SECOND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF IOWA
DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION MINUTES
1. Convention was held at the Danville Community School (K-12) located at 419 South Main Street, Danville, Iowa. Temporary Chair, Alan Bohanan called the Convention to order at 9:10 A.M. The Pledge of Allegiance was recited by all present for this convention and Ms. Lindsey Dockendorff (daughter of John and Sandy Dockendorff) proceeded to lead the convention by inviting all present to join her in the national anthem.
2. Al Bohanan, Chair of 2nd District Central Committee, appointed Sandy Dockendorff of Des Moines County, Daryn Hamilton of Jefferson County, Teresa Hood of Lee County and Norm Sterzenbach of Linn County as temporary Vice-Chairs. As temporary Chair of the Convention, Al Bohanan also appointed Linda Boston of Washington County, Rose Kelsey of Linn County, Carol Porch of Johnson County, and Jeannette Kline of Des Moines County as temporary secretaries to take minutes at this convention. Al also appointed John Bridges of Appanoose and Bill Thele of Des Moines County as temporary Parliamentarians, and Floyd Hendred of Wapello County, Chris McCarthy of Cedar County and Brian Flaherty of Johnson County as temporary Sergeants-at-Arms.
3. D.J. Arnold of Linn County and Chair for the Credentials Committee announced his preliminary report at 9:30 A.M. by stating that of the 653 confirmed delegates, all challenges had been approved and that all Alternates were to report to the Registration area immediately.
4. Al Bohanan announced at 9:45 A.M. that the Key Note (Guest) Speaker was en route to the convention and would arrive shortly. He announced to all present that the Presidential Preference Groups were assigned to specific “break-out” areas and indicated the locations on the Site Map provided by the Arrangements Committee. John Edwards’ group would meet in the main convention hall; Howard Dean’s group would meet in the Registration area; Dennis Kucinich’s group would meet in Room 316; and John Kerry’s group would meet in the H.S. gym during the realignment periods.
5. A meeting of the County Chairpersons was announced as being scheduled in room 325 (directly across from the main convention hall) during the first hour of convention.
6. Youth Delegates were directed to meet in the H.S. Gymnasium where their group leader, Megan Heneke would direct them on activities for the day.
7. Credentials Chair, D.J. Arnold announced that there was 10 minutes remaining for alternates to register for the convention at 10:00 A.M.
8. Mr. Steve Sovern of Linn County was present and gave a speech on behalf of the Candidate, Art Small.
9. Senator Tom Harking, Key Note Speaker arrived at approximately 10:05 A.M. and addressed the convention attendees.
10. Senator Tom Harkin introduced the candidate for Congress, Dave Franker, running in opposition to Jim Leach of Johnson County.
11. Temporary Chair of Rules, Harvey Ross gave a preliminary report on candidates for national delegates which included: 38 for John Kerry; 2 for Dennis Kucinich, 5 for John Edwards, and 9 for Howard Dean. Harvey also announced that 15 minutes after quorum, no other Candidates were allowed to file as national delegates. Harvey made a motion to adopt the temporary rules as permanent rules of the Convention. Motion was seconded and vote carried.
12. Temporary Chair Alan Bohanan gave the names of the Temporary Chairs of the Convention as follows:
a) Harvey Ross of Linn County and Sandy Dockendorff of Des Moines County as Co-chairs of the Rules and Nominations Committee; D.J. Arnold of Linn County as Chair of the Credentials Committee; John Dockendorff of Des Moines County and Rose Kelsey of Linn County as Co-chairs of the Arrangements Committee; and Bob Thomas of Appanoose County at Chair of the Platform Committee.
