, because it got the first assignment, like you said, Now it's on to the second assignment. Right?

Lynda Woolard

13:53

So a couple other things that maybe weren't quite understood. And I don't know how much of this was being willfully obtuse about it. There was some kind of commentary out there that this was a attempt a progressive takeover of the party. untrue. It was not a takeover of the party. And it was not even a takeover meant. It was just trying to get people in who wanted to do the work and reform period. And there was not big power play. There was not people seeking power. It was literally people seeking to help others in our communities, and using the party as a vehicle to do that. And then it there was also a notion that it was anti elected official. And that was also not true. We actually had folks who reached out to elected officials. We had a couple of elected officials who sat down with the blue reboot candidates, and they had great conversations And, you know, the elected official would wish them well and say, hey, well, good luck in this run. And either way, I hope we work together at the end. So and that's what we wanted, right? We want it to be able, because from our perspective, our elected officials are up against it right now, particularly in the legislature, they have their hands full, they have their job cut out for them over the next four years, we thought our thinking was let's give these party jobs to somebody else who has the time and the energy to work on it. And it wasn't about being anti those people, it was about trying to give them more support, quite frankly. And so that's, that's what that was. So, you know, props to the elected officials who sat down with those folks and wished them well, and because again, part of this is building a bench to write. So each of these folks who ran an election, whether they wanted or not, have now run one election, and may feel like they can do that again, and some other play

Stephen Handwerk

16:08

And not only that, I think also to one of those untold stories out of all of this is also there were more than a few examples of this. And you probably know more intimately on this, there were more than a few examples of folks went out and qualified. And then they found out that someone else qualified against them, they went and met, and some of them were through, yeah, some of them were like, look, this person has my same ideals in place. And I'm going to withdraw from the race and fully support them. That again, to me is is anti, all of the things that what that is the example of all of the things that we were trying to communicate right from the start on this is is more of a selfless thing, more less egocentric, more movement building. And to see that sort of thing play out in like real life was really kind of palpable, because when I would get those reports back from some of you guys that were there on the ground, I was like, Holy crap, this is a real movement now.

Lynda Woolard

17:10

Well, and look that even happened before qualifying, where we had multiple people come forward and say, you know, 'I want to run for the DSCC seat in district 23.' We've had like four or five people, you know, sign up to run for both the male and the female seats there, because it's a new district, people were excited to get involved. And we had the meet and, and all but two instances, when we knew in advance that there were multiple people who wanted to run for a seat when they came to us and let us know. And we got all those folks together, they all came away saying we're going to defer to this person, we're going to let this person run. So we've got one reform candidate running in the race. And that was really inspiring that I kept it very, very mission driven,

Stephen Handwerk

18:03

Right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Lynda Woolard

18:06

And all the groups that came together to find these candidates to either put up their own members as candidates, or to go out and find candidates somewhere, we'll all continue. Now they're going back to do their constituency work that they've been doing all along. And, you know, probably many of them are up at the legislature fighting every day, they'll continue their initial missions. But now many of them have a seat at the table when the Democratic Party is making decisions. And that will also help their work in the long run. For sure, one of the other things we saw with the blue reboot candidates is that while not all of them won their DSCC, many of them did get on there local democratic parish executive committees, I think it could be very game changing in parts of the state that are more read. Yeah,

Stephen Handwerk

19:04

well, and that has been something that I experienced a lot when I would travel the state back in the day, and meet with some of these local deep tech folks where they would tell me, look, we're scared to death to do anything very public, because we're worried about your livelihoods. We're worried about, you know, losing our jobs. And that was very palpable. And now seeing some of these folks that are putting themselves forward that want to do the work and want to be public about it. That's really inspiring, because it's going to take organization all across the state in order to be able to be successful in any event initiatives that many of us as our shared goals have.

Lynda Woolard

19:44

The number of the reform candidates who won couldn't outright control the chair vote. There were not enough to run for them to say then go recruit a chair candidate and say we got your back. Right. Right. And so they didn't have absolute control over who won. But we had three identified candidates at that point. And I think what they started to do the first one of the first things they did that I liked is they elected leadership of the reform caucus. Right. And so they chose Devonte Lewis, who's our Public Service Commissioner and Southeast Louisiana, and Madeline Bromley, who defeated the former chair for the DSCC seat and what some people didn't understand when Madeline beat Katie Bernhardt, folks thought she couldn't then run for chair not true. She was able to run for chair without being a DSCC member. But it's certainly signaled some weakness that her own constituency wasn't looking to send her back to the DSCC. So Devonte and Madeline worked together, there were few other folks in leadership and supportive them. But those were the the two key leaders. And they worked really hard to keep that coalition together to keep them voting together. And then to find persuadable people outside the coalition who would be willing to vote for reform. And there were folks just work in the phones. And I knew going in and again, I was not involved in making phone calls, but I was happy to run spreadsheets. If people would give me information, I was happy to clock that into a spreadsheet. And we were very close to having the vote. In fact, most folks who were making calls were probably getting a little irritated at me, because I was kind of driving like you got to keep making calls, you know, we need the absolute vote count, right on the number. And they were kind of telling us or they were telling me, we think we have it, you know, sometimes people who are saying maybe we think they're really with us, like the yeses, or maybe five short of having all the yeses we need, we're pretty sure some of these maybes are with us. But we were pretty darn close to having that vote count before we went into Election Day.

