Meeting Call to Order 7:04pm

Welcome New Members and new PCO’s

Sharon did the usual reminder of the Code of Conduct. That we are a private organization and that this is a  private meeting while in a public space. 

Pledge of allegiance

Meeting minutes for December approved

Meeting minutes for November approved

Meeting Agenda reviewed and approved

Role call: Rose, Shawn, Sharon, Peter, David, Stephanie, Simone, 

Absent: Denisa, Ahmed, Al

Guest Speakers:

Jason Call who is running for 2nd congressional disctrict against Rick Larson spoke with us today:

He is Seeking all legislative districts Support. He supports medicare for all, The Green New Deal. He is running a campaign of transparency and has a complete grassroots campaign, no corporate funding. You can find him on his website callforcongress.com, on FaceBook, and on Twitter. 

Sawyer Morgan and Lisa from Fair vote washington did a presentation for us today:

This movement is Non-partisan. They are trying to make voting more representative. States have authority to make their own voting law..The two party system doesn’t work as  40% of americans don’t identify with either party. America is number 26 of 32 for voter turnout in democracies around the world. One of the main reasons for this is, no one likes who they are voting for. Ranked-Choice voting is a great allternative it is private, with no caucuses. We did a little demonstration for how Ranked-choice voting work using the idea of favorite seasons. 

The benefits of ranked voting include:yYou are more likely to have minorities elected, negative campaigning is usually not present when you have ranked-choice voting, you end up with higher voter turn outs. Maine was first to use ranked-choice voting in Federal elections, can save states money when doing run-offs. Plan for Washington is HB1722, which is currently in the house appropriations committee  and the senate bill 6569. These bills are to change the election for the state. Sign up for more information or to help out at fairvotewa.org. There was some objections to Ranked-Choice voting stating that it didn’t make a difference. A good book to read is “The Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy ” .

Roger brought up a case in Cincinatti in 1931 where they did Ranked-Choice voting for the City Council and elected the first Black city council member, this shows that Ranked-choice voting is more representational of the voters. Washington state democrats have officialy endorsed ranked choice voting. 

Officers/Committee Reports: 

First Vice Chair/PCO Coordinator: We currently have 89 members. 

Chairs report: Mainly working on the Caucus; You can find on the first page of website 

Snohomish county organizing academy; there is a fundraiser on feb 22nd; 

Chair of issues and resolution states we are meeting on Feb 5th. 

State: We are in the Process of electing members of DNC 

County: Held a meeting on Jan 5th. Gale Tarleton ran against Tim Eyeman. The are currently in the process of rewriting bylaws and they passed in their entirety. The County convention is May 3rd. Full report here . 

Treasurer Report: Our cash flow has increased from last year. Cash on hand: $4807 Glen morgan issue is closed Thus we will have a significant loss due to the money we have to pay back for that.

Technology Committee: If you need help renewing your membership or with the website, let us know.You can email technology@21dems.org.

Fundraising and Events:

We are holding another trivia night on Feb 22. We are looking for gift card donations. This time it will be Presidential triva at Spiros at 5:30. The price is $20 for a Friend of the organization, $25 for the event, and $5 if you already have renewed your membership.

Rules Committee: Bylaws and updates to membership wording. Looking at using a new google form for code of Conduct Complaints.

New Business:

We had a request to do a newsletter for our organization, but there is not enough bandwidth within our Executive board at this time, so Sharon has put an ask out to our members to see if anyone would like to put together a newsletter.

Passed around a committee signup list, for anyone who would like to sign up for a committee or who would like to take themselves off the committee. . 

We have a new committee, the Caucus committee. We have a caucus page located on our website that has links to all of the caucus information. Do not share the link in emails outside of membership, as this information hasn’t been released yet. We are still in need of  a chair and a co-chair for the caucus committee. We will also need other roles filled for the caucus committee that we may need include: Fundraising committee, PR and communications captain, Print captain, and Training captain. We will be having training sessions as we are collecting lots of data for the caucus. 

There was no opposition for the committee selection. Voted for and approved.  

No Old business.

Good of the Order: 

Bernie Meet up at Peter’s house Feb 7th.. 

Happy Chinese new year.

Meeting adjourned 9:08pm.