21 January 2025

The Case For Having Political Parties Take Direct Action

I am a minor Democratic party official, a "precinct organizer" in my neighborhood. I've previously served as the county treasurer of the Democratic Party of Denver. I've waded my way through almost all parts of the Democratic party organization, attending multiple state conventions and assemblies and county party reorganizations. I've also seen the legislative process up close, as an intern in Congress in college, and as a law partner of a state legislator in a two partner law firm.

U.S. political parties are, by design, weak and historically haven't been trusted. The U.S. has one of the most candidate centered political systems in the world and pushes political parties to the side as much as possible, despite their central role in the legislative process and as organizing forces in the electoral process.

U.S. political parties have only limited control over who runs under their banner in elections. Political parties have some money that they can use to support their candidates in elections, but the U.S. campaign finance system heavily favors funding individual candidates and ballot issues, in particular elections, over campaign finance mediated by political parties. Political party platforms aren't worth the paper that they are printed upon and are almost completely disregarded by the officials holding elective office whom that political party helped to get elected. 

In many municipal elections, all candidates are non-partisan and political parties are removed from the process entirely.

Colorado's political parties are stronger than average. They play an outsized role in nominating candidates for elected office through the caucus-county and district assembly-state convention process. And,  most vacancies in state elected officers are filled by vacancy committees made up of political party officials. But, Colorado political parties still usually raise only barely enough money for their bare minimum operating expense requirements and contribute little money to getting their party's candidates elected.

Also, in Colorado, like both major political parties in almost every U.S. state, political parties engage almost entirely in a single activity - participating in electoral politics by trying to nominate good candidates with the right political agendas, and by trying to get out the vote for those candidates come election time.

This is important work. And, because it is important work, a county like Denver, with about 250,000 voters who are registered to vote as Democrats, manages to convince several hundred voters who are registered to vote as Democrats to do what it takes to get the job of trying to elect Democrats to elected office done at the grass roots.

But, like most non-legislative wings of major political parties in the U.S., a lot of that volunteer effort is squandered on long, cumbersome, bureaucratic meetings at which the party organizes itself into several layers of political party bureaucracy at the block, precinct, sub-house district, house district, senate district, congressional district, county, and state levels. Immense effort is thrown into soliciting and compiling resolutions and party platforms that are ultimately passed as an after thought and ignored by the elected officials who actually exercise power within the party. The meetings are many hours long, and become an exercise in mastery of Robert's Rules of Order, related to internal organizational matters of only marginal importance.

Some of it is mandated by state law and is unavoidable. But, much of it elaborates the required structures to a far greater extent than is required by law.

The somewhat rigid organizational structure of the party, which tracks the rather involved long ballot structure of the partisan elected offices in a typical U.S. state, also creates a situation where inevitably, some places have lots of people who want to be involved but there is a shortage of positions to utilize them, and other places have positions in the structure that go vacant or are only intermittently filled.

The focus on filling pre-ordained slots in this political structure in long, parliamentary procedure filled meetings also undermines potential resources of people who would like to be politically active in another way. Almost all people who want to be politically active care passionately about policy and changing the way that our world works for the better. But the tasks that political parties have for them to perform does little to nurture and satisfy these passions and connect the work they are doing to the larger causes that they care about.

But, while political parties must play a role in nominating candidates and even filling vacancies in political offices, nothing requires them to limit themselves to this bare minimum.

In the 19th century, political parties also routinely engaged in various forms of direct action. They sponsored newspapers. They had "ward healers" who went out in the community to help people, often immigrants, who might otherwise fall through the cracks because they didn't understand how to access government programs or because there were no government programs that directly addressed certain needs in the community. They helped unemployed people find jobs. They helped grieving families with no money conduct funerals for a deceased family member. They connected people who had legal claims to lawyers who could enforce those rights. They connected disgruntled workers with union organizers and helped elected officials identify work place problems that legislation could solve in way more organic and effective that modern "town meetings" that are often held only for show. They connected people who had various needs to government and charitable programs that addressed those needs, that the people in need were unaware of. They helped people deal with recalcitrant bureaucrats and red tape with the assistance of elected officials from the party in what is now known as "constituent service" and is usually mediated directly through elected officials. They did all manner of favors to directly address people's needs and in exchange won the loyalty of people in their communities.