Stephen Handwerk

22:14

Well and that's what's so incredibly important was, you know, a lot of folks, you know, think, Oh, I've got the DSCC seat, my work is done. Well, no, it was it became then now we're in chapter two. Right now we're in chapter two, chapter three is actually conducting the meeting. So yeah, that was really inspiring to see people that kept working. And that kept, you know, negotiating. Because again, now if you want to be successful with anything, you know, with the 210 member, in theory, body, you got to be able to convince half of those people to agree with you to get anything done. And so you want to share vote, you mean, moving on the chair, vote Yeah, if you want to pass a resolution in support of teachers, or if you want to do you know, something for the LGBTQ community, you've got to be able to, to convince the others to come along with you. And so seeing them do some of that early work of being able to turn that together to be able to have those conversations and say, I think, you know, we might need a new chair, and this is why I think it what do you think that was a really good exercise? I think a really good a really good work.

Lynda Woolard

23:21

Just as a quick footnote, before moving to the chair fully to the to the chair election, folks have asked what will blue reboot do? And you know, blue reboot was a pack like entity to reform the party. So the question is, then blue reboot, there's a very specific phrase, reboot. Right. Right. So what are the next reboots that are even needed? And so I think that's still in question. But I can see that being just like we were talking about what some of those deepfakes in the red areas where you need to reboot the Democratic Party. They're not Democrat versus Democrat, Democrat rebooting all together against the party. Right. I think that would be the next logical step there. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. areas, and those are certainly areas that need more support. Yeah,

Stephen Handwerk

24:18

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.

Lynda Woolard

24:20

I think that that's important to recognize, again, that that was not a progressive movement, because in some of those red areas, progressive is not the right representative for that voters shift. So I think that making sure that we remember that we have the right candidates for the right districts is still important, right?

Stephen Handwerk

24:41

Yeah, absolutely. And also to that's not a bad thing, it's not a bad thing to have to be collaborative. It's not a bad thing. To have folks that disagree on things when you agree on the core mission. And so that that is kind of also to what I think is is going to be one of those Next challenges, right is to figure out, you know, what's going on? And where's our lane? What are the things that what are the balls that we should be swinging out to use a sports analogy, which is hilarious for me. But yeah, I mean, that's going to have to be there next charges kind of figuring that out. And we have a lot of brand new people that have a lot of great ideas. And I'm super excited to see what comes next. But there is going to be some of that of still trying to keep everybody rowing in the same direction.

Lynda Woolard

25:31

That's, to me, was the hardest job working for the Democratic Party was keeping the Democrats collaborative and rowing in the same direction that that was...

Stephen Handwerk

25:41

Boy, do I know. Boy, do I know it?

Lynda Woolard

25:43

I know that you do. So let's jump to talk about the chair election itself. As a recording, they're still forming the executive committee, they've got the officers elected, but there's still these regional congressional district seats to talk to so we won't go too deep into the whole executive committee. Just because I don't really want to super interfere with those elections.

Stephen Handwerk

26:09

Right. Right. Right. Yeah, they still got they have so so there's some so people running some races.

Lynda Woolard

26:16

I will make one pitch that you and I have talked a great deal about, not just in this context, but in general, is, first of all, just the need to recognize and look, that's something that they have to do for this convention. Not, not the con con, but the democratic national convention that's coming on the importance of diversity and making sure that all our various beautiful rainbow of voices are included. So that's a space these Congressional Caucus elections are really a space where you can do that. Make sure that you're having a diverse group of people serving on this executive committee, and just my experience, Stephen is there. There are very eager people, often white progressive, often male, people who are the first to sign up when as a leadership position, and no shade meant to that good for them for their motivation. There are some people, some constituencies who feel less, maybe supported, less safety, in some forward immediately sign up for stuff. And sometimes in particular, I mean, I talked about this with women running for office all the time for women, you got to ask them seven times to run for a seat. But like your effort, that's the kind of thing I think people need to be aware of is that sometimes you have to be the leader and go look at who's running and say, well, we might need to go ask someone to run for this seat so that we're making sure we're including all of those voices that we should include as progressives and as the Democratic Party.

