Transcript of my 2017 Resolutions for the Democratic Party

Hi everyone, Sally Boynton Brown here. I’m running for DNC Chair and I’m so excited. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, I’ve so been enjoying our conversations. Happy new year! It’s 2017, thank goodness 2016 is over. I really have high hopes for 2017. It’s gonna take all of us working hard to ensure those hopes become a reality, so tonight I’m going to be talking to you a little bit about why I am running, how you can be involved, why you should be involved, and then I’m hoping that you have questions for me. So, if you want to hear about any specific topics or have any questions just make sure you put them into the comments box and I’ve got my computer right here so hopefully my multi-tasking will all go right. I decided to run for Chair about 3 weeks ago, because I really thought there was some major components of what the future of our Party need to look like based on the conversations I’ve heard. I feel strongly that we can build an innovative resilient organization for the 21st Century that looks totally different from what the DNC and the political spectrum looks like now. I think we need to do that because we’ve got to save democracy. The Republicans are stripping us of our voting rights and our freedoms and really hindering democracy in some major ways that we cannot afford to ignore. It’s crucial that we go after them and it is crucial that we step up as a Party and really look at ways that we can take them on. They’re using things like Facebook, fake news, and Russian cyber attacks, and blocking people from their polling locations, closing down polling locations in areas where there’s high minority rates, things that are just absolutely appalling that we can not put up with anymore. We have got to have a strong infrastructure to be able to push back against that and that means we need to get resources to all of our 57 state parties to make sure they can do the on-the-ground-work to fight this battle at every single elected position that we can. So that means not just focusing on our congressional races and our presidential races that means taking back our state houses by taking back the governor seats in 2018, taking back legislative seats, pushing all the way down to the municipal election. Here in Idaho I always joke we have mosquito abatement districts, I always joke and say if we could get a Democrat in every mosquito abatement district in Idaho that would be great. I would like to see Democratic dog catchers all across the country in all of our townships and counties to get as many Democrats elected as possible. And if we’re going to do that, we have a ton of work to do. So, I am really excited about all of the great ideas I’ve been hearing while on this campaign. We have a survey going that you can take on our website. We also are trying to as much interaction as we can so Facebook Live events, I’m trying to spend as much time in the different groups that you guys hang out in to talk to people and make sure that I’m addressing whatever concerns that you have. I pride myself on being super accessible and really responsive and so I hope you’ll take full advantage of that. I am trying to get this information out to as many people as possible. There’s a couple of ways you can participate we have forums that are going to be coming up. The DNC is going to be live-streaming those on their Facebook channel. The first one is going to be January 13th and January 14th in Phoenix, Arizona. I’m really excited about that, excited to be on stage with all of our other amazing candidates and hear where their thoughts have progressed in the last couple of weeks over the holidays, and have a really robust conversation about the future of our Party. So I hope you’ll tune in to that, we’ll keep you apprised there’s three other forums, a couple of debates, just check my Facebook page regularly. You can also email me sally@wethednc.org, you can also Facebook message me, pretty much any way that you want to communicate. Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, all the ways. I really try to meet people where they’re at because I think that’s really important. The way I’m running my campaign is exactly how I think we need to be running the DNC. I think we need a DNC who is transparent, responsive, is reaching out meeting people where they’re at, spending time in the people who are like you in the trenches doing the work having life experiences struggling and having conversations with your neighbors and that’s exactly what I’m doing here on the campaign and what I would do as Chair as well. I am really excited I am hoping that people have sent me lots of questions while I’ve been talking, so I’m gonna check that out. *singing* The internet is loading, I had to refresh my page so I’m killing time by singing to you *end singing* Of course, when we’re doing this would be the time my internet decides to freak out so I’m going to call on a trusty helper on the other side of the room — any body else want to chime in and tell me questions. “What are one of the first things you’re going to do when you are elected as DNC Chair?” Oh, I love that question. So, one of the things that is really important to me is a concept called both-and and that means we are not just focused on one things but it allows us to focus on multiple things. So one of the very first that I think that we need to listen around the country to really have our Chair out having conversations with folks. Obviously most of the candidates are trying to get around and have those conversations now, but the scope is a little bit different. I would really like to see us getting diverse groups of people together to talk about how we actually accomplish that.I also would create a series of work groups to have critical conversations, as those of you who have been paying attention to my stuff