GuvWurld
This blog has relocated to http://WeDoNotConsent.blogspot.com

Periodically I Google phrases like Voter Confidence Resolution (VCR) and GuvWurld to find out who is writing about and linking here. Yesterday I found the VCR at the Progressive Action Alliance, a TX based group that I think Pokey Anderson belongs to. I appeared on her KPFT radio show on News Year's Day (.mp3). I also discovered this version (.pdf) of the VCR on the site of the Washington State Democratic Progressive Caucus. I was a little confused about what they had done so I e-mailed their contact person, Nancy Ging. She has granted permission to post her reply:

Thanks for contacting me. I'm Chair of the 2nd Congressional District Progressive Caucus (WA state), and it was our web site where you saw the VCR. I believe I picked it up from a statewide voting rights organization's web site, but can't find which one it was at the moment. :(

We had our precinct caucuses on March 4, and the resolution was passed in several precincts around the state. It will now be part of the proposed platform for several county conventions to be held on April 8.

From there, it will go to the state platform committee for a vote by the state convention delegates. At our 2nd CD meeting today, we passed a motion to write a resolution requiring all incumbents and candidates to guarantee to support and work for the points in the resolution in order to be considered for endorsement by the local and state Democratic Party organizations. That would be big, but we are ready to fight hard for it.

As we exchanged a few messages, I've emphasized that the VCR is a "think global, act local" strategy for laying a path to a tipping point (see the Guide to the VCR). The WA version linked above omits the final line from the VCR template, adopted by Arcata, CA (.pdf), which says:

When elections are conducted under conditions that prevent conclusive outcomes, the Consent of the Governed is not being sought. Absent this self-evident source of legitimacy, such Consent is not to be assumed or taken for granted.

As I told Nancy, I like the additions her group created to customize the VCR and I hope they would restore this line to facilitate our collective pursuit of a tipping point. She agreed, and clarified with the following message:

Our group didn't consider the resolution ourselves. We just made it available on our web site so members of our group (and others) could take the resolution to our various precinct caucuses, held on March 4. Several precincts in several counties passed the resolution, but I don't know exactly how many yet. That will get the resolution points into our county platforms, and then we'll take it on to the state platform committee. I'm a member of that, too, so will keep an eye on it there to make sure it gets introduced to the state convention. Will let you know how it goes as we move it along in the process.

So a strong show of support but still a little uncertain about how to reflect it in writing. This is the beginning of a new wave of big things for the VCR. More details later this week...
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