Stephen Handwerk

28:14

That's absolutely right. And that is incredibly important. You know, just you know, quickly, for as I came on to the executive committee for the state party, 1000 years ago, this probably is 22 years ago, I was the token gay. They literally had an LGBT or an LG, lesbian and gay liaison on the executive committee. And for I think I served determined a half in that position. And then it became available for and then I ran for a congressional district representative seat, but there was no way that they would have elected me because there was no way. There's no way I could go back into the closet like that was not going to happen. But there was very real concern about electing someone to disposition as an openly gay man in the, you know, early aughts. Right. And so that was something that was difficult, but also to it was difficult for me to wrap my own head around, like, should I even run for one of those positions? Do I even have the capacity to do one of those positions? And you know, it's kind of funny to hear me say now, because normally now, I'm like, there's a fight, let me get in there. But in those days, it was a lot different. It was a lot different. And so I have to think that today is still the same thing like you are articulating. There are still a lot of folks and a whole bunch of different communities for a whole bunch of different reasons, not only just demographically, but we're also talking socio economic individuals we're talking about a whole host of young folks don't always feel like they can sit at the big people's table or what have you. So you do have to do that extra work. You do have to actually say you should Consider this. And if we're not doing that it's not going to happen by itself. It just doesn't. Diversity doesn't just happen naturally on its own, except perhaps maybe in nature. But it does not happen in political organizations, you have to be aggressive about it. Yeah.

Lynda Woolard

30:16

And so tell me, just real quickly, I don't want to go too far down that road. But I mean, even for the Democratic National Convention, there are specific quotas, essentially, that you have to fill as a state party, right?

Stephen Handwerk

30:32

Yeah, there is. And there's very real blowback, when the state doesn't recognize those, those goals. And so they're articulated as affirmative action goals, and it is to do some outreach. And those categories are African American, they are LGBT, they're one of the one of the groups that I actually added to our mix for Louisiana was labor. But it's also those individuals with disabilities. Those are all things that are part of that beautiful rainbow that we talked about earlier, to making sure that those voices have a seat at the table. And that is incredibly important. So the DNC mandates that but one of the things that folks forget about is the DNC not only mandates that for the convention and makes the state parties form a Diversity Action Committee. But they also say that that committee indoors, so that committee's work is not done. When the delegates are elected, they need to continue that work. They need to continue that outreach and continue that growing and building. And sadly, in too many, especially southern states, that does not typically happen.

Lynda Woolard

31:40

We see time and time again, that representation matters. Yeah. And so were some folks may say, you know, you we got to choose the best person for the job, that that means different things. And when you don't have someone who represents different communities at the table, you're not hearing those voices. And that's really, again, the whole premise of the Democratic Party.

Stephen Handwerk

32:07

100%. That's exactly right.

Lynda Woolard

32:09

What we're hearing from all those voices. So let's talk about... there was a lot of drama leading up to the vote for the chair. There was a lot of drama. I mean, it fortunately for me, I was not in the thick of it. But there was just every day, a lot of drama going on prior to that election day. Right? How much of that you were hearing?

Stephen Handwerk

32:32

Oh, yeah, I heard a lot of it. And, you know, it was interesting to me that, you know, before they even got to voting, we saw a clear illustration of the mismanagement that the party was currently under, by the setup to this meeting. So I look at this as a standpoint of for all of those folks that were the maybe columns that you were tracking and helping folks keep that spreadsheet and everything, any of those folks on the maybe when they realized that they were locked out of where the meeting was supposed to be, when they realized there weren't enough chairs, in order for everyone to have a seat when they realized that there was going to be no air conditioning, when they realized those things. I think that might have also pushed them over a little bit. So you can't you can summarize the whole three and three quarters year term of the former administration, by just the setup for that new reorg meeting, in my opinion.

