We’re going forward in Thurston County with a discussion on open membership for our county Democratic organization. Right now, only PCOs have a vote at all in our organization, this idea would open it up to anyone who either works or pays enough.
Things seem to be going well, and I’ve been doing some research into what other local Democratic organizations do. In addition to three county organizations that have open membership, I’ve also come up with 16 legislative district organizations that do.
Nice work Emmett. So what will the nuts & bolts look like? You pay your dues $25 or so and you get a vote? And what do you get to vote on? Everything except election of officers? And what about the districts like the 22nd?
Generally speaking, we’re looking at a very simple mechanism. Pay your money, a month later you can vote on everything the local party does, minus what is prohibited by state law. I have that list somewhere, I should blog it.
Also, the 22nd as of yet doesn’t have bylaws. Yet. I don’t think. Maybe they do, but they certainly don’t have a website where I can look those bylaws up.
The funny thing is, two of the four LDs that make up Thurston County (35 and 20) have open membership and the other two (22 and 2) don’t have bylaws.