Senate District Convention One Page Guide

Every person can make a difference for creating good government and working for the common good. Being active makes it fun! Opportunities are available for any level of commitment:

• Show up an hour early, to get easy parking and easy check in with no lines
• Volunteer by smiling at people and handing out information at the door, for your candidate or your issue
• During a non-busy time, go pick up the resolutions list and vote
• Bring water, snacks, puzzles and maybe a seat cushion, take breaks and stay comfortable (Winning is determined by those who can stay the course).
• Be social, the best persuasion is in easy conversations
• Ask questions, offer information "May I tell you why I am for..."
• During the delegate selection, the floor is "frozen", so you cannot leave the floor and come back, so plan ahead by watching the agenda and taking breaks early
• Support your candidates by joining the groups(subcaucuses) with your candidate and your issues
• Be sure that the people you elect as delegates to the next level are truly committed to your candidate and your issues, sometimes there is deception
• Have fun and be contagiously positive

And activities at the next level of fun are:

• Volunteer to help put in signs during the specific sign rush time
• Actively, convene a caucus, with a sign and preparation
• Actively, help a caucus, with managing the sign up list, managing the numbers or actively persuading other groups
• Run for delegate to the state level, recruit supporters
• You can even create your own page handout, make copies and hand out your literature
• Volunteer on committees, help make the party better
• Volunteer for activities after the convention

Important DFL terms are:

• Subcaucus - Instead of a 51% majority winner-take all philosophy, the DFL votes proportionately. This means voting by dividing into groups call sub caucuses. people gather in groups named by candidate or uncommitted, and by issues, with names like "Jack for Peace" or "Uncommitted Peace First". Then delegates are selected from within these groups.
• Viability is the minimum number of people to elect a state delegate in a group (subcaucus) = the number of people present on the floor/the number of delegates to the state level (round up for first delegate)
• Subcaucus Number of delegates = number of people in caucus/ viability number. Remainders of ".9", ".8",".7" usually get extra delegates. So groups may ask people to shift to a similar group in hopes of getting a higher remainder and earning that extra delegate.

For those of you want more:

Detailed information is online at www.mnblue.com in the corner, click on "Delegate Guide". At the bottom of delegate guide, clink on blue link of "The Art of the Subcaucus DFL Only". In that article, is a link to a cool clay animation video of how to subcaucus. This handout is available at http://www.mnblue.com/node/1254 .