Lynda Woolard

33:33

Yes. Look, even before the day, there was a lot of drama and sometimes overly dramatic stuff happening. There was misinformation. There were people were trying to strategize quietly in order to not trigger opposition being able to put Yep, defensive plays in action, and then leaks were happening and there was all kinds of drama going on around that. We knew we had a field. Bernhardt, Randal Gaines Davante Lewis had talked about running, it appeared that he was not going to run and Tyrin Truong talked about running. And he had it looked like he was coming in late to this, but he actually been talking about that since November. He had simply been trying to defer. Because if Davante was going to run and he was saying that he might Tyrin didn't want to run again. Yeah, Davante but we knew who was going to run by election day. It was a temple of those three people. And look, it's hard to get people don't agree to run for chair of the state party. It is a hard job. There's really no pay. You get a stipend but you're not paid for it. It's not a stepping stone to something else. If you think you want to run for some other office, this is the worst job to take. Correct. And for some other office, so it's hard to recruit for that position. So look, anyone who considered it at all gratitude, gratitude, considering putting yourself up for that, and I'll just say, I have nothing against Katie Bernhardt personally, I was on the record as saying, I think she did an insufficient job is chair, period. And there was no other I have no animosity towards her, I have nothing else negative to say to her, I hope she lives, a wonderful life. by all appearances, it looks like she has and will continue to do so. And I know there were some people, because I was public about this. She had said some negative things about me in the press. And there were some people clutching their pearls about that very worried for me, and I'm like, I don't care. I'm not running for anything. Let her say what she wants to say about me. That's fair, right? I have attacked her house, she's done her job. It's her right to attack me back. And I'm really, I think of that as, and I hope I mentioned this, because I hope people will think about it. If you're going to be public, you're gonna get attack. Right? So I think of it as like Nancy Pelosi talks about, you know, if you're gonna be in the arena, you've got to be willing to throw a punch and take a punch for the children. Right? That's kind of just part of the deal. If you're going to be out there fighting for the people and future generations. You got to be willing to have some folks say some negative stuff about you. I don't even remember what Katie said about me in the press at this point. I don't care. But Election Day was wild. I was not there. Thank goodness.

Stephen Handwerk

36:40

Turns out you got to be nominated. Who knew? I mean, everyone knew that's the whole thing. Everyone knew that you had to be nominated. But yet, I don't understand how, again, focused on focused on everything but the substance at this meeting, it seems and, you know, that was so crazy to hear, you know, and granted, I was hearing it, you know, second and third hand, because I wasn't there. And I was just blown away by how ill prepared. She was to go into this with, with really being serious about worrying being reelected. I mean, she really thought that she deserved to be reelected, it seems from everything she...

Lynda Woolard

37:26

She had been making calls, there were people whose words you've called them multiple times. And, Stephen, the confusing part is she understood she had to be nominated and seconded four years ago, right, so she had set it up four years ago, I don't know why wouldn't have done it this time. So again, a functioning party would coach any chair, candidates and potential chair candidates that we want to know in advance right now ask me that four years ago, I want to know in advance who is your nominee, and who's your second?

Stephen Handwerk

37:58

Exactly, and I want to know what the speech is going to be. And I want to know, yeah, all of that kind of stuff needs to get worked out. And also to that stuff needs to get now I'm going back from being on the inside of planning the day where I divorce myself from current leadership, I had to go through this before, where I had to run to elections, that I had to divorce myself from current matters, right, because I am a dear friend of yours, I really wanted you to become Chair of our party. But as Executive Director, I had to facilitate a meeting and call the balls and the strikes, I had to educate everyone coming into that meeting and prepare them I understand none of that happened with for this meeting. But I would prepare all of those candidates. If you are planning on running, you need to have a nominator we would love to know who that nominator is. So we can purposely call on them. So they don't forget to nominate you. Like we did that work as staff because the staff takes a step back. They divorce themselves from current leadership in order to be the adjudicators and the umpires, if you will, of that meeting. And so I had to do that twice, once where the current chair was running for reelection, and I had to make sure that that was a fair election. But then secondarily on the outgoing when everyone knew I was leaving, I had already made that statement. I was leaving. But that last meeting that was on Zoom, I had to make sure that that meeting was going to be run fairly and we did that. And here we are, but none of that work was done for this meeting and it blew my mind hearing and then and then they went and said okay, oh someone nominator in the room anyone here did anyone nominate? Just make yourself known if you nominated Katie and no one even would lie. That was another thing that kind of blew my mind.

Lynda Woolard

39:57

I was watching all of this because we're Britt Gondolfi put it on her Instagram feed, right? I was being able to watch it in real time. And it was really fascinating. Yeah. And I want to give a shout out to Piper Hutchinson of the illuminator, who actually went to the meeting, I think she was the only media that actually went in person to the meeting. She was gifted with white the wild day. And I'm going to put a link to her article on that meeting, because I think it was the best course she was there, of course, best reported. You the best reported piece on on that day, in my opinion, but her tweet I thought really summed it up. The tweet that she put out, introducing her piece said Katie Byrne Hart's tenure as Louisiana Democratic Party chair was marked by accusations of inefficiency and incompetence. It ended Saturday in a catastrophic procedural failure. And I thought that really summed up the meeting really well. There were folks that tried to say that, Oh, no, you know, it wasn't a failure or whatever. But you're totally right. There were people who said who nominated her because they were trying to claim that someone had nominator Will no one heard him say anything. No one heard anyone who didn't, they gave them the floor and ask them to repeat it, and no one would say anything. So it wasn't even about being outmaneuvered. She just wasn't nominated. And frankly, I think that Kyle Green was the one who stepped up and said, 'I don't like this, I think we should open the nominations back up and allow someone to nominate her if they'd like.' But they had to vote on that. Right? They had to vote to do that,

Stephen Handwerk

42:01

To reopen because they had already closed nominations. Right.

