Change Party Rules to Give Platform & Resolutions Committees Time to Meet..

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WHEREAS, resolutions provide an important way of providing grassroots input to the Democratic party policies, and can help bring in new, enthusiastic, and young members into the party to help it become stronger, and

WHEREAS, the resolutions of the current election cycle should form the basis upon which the party platform is built, and should be used by the elected members of the party's Platform and Resolutions committees, and

WHEREAS, members of the Texas Democratic Party Resolutions and the Platform Committees are not selected until the evening of the first day of the state convention, and thus have only a few hours to meet before they must report all resolutions and the platform to the convention for approval (the next day), and

WHEREAS, members of the State Democratic Executive Committee's Resolutions and Platform Committees may work on the platform before the convention but were not elected to do this and have other important work to do, thus giving them inadequate time to do this work, and

WHEREAS, the state party Chair's Platform Advisory Committee usually pre-writes a draft of the party Platform before the state convention to save the Platform Committee time but does not have the authority nor the legitimacy to write the platform, be it therefore

RESOLVED, that the draft platform be based on the resolutions passed by the Senate District and County conventions, and be it further

RESOLVED, that the Rules of the Texas Democratic Party should be amended to provide that the members of Resolutions Committee and the Platform Committee should be selected and meet prior to the State Democratic Convention, or that the SD caucuses meet at the state convention on the morning of the first day to select members of the Platform and Resolutions Committee (before the various interest caucuses meet) rather than that evening.

Draft by B. Crosier and W. Simmons, Feb. 2006, revised Feb. 2008 by B. Crosier