Johnson County Dems Elect Chair

Johnson County Dems Officer Election

Greetings from the 2009 Johnson County Democrats' officer election and off year caucus. The off year caucus part is one of our sillier rituals, and actually has less power than a regular central committee meeting. But the rules say we have it so we have it.

The big business is our chair election. Chris Forbes vs. Dennis Roseman. As I noted I don't have a vote so at the moment I'm just blogging here. Our parliamentarian Tom Larkin is running the meeting until the chair is chosen.

2 short speeches, 10 to 20 minutes of Q and A, but that stuff's not likely to sway the votes. These guys have both been around a while. The rules say questions have to be directed at both candidates, but a couple are clearly statements with a question mark tacked on at the end.

While the votes get counted we give outgoing chair Brian Flaherty an award.

And the winner is Roseman. Forbes takes vice chair (which is what Dems call the number two person). James Moody goes from vice chair to second vice. Carl Fongheiser re-elected as secretary. Scott Smith staying on as treasurer. (The diversity question comes up but several women turned down second vice chair.) Several people turn down finance chair and it gets tabled. Same with public relations chair.

An actual contested race for membership chair and Hanna Joravsky and Caitlyn Ross win. I'm nominated for my old data management job and I turn it down. Paul Deaton takes me place so as of this moment I have no formal title.

Sarah Swisher, or past chair, gets back on the local exec board as candidate development chair. And that's the offices, I'm skipping out before the resolutions.