Lynda Woolard

42:04

So the number of people in the room who were not willing to give her that opportunity, right to be nominated after having failed the first time Emmy nominated, I think people were just over it, they were just like enough of it.

Stephen Handwerk

42:21

We were an hour and 40 minutes by my record, by my note taking, they were an hour and 40 minutes already into the meeting by the time we got to that point. So people were already frustrated, it was taking so long in un airconditioned building with not enough chairs, water...

Lynda Woolard

42:40

And water and pens and some other stuff out there that they didn't have

Stephen Handwerk

42:43

They didn't have pens in order to be able to vote. Crazy! But yeah, there there were. That was incredibly troublesome. To see all of that. Not only that, but I mean, when you look at again, the setup of the meeting, when you got that agenda, what were your thoughts, when you got the agenda, that first agenda that came out for the meeting where there was going to be an executive directors report, a chairs report and ever that all before the elections happened, and it was like that was breaking with? I mean, multiple decades of history of how these meetings go, you don't allow especially when the chair is running again to be reelected. You don't allow them to give a full chair speech, because that is that is undue influence, they should not get that extra amount of time. So I'm glad that they dispensed with that that was the first motion that I as I recall that was put on the floor? Well, no, the first motion was to actually call the roll. So I thought that was interesting to make sure that they actually did have a quorum, but then secondarily, they also made the motion to dispense with the agenda and move right to the officer elections.

Lynda Woolard

43:55

And the thing that you passed over, was they had also tried to put some appointments in for, which we can know, because the chair had the former chair had filled those vacancies. We would have anticipated that had they put those people in that they would have voted for the chair. Right. They would have voted for the former chair. So I think they had to also make a motion to say you can't do that today.

Stephen Handwerk

44:27

Again, that was something that we dealt with a decade and a half ago by putting in the bylaws that the first order of business had to be the officer elections. They then change that in this last term, interestingly, okay.

Lynda Woolard

44:39

Well, look, Kyle Green. Representative Kyle Green, stepped up and said, We should give her the opportunity to get nominated. I'm glad he did that. I think that's a gift for the party because you've then got a vote. Had there been this drama, where she didn't get nominated and Then Randal was installed with no vote. I think there could have always been this question. There were some people who were going to vote for Randal and still voted to reopen nominations, because they really wanted there to be a cheer vote. I can understand why other people were just like, No, we're not going to mess with that. Had a chance to get nominated. She didn't do it. Let's move on. And I can get I see both. But my opinion that vote shows you a she didn't have the votes to be chair. Yeah, because I wanted her to be chair you were going to vote?

Stephen Handwerk

45:36

Exactly. That was your option to give her at least an opportunity.

Lynda Woolard

45:40

But I do know of at least a couple of people who have publicly said they were going to vote for Randal, but still voted to reopen nominations. So I think that we can feel secure, that he would have gotten the radar vote counting in advance. And from that.

Stephen Handwerk

46:01

Yeah, because ultimately, you know, that was I mean, that was the high that was the high tide of votes that the outgoing chair could have possibly gotten was the vote to reopen. Right? That was the highest high because like you said, there were some folks that just wanted to see the election, they weren't going to vote for her. They were going to vote for Randal, but they at least wanted to see the votes. So the most amount of votes she could have possibly have gotten was the 60. And we know that 90, more than 90 people I was thinking was 94 voted to not reopen.

Lynda Woolard

46:35

Okay. One more comment about that election. It was ultimately a binary choice between Katie Bernhardt and Randal Gaines, even though Tyrin Truong said he might put his name in the ring. And he had been in communication with the caucus with the Reform Caucus. And again, as a mission driven person had decided that if it was easier to get reform, by only having two candidates on the ballot, he was willing to back out. They were trying not to let people know that in advance, because that was a strategy of making sure they weren't signaling anything to the other side. And some folks didn't quite understand that some of the new folks couldn't quite follow that.