In places like Denver, we are already very good at keeping turnout high and reliably in favor of Democratic candidates for public office, and for vetting those candidates. And, the demographic makeup and underlying attitudes of people in a large central city mean that even when the party is run in a mediocre manner, its candidates are still going to win elective office. It may be very inefficient and squander potential volunteer efforts and enthusiasm, but it has a base of party members large enough that it can achieve its core purpose despite its outdated, cumbersome, and inefficient structure.

But, it could do better. It could streamline the bureaucratic processes to a bare minimum, dispensing with some of the generic and unnecessary parts of Robert's Rules of Order based proceedings by tailoring them to its narrow task. It could centralize the level at which volunteer efforts are organized so that excesses of volunteers in places where they are available could more naturally be diverted to the places where their efforts are needed the most. For example, rather than organizing at the precinct level, it could make the based level of its organization the house district and have house district level party officials, collectively, carry out the tasks of precinct organizers for the entire house district.

But beyond that, county and state political parties could engage in more direct action and coordination. It could develop corps of modern day "ward healers" to help people who have trouble navigating complex bureaucratic governments or just fall through the cracks. It could arrange regulate meetings between those ward healers who have encountered the problems people are facing on the front lines in their daily lives with elected officials and constituent service staffers for them who have the power to address through problems from positions of power over government workers and through new legislation, if necessary. It could arrange meetings between ward healers and other charitable organizations and people like immigration and personal injury lawyers to help them know where to turn when people have particular needs that government doesn't currently address.

The most acclaimed Democratic Party political leader in recent times, President Obama, got his start as a community organizer. And, every county Democratic party political organization should follow his example and have community organizers, who might also be ward healers, who help communities come together to identify problems that can be solved, in part, through direct action, in part, through legislative action, and then help those communities to solve the problems that the community identifies.

Maybe in a county where this is needed, that may mean helping women who aren't aware of what is available, learn about and gain access to reproductive health providers like Planned Parenthood. 

Maybe a community needs help finding ways to put young men who aren't in school and are unemployed find paths for themselves that don't involve gangs and crimes (something that has been identified as the main problem driving the COVID era crime surge that was often attributed to police brutality protests instead).

Maybe a community needs to organize to protect tenant's rights, or to help people re-entering the community from incarceration to get government issued IDs, or to locate legal representation for low income people with immigration issues.

These are volunteer opportunities that would be snapped up by people who care deeply about policy issues and want to make a difference, and would make it worth the while of those volunteers to also devote some time to the unavoidable minimum of bureaucracy and the bureaucratic process.

And, these volunteers would also be energized by the opportunity to share what they have learned from their direct action, directly with elected officials in a way that so often is reserved for paid lobbyists in the status quo.

Actions speak louder than words, and this kind of activity would also dramatically increase the credibility of the Democratic party with people who accuse the party of conspiring with Republicans on behalf of monied interests insure that change doesn't happen, when in reality, they are thwarted by gridlock in a system designed to strongly favor the status quo over political change most of the time due to the other party's ability to stymie their efforts, especially at the federal level which is most visible.

Political tactics like widespread incorporation of direct action, community organizing, and facilitating the flow of information between common people on the front lines and elected officials, could help the party achieve a level of dominance and effectiveness that few people today imagine could even be possible, just as the political machines of the 19th century did using similar tactics.

Of course, I'm not advocating a return to the cheating, corruption, and political violence that 19th century political machines used to achieve their ends. But none of those things are inseparable from the concept of having political parties do more than play a supporting role in an electoral process that is fundamentally designed to be candidate driven.

Also, if this kind of direct action could increase the credibility of political parties generally as constructive and positive contributors to the political process. Public opinion might grow more favorable towards giving political parties are larger role in selecting their own candidates and in funding their campaigns for public office.

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