13. Bob Thomas gave an explanation of the process for voting on the Platform at this convention. As there were 270 individual platform planks to be voted upon, the ballot was made up so that each item could be reviewed and decided upon by the attendees whether or not to debate the plank. If you wanted to approve the plank, you would indicate by marking an X or check in the 1st column under ‘YES’. If you wanted to defeat a plank, you would indicate by marking an X or check in the 2nd column under “NO”; and if you wanted to debate the plank, you would indicate by marking an X or check in the 3rd column under “YES”.
a) If a plank was marked for debate, a minimum of 50 attendees must so indicate in order for the plank to be debated. If no plank’s tallied 50 or more, it was considered approved as submitted. In order to defeat a plank, the tallies must total a majority (one-half of the attendees plus 1).
b) Dick Stater of Lisbon (Linn) requested a vote to defeat the Platform ballot as an Absentee Ballot. The discussion resulted in several delegates voicing their disappointment at not having had the Platform to review prior to the Convention, and attendees Sue Burnell, Dan Reed, Louise Young, and Bob Thomas provided a lively discussion.
c) A motion was made to turn in the Platform ballots before lunch; that motion was defeated as many people had not reviewed the Platform planks and wished to do so before turning in their ballots. A verbal vote was taken and the results were that the Platform ballots would be turned in after lunch, or by 1:00 P.M. so that they could be tallied.
14. D.J. Arnold announced the Credentials final report for this Convention at 10:10 A.M. announcing that registration was closed and that there were a total of 471 registered delegates at this Convention; the break out was as follows: Undecided – 1; Clark - 1; Gephart – 1; Kucinich - 26; Edwards - 91; Dean - 98; and Kerry - 253. A total of 261 delegates were required for a quorum. A motion to approve the delegate numbers was made and passed at 10:16 A.M.
15. Chair of the Convention, Al Bohanan introduced Teresa Hood from Lee County as Vice-chair of the convention.
16. Nominations for Representatives of the Second District to the State Central Committee were as follows:
a) Stan Huston from Appanoose County nominated Bob Thomas of Appanoose County; Maureen Donnelly of Johnson County nominated Carol Porch of Johnson County; Justin Shield of Linn County nominated Norm Sterzenbach of Linn County; Dave Loebsack of Linn County nominated Al Bohanan of Cedar County; Pauline Taylor nominated Brian Flaherty of Johnson County; Jeannette Kline nominated Sandy Dockendorff of Des Moines County; Jason Delzell of Louisa County nominated Don Foor of Louisa County; Adam Wright nominated Rose Kelsey of Linn County; and Marian DeVore of Jefferson County nominated Jennifer Lunsford of Jefferson County.
b) Each nominee was given 3 minutes to speak on why they want to represent the 2nd District at the State Central Committee.
17. A motion to recess was offered and defeated as it did not have a specific time frame.
18. Teresa Hood announced at 10:35 that there was 25 minutes left in the first re-alignment period.
19. The voting process began by using ballot number 1 to elect representatives to the State Central Committee. Those elected to the State Central Committee include:
a) Carol Porch of Johnson County;
b) Rose Kelsey of Linn County;
c) Sandy Dockendorff of Des Moines County;
d) Al Bohanan of Cedar County;
e) Norm Sterzenbach of Linn County; and
f) Brian Flaherty of Johnson County.
20. Nominations for Affirmative Action Chair for 2nd Congressional District were as follows:
a) Faith Wilmot of Johnson County (who withdrew her nomination); and
b) Jordan Trcka of Linn County (who was unanimously elected).
21. Al Bohanan resumed as chair of the Convention at this point; explained that the Ashcroft picture would be raffled off in lieu of the silent auction.
22. Joel Miller, Chair of Linn County Central Committee made a motion to approve the temporary officers of the Convention to make them permanent, by which voice vote passed unanimously.
23. Al Bohanan explained to the attendees of today’s convention that those delegates who were elected to the District Convention would be the ones who go on to the State Convention. Those wanting to attend State Convention must pay the delegate fee at this convention; or upon arrival at State ($30.00) and the Hall of Fame Dinner will be held the evening prior to the State Convention on 6/25/2004.
24. Teresa announced that the first re-alignment period had ended at 11:00 A.M.
25. Al Bohanan announced that we were still waiting on the final count for the State Central Committee. Revote was needed to decided if they would elect Sandy or Jennifer; Rose and Carol were elected on the first vote.