Stephen Handwerk

47:24

I get that there was some strategy behind this. And then it wasn't as as easy as doing it. Yeah. Because again, at the end of the day, you still have to have some strategy when it comes down to all of this stuff.

Lynda Woolard

47:36

Oh, particularly when you get to these chair elections. These are I kept saying it. And maybe maybe when I phrased it this way, it was insufficient definition. But I kept saying, the grassroots gets the chance to weigh in on the DSCC elections. Once you get to the chair vote and the executive committee votes. It's a highly political process. And that was a term I use over and over again, maybe that didn't quite explain it well enough.

Stephen Handwerk

48:04

And that, yeah, perhaps we should have drawn you out a little bit more on that.

Lynda Woolard

48:10

But I just wanted to mention Tyrin, because I think he has a big future ahead of him. And due to Louisiana politics, he faced some both unfair criticisms, and some fair criticisms. And over the course of this, I think, you know, what I was worried about is our people dinging up this up and coming politician over our internal war, right, like, building up our people. Yeah, that was a concern I had, just like just before your candidate here, just before candidate you don't need to go after the opponent here. But I do just want to mention him as something... Mayor Truong of Bogalusa ran a great campaign for mayor. And he will be someone that I think we can go back to and expect more from him as we're building this bench that we need to build up.

Stephen Handwerk

49:08

And what I desperately hope is that he does get in more involved with the party that he does, you know, start reaching out and start to develop some of the musculature that you would need to run for higher office because that's what we want to see from him. And that is something that look, I'll tell him right here right now, with everyone listening to as my witness, I'll be the first donor to whatever sort of campaign that he wants to do in the future because I do believe in him. But I also believe that, you know, he's got a lot of learning to do and boy, he has really done some great work there in Bogalusa. So I do want to see more from him.

Lynda Woolard

49:46

And that's, that's a hard thing to that would have been a hard balance for him to be mayor Bogalusa and party chair and that and that became evident at some point that what you need to do to be mayor Bogalusa was not necessary. They're really running parallel to what particularly a state party that has to be the opposition party to Jeff Landry and the Republican majority. That would have been a really rough

Stephen Handwerk

50:12

While he's trying to deliver funding and infrastructure for his own city. Yeah, impossible.

Lynda Woolard

50:19

And then look, there were some folks from the establishment wing of the party, who were the morning of the day before in the morning of kind of crying out for party unity, and kind of chastising some of us for not being pro unity. And I'm like, Yeah, like that will come. This is an election at this point where animal election, and you know, that's what an election is a competition. So you're going to choose the person you want to represent you. And then that person needs to go make sure that the party comes back together

Stephen Handwerk

50:57

But see, they were using the wrong word, Lynda, they were using the party, they were using Unity when they met loyalty. And that is the problem there. When you go through elections, you actually have a choice. And just because you don't agree with others choice doesn't mean that you are not unified in wanting to have a functioning democratic party. It just means that you are not loyal to existing structure, you want to see things better. And that's where I think that they were trying to do that. They want to try and guilt you into those positions when we knew want change when you want to improve when you want to better that that doesn't mean that you are not still wanting the institution to work.

Lynda Woolard

51:41

Right? Or that you're not pro Democrat? Yeah. Does that mean you're against? Right fellow Democrats? I look I again, props to Piper Hutchinson, who reported something which so rarely gets reported. She mentioned and we had been hearing this she mentioned that she was getting reports from several DSCC members that Congressman Troy Carter and former congressman Cedric Richmond were calling DSCC members on behalf of Katie Bernhardt in the final hours leading up to the vote. I think that was part of the reason some of the strategies were trying to be kept private. So, you know, we weren't signaling to folks, but that, you know, Piper reported that and it's so often won't get reported, because the reporters I think, have some fear, fear of retribution. Oh, yeah. So I think sometimes that stuff just doesn't get reported. But I actually, quote, tweeted when she reported on that and said, Hey, this is a fair question to ask of these folks. If Katie wins, what is your theory behind having her still be chair? And I got some pushback on that from some of the elected officials that, you know, I was saying bad things about I'm just like, I really was it it was not an attack on the congressman. It's a fair question. We need facts so that we can ask those fair questions of our weapons. Right. That's right. So that and then what I really loved hearing was on the last podcast, which we did with new chair, Randal Gaines. He said that Congressman Carter and former congressman Cedric Richmond, had both called him to congratulate him and say they want to help. And that's how that should work.

Stephen Handwerk

53:39

Exactly. That is exactly how it should work. And I have no doubt that the new chairman is going to have a while he does, he has a lot of work in front of him. But I truly believe that he has the skill set and the mentality and the disposition to be able to manage all of those relationships and get people rowing in that same direction. So I'm super excited about what this portends for the state party of Louisiana.