over the last couple of weeks know that I want to have conversations about how we attack the fake news issue. Obviously having fake news is unacceptable but we’ve got to have an answer to that. So we need a work group that’s really focused on democracy and the issues around that. I think we need to have a work group on how we address the fact that there’s 18-year-olds that have their birthday every single day and really don’t want to be a Democrat or Republican. There’s a ton of people that don’t want that partisan label attached to them, and we need to talk about how we open up our Party so that they can be a part of our party and be voting for our candidates on a regular basis. I also think we need to be talking about campaign finance reform, and not just like band-aids for campaign finance reform — how do we fundamentally go down to the way we are running elections in our country and do things differently? Because the money that is in politics right now is not ok, it’s fundamentally flawing the democracy we have and causing people to not trust things. And we need that to return to a place where we trust our democracy. So setting up what I call diverse thinkers. Not only do we have diversity in the demographics but we also have people from different industries. I don’t think we can afford to keep having politicos that sit back and make all of the decisions I think we need to have thinkers from all around the country that means regional people and also people from outside of politics. We need to be taking advantage of our philosophers, academics, our small-business people, teachers, all of those folks need to be involved in some of these critical conversations so that we can come up with the best answers possible. At the same time I think we need to put together a strong staff. I can’t do this by myself, we need to have an effective service organization at the DNC that can meet the needs of all of the many people that are out there and I also think we need to be working on a state partnership program for state parties because state parties are the people that have the tools, knowledge, and people-power to be able to go actually win 2018 elections which I think is the first goal that we need to have. All of those pieces need to be happening simultaneously, and the way that I’m suggesting doing them, it’s possible because we’re bringing more people into the process than we ever have before. It’s not just a couple hundred people at an office in DC that are doing that, we’ll be utilizing all of the people across the country to be able to kind of simultaneously move forward. “What was the number 1 thing that motivated you to run?” I think the thing that motivated me to run is just the critical opportunity that we have right now. We have this time that I don’t think a lot of us saw that we are in where we unfortunately lost an election and we have a madman that’s at the helm of the USA with a party who has stripped us of a lot of our freedoms and democratic rights like taking away people’s ability to vote. And what I saw was a rare opportunity to really look at how we’re doing business. We’re more fractured than we’ve ever been, at least in my lifetime, I know there are folks that have been around for a while that have seen us go through processes like this before in 68 and things, but from everything that I’ve seen, we are not on the same page. We have the opportunity to rebuild the structure that everybody can take pride in. I think I’m the right person to do that, I have stood in the middle between I’ve been neutral between Bernie and Hillary. I also don’t have any connections and I think that works to my benefit because I’m not beholden to any powerful elite people in our Party who are used to having power. Right now the reality of this is that there is not a lot of power we should be swinging around, we need to be coming back together and looking at how we do our business. And I just was really excited to jump into this race because what I think about on a daily basis — the level of thought that I put into this I wasn’t hearing anybody else put that kind of thought into, and ask the big, tough questions. Everything that I saw was taking the easy way out and I think we can’t afford to take the easy way out. We need to be doing the big tough stuff and making sure that’s a part of our plan moving forward. “Wendy asks, how will you reach out to all of the groups which may overlap — millennials, Black, White, working, seniors, etc. etc.?” I think that’s a really great question and one that I’ve been asking myself, especially the last couple of days. We have a lot of fracture that’s happening in our party, unfortunately a lack of trust so it’s not just the leaders we don’t trust but we don’t trust each other. I think we need to go through a process of reconciliaition. Neighbor-to-neighbor. In the coming weeks you’ll hear kind of my vision of what reconciliation should look like. I think that is going to be a really important piece. So I think the other thing we’ve desperately been missing is an overarching message to all of the people in America about what we value as Democrats, who we are and the work we do in the world. The last couple of election cycles we’ve been silo-ing off communication in a way that is specifically targeted to groups. There hasn’t been to talk about so we really need to return to our values, and be able to communicate about those values. Why we are Democrats, why we do the work we do, not just the policies we believe in and the policies our candidates are fighting for. And especially not targeting specific messages to specific people. That might work and I’m not saying we shouldn’t do any of that but without something inclusive that’s bringing us together it leads to the fractures that we’re now seeing develop. Where we feel like left because we haven’t been having these conversations we’ve been having