Scenes from the Texas State Dem Convention #5

A bit of confusion at this year's Senate District Caucus at the Texas State Dem Convention. This was an attempt to get the latter half of the process (elections to various committees and election of our district delegates to national) begun by getting our delegate strength completed. What caused the confusion initially was that after the speeches on the convention floor, a number of our delegates didn't return for the election process! When this happens, typically they would move alternates up to full delegate. This year one of our SDEC folks challenged and got our chair to remove them once moved up, then to calculate based upon voting weight for the full seated caucus (in other words, if only 83 of 100 people show up, those 83 votes are weighted to equal 100 votes). Usually we only did that when designated delegates failed to show up and credential, or that enough delegates were not elected to fill all the alloted seats. Once credentialed, they should show up and vote -- and if not, those votes would be replaced by alternates. It was about 10:3PM when we began trying to get everyone coordinated to begin the process.