Lynda Woolard

54:10

Okay, so we have chair Randal Gaines, we've talked to chair Randal Gaines, I am happy to support chair Randal Gaines moving forward. Now. I've told some of these DSCC members that if they want to do a zoom with you to talk about some of their responsibilities and some of the stuff that they can now feel empowered to do that. I'd be happy to do it. But top lines, what are these DSCC members and even some of the D pecs? What are the key starter actions that they should be looking to do Stephen? Yeah.

Stephen Handwerk

54:40

So you know, one of the things I'm happy to report that I'm working really closely with the new chair, the new vice chair and with a new interim Executive Director, Drew Crestridge, who was a finance director we worked with threw a lot at the party officially. So I'm really excited about the direction but by the way, they're just Finding out where the bathrooms are. So we're trying to figure this out and build this plane as we fly it. So there are some begging

Lynda Woolard

55:11

Which is true every time a new chair comes in. This is not unique to them. And PS every time a new chair comes in, in Louisiana, we are also getting ready to go to the Democratic National Convention, which is like humongous undertaking. So you're doing it is a lot all right at the front anyway, sorry to interrupt you.

Stephen Handwerk

55:30

You couldn't be more on point with that. They are literally trying to get a drink of water out of a firehose right now, and all of the things that are coming out of and none of them are like easy things, right? None of them are like, oh, yeah, I need to fundraise. Well, yeah, you need to do that. But also to you have to go with what a 50 page rule document on how to conduct a national convention, you have to become an expert on delegation breakdowns and the goals that have been set and how you're going to reach those goals. Because not surprisingly, if we just take the setup of the meeting that we just talked about for the reorg meeting, not a lick of this stuff has really been done prior to the new chairman and the new interim Executive Director and the new vice chair coming in. So there is a lot of work for them to do. But how can members help and move things forward? I can tell you right now, I just got off the phone with drew a few minutes ago. And I know that he is putting together some taskforce he's working on putting together some teams that can start taking on some of these big issues. I think that folks should get in the headspace of thinking, Okay, I want to do all the things. But what are the things that I could be the most helpful with right now. And there are a couple of different buckets, right? There's the organizing how to organize people throughout the state, how to organize on the grassroots level on the DPAC level, up to the state level, think about that, think about, hey, I could fundraise, I could go and be a low dollar Bundler and be able to get some people to give, you know, a $10 sustaining membership. And I can help collect some of those. Or I know some big people that might want to get in front of the whole delegation at the convention, or the big gala that's coming up because we want our new chair to be successful. There are ways that you can get in and fundraising. There's also ways that you can help in political font political messaging, and talking about that, what I'm also loving to see that you don't need an invitation to do this. A lot of the members are starting to realize that they can order they can start putting together an unofficial constituency caucuses with the goal of becoming official constituency caucuses. So I've met with some folks that are trying to form an LGBTQI caucus constituency caucus, which I think is brilliant, right? It is brilliant that these folks are wanting to just jump in and get things done. Now, but word of caution that I will say is, I know a lot of folks, too, are trying to say, well, in Texas, every one of their counties has their own office, and they have their own staff, and they have their own. We're not Texas, we're not any of these other state parties. This is truly the analogy of you have to crawl before you can walk. And right now we need to learn to crawl there were a lot of things that were broken down. When we passed the baton and left the party four years ago that needs to be rebuilt first, secondarily, then we have to start thinking about what are the things that we need to invest in that will produce the biggest results for us short term, then we can start thinking that medium and long term. So be part of the solution by being willing to jump in and help and help be led, and then turn yourself into that leader. So take a moment, things are happening. And you know, there are plenty of things to do but start thinking now about where you could be the most effective.

Lynda Woolard

59:01

Some of the things too, for the new people who are new to the party, is to bear in mind. A few things. One, it's it's not a corporation or a government entity. I'd say it operates more like a cross between a perpetual campaign and a nonprofit. You are always campaigning nonstop. That is certainly what it felt like the three years. What's there, yeah. But because you're fundraising, and you're dealing with volunteers, it's got that nonprofit vibe to it. And it's also got that social organization, vibe to it. It's got that aspect, where you're with sort of a social club

Stephen Handwerk

59:48

Yep. And with all those examples that you're just giving Lynda, I think it's so appropriate in this too, because in all of those organizations, you also have to realize that you're not always going to get your exact way and or your way might be delayed. But because you're part of the group, you're wanting to also keep rowing with them. We can't have anyone that reaches their first decision, their first inflection point, and they don't get their way. So they take all their marbles and go home. Right? This is actually an ongoing effort. This is figuring out how you work with your peers, in order to make that positive change moving forward. And we might not be able to take those 12 steps that you want us to. But guess what, we have to be happy with taking two steps today, in order to take two steps next week.

