On Monday night the Central Committee of the Thurston County Democrats decided to table the open membership by law change. This would have allowed regular, non-Precinct Committee officers, the ability to participate in our affairs, up unto the point banned by state law.

Basically, our most open option, giving anyone who comes along and pays $20 gets a vote, failed. Open membership didn’t, just that version of it. From here, there seem to be two ways to go about it. One is the “club idea,” which is basically the same as wide open membership, but creates a club around the central committee that does a lot of stuff (like spend money on campaigns) that a central committee would do, but isn’t exactly outlined in state law.

The other is my favorite, earned membership. You wouldn’t have to just pay your way in, you would have to earn it. Which is sort of the argument anyway, because we have a good number of folks that do a lot for TCD, but who don’t get any vote.