a process for voters picking the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education

Below the fold is a draft process for picking a school board for Chicago Public Schools. The map is to divide Chicago into manageable pieces as part of the process.

Below the fold...

draft Northside DFA mission rewrite

The following is my attempt to draft a new vision/mission/values statement for Northside DFA.

Vision: Northside DFA will have a strong sense of community while building political power that makes the Chicago region more inclusive, progressive and ethical.

Mission: To elect candidates who reflect Northside DFA values and to nurture a sense of community and empowerment at monthly meetings.

Values: [In this section, there would be a list of statements relevant to politics that have strong support from NDFA Voting Members. There would also be a section for strongly held minority beliefs.]

Neither the vision nor the mission quite sums up NDFA as succinctly as the current mission "to elect socially progressive, fiscally responsible and ethically committed Democrats to all levels of government with the overarching goal of making government more progressive."

So, I a favor creating an abbreviated mission statement along the lines of "to elect candidates to public office in way the makes society more inclusive, progressive and ethical".

the case the Democratic Party is incompetent

The Democratic Party loses winnable elections. And when it loses, there's a lack of accountability for people who caused the loss & there's a lack of learning from losses.

Also, the Democratic Party fails to govern itself competently.

The Democratic Party is a mess in so many ways

Part of why the fights about the Democratic Party haven't died down since the 2016 Dem Primary is that the Dem Party is a mess in so many ways.

Below is the outline of the topics I intend to cover. It's too much for one blog entry.

I would like to revisit the wisdom of Dan Cohen. He noted fights about tactics are often sublimated fights about goals.

Much of the fighting within the Dem Party coalition is a fight between people who believe the Clinton-Obama formula of running elections & governing can work and those who disagree.

The outline of the topics I will cover:

Scott Drury makes the pitch to be Dem nominee for Gov of Illinois to 33rd Ward Democrats

Yesterday (Saturday, July 8, 2017) Melissa & I went to see two Democratic Party candidates make their pitches to local Democratic Party organizations in Chicago. At noon, Rep. Scott Drury (campaign, Wikipedia) pitched to 33rd Ward Democrats (Dianne Daleiden of 40th Ward Alliance & Robert Murphy, the Democratic Committeeman of Ward 39, were also there). At 2 PM, MJL & I switched over to Ald. Ameya Pawar (campaign, Wikipedia) speaking at an event that was organized by Ward 45 Independent-Democrats, the Women's Huddle of NW Side, plus Northside DFA*.

The 33rd Ward Democrats event was at Albany Park branch of Chicago Public Library & Ward 45 I-D event was at Filament Theater.

 This blog entry is going to be long and meandering. Chalk it up to me being out of practice. Below the fold there will be: my clumsy synopsis of Drury's pitch.

If you didn't know this about blogs, they are grossly unfair and biased toward the perspective of the author. Newspapers are the same way, but blogs have the decency to admit it.

* Melissa and I are co-chairs of Northside DFA and the Arena's generously list NDFA as a co-sponsor of their events, but I never feel like NDFA does enough to encourage people to attend Ward 45 I-D's events.

Put down the clipboard: why you shouldn't run for office

Have you heard the advice that if you don't like the direction of society you should run for local political office?

I help people run for local office. I lead a group that does 750 - 1,500 volunteer activities for candidates every year--many of these candidates are for local races driven by talking to people at their doors.

Will running for local office change things? No. Not by itself.

Why won't running for local office change things? See below.

amending Illinois Constitution to require it to pass budgets annually

The Illinois Constitution apparently requires the Governor to submit a budget to the Illinois General Assembly. The Illinois Constitution requires the budget to be balanced.

But there's ambiguity (according to some people) about whether the State of Illinois is required to have a budget. Therefore, I propose the following amendment to the Illinois Constitution.