all of these fractured conversations. “Matt asks, do you believe that we need to rebuild, and if so, in what ways can Democrats help?” Awe, I love this question because we all have parts to play right? The number one thing that I really want to do as Chair is take our structure that we have that’s very hierarchal you pretty much have to know somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody more important to get access to being involved. Sure, everybody can make phone calls everybody can go door knocking, but some of these bigger conversations require more than just door knocking and phone calling it’s going to require bringing our words together. What I really want to do is flatten out structures so that we have more of this type of interaction from the DNC. envision kind of a customer service department that their goal is to reach out to the American public and to reach out to Democrats and engage them in the work we are doing to hear their ideas and hear what is happening that’s working in their communities. What I know is there’s great work happening in all of our 50 states and 5 terrorities, Democrats abroad, and DC around the country. We have amazing state parties, amazing people involved in those state parties, amazing candidates. We really are an incredible organization. But without an organization that’s kind of leading the charge on talking about all of this amazing-ness, we’re dropping the ball. So I am super excited about that piece of it and just the vision of what it would really look like for all of us to all come to together. “That kind of leads to Janet’s question, what are the structural changes you’d like to see in the DNC?” So, I think for starters we have to come back down to what is our purpose. Our purpose should be a strong service organization. As I mentioned I think we need a customer service department that is just focused on interacting with the public. Not waiting for the public to interact with us. But one of the most valuable things that’s happened that I’ve seen for the last year is all of these grassroots organizations springing up and creating Facebook and Twitter groups. And I think we need people at the DNC that are in touch with the conversations we are having at that level. We need to be meeting people where they’re at not waiting for them to come to us. And certainly when they do come to us we need to be responsive and get back to them right away with something tangible. There needs to be a two-way communication loop between the leaders who are at the top of the Party and those folks who are on the ground doing the work. I think structurally in order to accomplish that flat structure I was talking about earlier we also need to do some bylaws changes when you look at our bylaws changes you see a great deal of power that’s given to executive committee and I think that that needs to change. A good example of that is the debates, we had a debate over the debates. The number of debates the length of debates, everything about the debates earlier this year. At the end of the day our leaders weren’t doing anything wrong, they were well within the rules that were established, they just weren’t doing something that people agreed with and we need to be able to have a process that’s solidly in place that buy-in from the bottom so it’s not just a top-down structure where our leaders at the top are making all of the decisions and we all just have to live with it. So, bylaws is a really important piece of that structure. I also think we need to fundamentally change the culture, when you’re going to create a service industry then you need to make sure you’re picking a diverse group of people who can meet the diverse needs of the people that they serve. I think one thing we need to be doing is having more staff out on the field not just located in Washington DC, I also think we need to find more people from different areas around the country. So for instance, one thing being from Idaho that’s really important to me is that we have rural communities that are really suffering out there and we are not meeting their needs. We’re not even having the conversations with them that we need to be having I think we need to purposely go out there and find communities who are not currently represented in our party in an equitable way and make sure we have more of those folks in our party. Going out and scouting out Latinos and Latinas to work for us, going out and scouting people from the rural community, scouting really a pipeline to make sure we have a diverse group of people at every single level. That’s going to take some time and energy but if we don’t get the program and if we don’t meet people where they’re at and really invest and make sure we’re giving them access to the Party, we’re never going to expect that we can just turn around and make sure we have the diversity we need in our party. So those are a couple of examples of the infrastructure changes I would want to see made. “Wendy wants to know, will this be a full-time position for you?” Absolutely, right now I work about 100 to 120 hours per week a lot of months unfortunately or fortunately I don’t know you can feel sorry for me if you want to my family certainly understands that this is my life, saving democracy is what I am all about and I don’t think that you can have a Chair head of the DNC that’s anything but that this needs to be their life for the next couple of years and I commit to make this my sole purpose — saving democracy is the most valuable thing that we can do and the DNC is the best way to do that. Somebody set up a great word for me so I’m trying these methods, what sets me apart from other candidates? I think that power struggle that I talked about a little bit earlier is one of the biggest distinguishing factors. I think luckily there is a lot of crossover between what our candidates are talking about. Everybody wants