26. Phil Scott announced that Lunch was being sponsored by the Franker for U.S. Congress Campaign; Donations were appreciated; Teresa introduced Lt. Governor, Sally Pedersen.
27. Lt. Governor Sally Pederson arrived at the Convention and addressed the attendees.
28. A motion to break for a one-hour lunch recess was voted and passed by voice at 12:15 P.M. Labor Caucus would be held in the Convention hall during the lunch break; would pass the bucket upon resumption of the convention.
29. The Youth Delegate report was given to the attendees by Megan Heneke of Johnson County.
30. At 2:15 P.M. these nominations were made for the Presidential Elector:
a) Dede Dancing
b) James Lundberg
c) Kiran Patel
d) Dave Redlawsk (who declined nomination)
e) Mayrose Wegman
f) Norm Sterzenbach (who declined nomination)
g) Jordan Trcka
h) Steve Holland
i) Dave Franker
31. Harvey Ross of Rules and Nominations gave the Re-alignment report as follows:
Kerry - 239; Edwards - 114; Dean – 95; and non viable - 44
The attendees were then given an additional 30 minutes (until 2:30 P.M.) to re-align.
32. Report of the Platform Committee and rules for debating the platform were presented by Chair of the Platform Committee Bob Thomas.
33. At 2:25 P.M. it was announced by Harvey Ross of the Rules and Nominations Committee that Norm Sterzenbach was the third male delegate elected to the State Central Committee.
34. At 2:30 P.M. motion was made and seconded for a 15-minute recess / break.
35. At 2:55 P.M. the Results from the Presidential Electorate balloting indicated that the top five (5) candidates were Kiran Patel, Steven Holland, Ro Foege, Mayrose Wegman and DeDe Dancing, after which each candidate was afforded the opportunity to speak and voting proceeded.
36. Report of realignment was given by Harvey Ross of the Rules Committee at 3:05 P.M. with the following results:
a) John Kerry: 3 delegates with 1 male and 2 female;
b) John Edwards: 2 delegates with 1 male and 1 female;
c) Howard Dean: 1 delegate designated male.
d) A single alternate would be a Kerry delegate and designated as male.
e) Committee assignments would be 6 Kerry, 3 Edwards, 2 Dean.
f) Committee meetings will be at 10:00 A.M. on Saturday, May 1, 2004 at the new IDP Coordinated Campaign Headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa.
At this point, the Convention broke into caucus groups to elect their respective delegates.
37. At 6:10 P.M. the convention was again called to order. Steve Chasse, Southeast Iowa Regional Coordinated Campaign Director, spoke to invite everyone to the Kerry event planned in Des Moines on Sunday April 25, 2004 at 1:00 P.M.. A caravan is planned from Barnes and Noble in Linn County, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
38. Results of the silent auction as reported by Lisa Shreihart of Linn County and the Arrangements Committee announced that a total of $1,117.50 was raised at this Convention with just $30.00 outstanding.
39. Harvey Ross of the Rules and Nominations Committee reported that Kiran Patel was elected Second District’s Presidential Electorate.
40. A motion was made and seconded to ratify all previous actions of the convention, which passed unanimously by voice vote.
41. Final report of the Platform Committee preceded by Bob Thomas with a review of the principles governing the platform. It was moved and passed to adopt the Statement of Principles. A motion was made to adopt the platform in totality, which was ruled out of order. Three (3) amendments were presented for vote:
a) The first added a statement supporting Iowa joining the Midwest Interstate Passenger Railroad and was passed after brief debate.
b) The second proposed adding a statement of protecting victims of all abuse (not just domestic) and was also readily passed.
c) The third amendment suggested adding a statement of the concept of mandatory military draft was unwanted and was defeated after debate.
42. Motion to approve the final version of the platform was seconded and passed.
43. Ratification of all convention actions again passed unanimously.
44. A motion for adjournment passed unanimously at 7:05 P.M.