Becoming a Delegate

Yesterdy, at Manuel's there was a lot of hurry up and wait.  Giving out 220 tickets  to 450 people is not as easy as it might seem.   There was time to chat with  folks   I had never met before.  Since  I was  sporting  a  Georgia Delgate name plate I was grabbed repeatedly  and aske if  I could get some one some ticket to the spech on the sly, but a lot of people asked me  how I got to go.

One of the unique elements of this process is that there is very littly Cronyism involved.  THere are actually two  elections  for  Delegates. First there is Congressional District Caucus election, where the party   comes together   and elects  members of the community to go to Charlotte. Effectively  anyone  can run  and anyone can vote. and it can be a free for all. If you can  bring a busload or two  of friends you can  win.  That simple.  

The other path, the path I took, is as statewide At-large election.  In this election  anyone can run,  but the people voting  are Members of the  State Committee  of the Democratic Party of Georgia, That's  a day long affair  where we  get to hear people speechify for  about  3 minutes each  but there are 100 candidates all saying essentially the same thing.  The state Party  the elects the 24 At large members  and then  we have another round where we  elect 9 alternates.

There are some automatic elections.  Current Federal office holders   (5 Current Congressman), All eight members of the Democratic National Committee, Former President Jimmy Carter,  Finally, there are 14  PLEOs (Party Leaders and Elected Officials) Those are elected by the State Party as well.  They include CEO Burrell Ellis alog with House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams  and Senate Leader Steve Henson. Senators Gloria Butler and Emanuel Jones along with State Rep Pamela Stephenson  ll from DeKalb are among the 14 PLEOs.

The Delegation  then meets to  elect a Chairman and  Members of various  Committees.

The full Delgation  is listed here.  http://www.georgiademocrat.org/delegate-information-station/.