Saturday in addition to electing Judge Gilberto Hinojosa the first Hispanic party chair by an overwhelming margin the Texas Democratic Party passed the most progressive platform in at least a generation. The new platform includes planks supporting: Marriage Equality including adoption by same sex couples, Decriminalizing Marijuana, Repeal of the Death Penalty and replacing it with life without parole, Women's Reproductive Rights and sex education that is "evidence based, accurate and effective, comprehensive age-appropriate sex ed programs with an abstinence component, to reduce the rate of abortion;" as well as amending both the Texas and U.S. constitutions to state that corporations are not people and a call for single-payer health insurance aka "Medicare for All".
We accomplished this through developing relationships across senate districts all over Texas to insure that resolutions calling for these planks were passed in a high number of Senate District/County conventions and then insuring that the temporary resolutions committee had the support necessary to keep the language on the platform proposed to the permanent committee elected by the senate district caucuses at the state convention. There many people involved in the effort including Dan Graney of the Stonewall Democrats who researched and found the rule which enabled us to prepare the resolutions in the proper manner to have them sent to the platform committee, Erin Moore of the Stonewall Democrats, Teresa Klein of SD 20, Terri St. Clair of the Young Democrats, Jackie Soliz-Chapa of SD 25, Don Bankston of SD 18 and Carol Wright of SD 17 who spent untold hours working on the temporary platform committee and spent 8 or more grueling hours Thursday while everyone else was arriving, having leisurely lunches and chatting. Special thanks to state representative Garnet Coleman who chaired the committee and saw the commitment of its members to pass a progressive document. Special thanks also go to Ed Martin who was acting chair in representative Coleman's absence and managed to fairly and judiciously shepherd the permanent committee of veterans and rookies alike through the process of producing an outstanding document.
Passion like that shone by Don Bankston, commitment as shown by Erin Moore, compassion as shown by a teacher elected from her senate district and whose name I didn't get as well as dogged determination as shown be Teresa Klein all added up to create the team effort which achieved something that many thought could not be done. There were many others that contributed to the effort in a variety of ways including many other members of Stonewall and the SDEC who saw to it that these special resolutions were passed widely.
For my leadership in the effort I was presented with the Buck Massey "Legacy of Leadership Award" by the Stonewall Democrats. I am truly honored and humbled by their recognition and they and many others at the convention made me feel like a rock star all weekend. I want to thank Dan Graney who proposed presenting me with the award and Erin Moore and Eli Olivarez for supporting him.
JC Dufresne, SDEC Committeeman SD 25
1:48 PM PT: Here's a link to the new platform http://www.txdemocrats.org/...