Lynda Woolard

01:00:36

Well, and you mentioned that the Louisiana party isn't going to be like the Texas party or any. But also, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. Correct. A lot of these infrastructural and procedural processes that are already there, already out there exist. So you just find them. I mean, there's so many trainings, there's so many documents, there's so many things that are there by brilliant people brilliant and successful, Democrats existing and all you have to do is really replicate those models. So and of course, make them fit into Louisiana and what works here. Correct. And so some of that also is learning the different regions of the state. What's needed, because what's needed in one region is not how it's going to work elsewhere. And you have to be very aware of that.

Stephen Handwerk

01:01:36

Right. And to, you know, I mean, I know that we want to get to a perpetual organizing sphere, where we have organizers that are out on the ground in all parts of the state. And trust me, Lynda, and I had that while we were running the Louisiana Democratic Party, but we didn't do it overnight. It took some time. And it took a campaign to wrap itself around to build that infrastructure. We built the infrastructure for Mary Landrieu, his race, ultimately, we weren't successful with Mary. But all of that experience, if training and organization led us to be able to turn around and elect John Bel Edwards, who everyone was telling us there was no way possible that we were ever going to be able to do that. Now. Did we do it alone? No, we had a great candidate. We had David Better Boy. So we had that. But we still did take all of those lessons, all of that organizing all of those staff. And we were able to help build those forward and be able to do some really big things. So it but it took us time. Remember, we came in in 2012. Okay, 2014 was married Landry's raise 2015 was John bells raise. So that was three years of learning, perfecting, tweaking, raising a ton of money in order to get us ready to be able to do those things and be able to raise, you know, $8 million, I think is what went through the state parties coffers. For that year for John Bel's race in 2015.

Lynda Woolard

01:03:00

And relationships, what you know, essentially, what you're getting to here is part of what I think is what folks need to know is building these relationships are so important, because those donors, those volunteers, all of that stuff, that that's years of building relationships with people. And I always say, you know, your relationships are the things you take with you, even if you leave the work at the party, the relationships you've built there, go with you wherever you go next. But it's your name, and your word, that are of highest value that you take, and that you take with you from relationship to relationship. So I would focus a lot on that relationship building piece where I the folks that are there now,

Stephen Handwerk

01:03:50

It has to be and folks have to re to show that this new party, this reinvented party, this rebooted party needs a mole you have to reconnect to be able to train folks that the party is now trustworthy, that you are building an infrastructure that they can be proud of that they can be proud to associate with. It's the analogy that I would use of what the Biden administration had to do coming after the Oompa Loompa. Right. We had to rebuild our trust and our reputation internationally. Before we could actually do any big things and now we're starting to see some really big things being done by the Biden Harris administration. So we have to think about this. Linde one of the things that you and I experienced and probably the biggest regrets that I have, in my almost 10 years of being at the party was that initial group that helped us the original reboot errs, that helped organize kind of the changeover in the party to really modernize the party. I wish I would have communicated better because we left a lot of people behind because they didn't think we were moving fast enough. and it is very difficult to create the tribe of institutional change that we have that that team now has in front of them. So give them some grace, believe first that they are trying really hard to get this stuff done. Don't immediately go to casting aspersions be there for them as a support be there as someone they can count on in order to help do this change, because it's not going to happen overnight.

Lynda Woolard

01:05:26

And what I'll close with Stephen, my closing words are going to be to thank all the folks who ran win or lose, thank you for stepping up to try to make a change in the party make a difference in the party. And for those who want I wish them all success because the success of our state depends on their success.

Stephen Handwerk

01:05:51

completely true. My final words I'm going to give you Lynda is this is the great thing about what the results were in this election is we now have a chance, we now have a chance. What are you going to do with that chance? Every single person needs to think about that right now. Is that are they going to be part of that change? Are they going to work collaboratively with individuals? Are they going to be able to kind of dig in and learn the work, then do the thing right, do the work? So that's what I would challenge everyone right now is we have the opportunity whereas you know, if we wouldn't have been successful, that door would have been closed in our face. But now we have the opportunity. What are you going to do with it? Thank

Lynda Woolard

01:06:32

Thank you for listening to Louisiana Lefty. Please follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you to Ben Collinsworth for producing Louisiana Lefty, Jen Pack of Black Cat Studios for our Super Lefty artwork, and Thousand $ Car for allowing us to use their swamp pop classic "Security Guard" as our Louisiana Lefty theme song.

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