to support state parties, everybody wants to makes sure that we come back and focus on making governor races and legislative races in 2018 as well as winning back our congressional seats that we lost. That’s awesome, my biggest defining characteristic is by creating a flat power structure and have more people invested in doing that work and we’ll have more success because of that. I would also say that because I’m an executive director of a state party who has had to focus on organizational growth throughout the last six years as well as some of my past experience professionally, that it puts me in a much different position because I’m actually a manager and I manage organizational growth. We have a lot of amazing candidates that do great things in their particular realms that they’re in, I see this time and place as needing a strong manager at the top who can make sure that we actually accomplish what we set out to accomplish. Oh, I kind of alluded to this — the question is how does coming from a red state prepare me for DNC Chair? I don’t know if anybody has looked lately but when you look at our state house there is an awful lot of red out there in this nation which is really sad and I think we need somebody that has done the day to day struggles in a red state and recognizes the organizational infrastructure that we need in place to really be effective. I often say if we took the program we ran in Idaho and we put it in a state with a different electorate we would be winning way more races, it’s not that we don’t have the right program it’s that we have an electorate that’s going to take many many many conversations to change hearts and minds. I also think we’ve struggled with a lack of national cohesive message about who we are as Democrats. That’s one of the reasons why I decided that it was important to run this race is I feel like we’ve accomplished what we can here in Idaho without any outside support and I want to make sure that all of our states get the support that they need to run the program that they need and I think that being from a red state I have a fundamentally different understanding of that process than any of the other candidates on the ballot. “Jill sent in a question, she said “I’ve heard your concerns about the working poor, but what about the truly poor? Those who are not in the workforce for a variety of reasons. I believe we have to be the party of the poor as well.” Jill, I think that’s awesome. If you look at our platform, this summer we came together and created an amazing platform and we need to be using and referring to that whenever we look at issues and that’s sort of an issue out there in a lot of different ways. We absolutely need to be making sure that we’re fighting for all people no matter what demographics they are. I will say that it’s really important to me that we are in alignment with our actions at the DNC as well as our values so that everything we’re saying we’re also doing and one of the things I would make sure to implement just as an organizational change is that when we’re going out to hold events in states right now we go hold these big fancy fundraisers, and fundraising is an important thing we don’t get to do any of this without money but we also need to make sure that we’re planning free events that anybody can come to and we need to make sure that we are getting back to that customer service frame that you don’t have to be a donor to catch the ear of one of our leaders that you really have access at any level you’re at of being able to interact with us and making sure that your ideas are being heard. For me it’s really important that we implement some of those changes so that people don’t feel like you have to have money to be in contact with the folks that are making decisions over at the DNC. “Nicholai asks, how do you plan to support state and local elections, as well as stress their importance?”I think that this again goes back to making sure that we resource our state parties and making sure that we are conversation with them. One of the issues I’ve found is when I talk to folks in DNC about down-ballot races or building our bench, they’re stuck at the state legislative level. I mentioned earlier that I think we need to be pushing all the way down to dog-catchers, county commisioners, , city council, school boards, essentially any place we think we can win we need to be focused on and it’s going to take getting resources to state parties and helping build strategic plans that really allow them to focus down there. I also think by building that flat structure at the top of the DNC it will attract more people into our party making it not only easier to win those races but for the volunteers to be able to push down to that level. I think the way you stress the importance of that is making sure it’s in every organizational document that you put out and making sure that we resource that out at every level so one of the things that would be really important to me aside from getting state parties their resources they need is also to make sure that we build out political desks for them that are actually working in their region and know intimately what the pieces and parts of the strategic plan are. So I’d really like our staff to go out and work with state parties on creating those strategic plans, making sure that we understand exactly what they’re trying to accomplish so that we can be partners with them in accomplishing the work that we need to. “Jill wants to know, what differentiates you from the other candidates, especially from Keith Ellison?” I think I just talked about that so let’s see if I can remember how I answered it. I think one of the biggest things that makes me different is that I am a manager, I am an executive director, I do this for a living, so I build foundations I support organizations and I implement strategic plans. So I think that’s a huge piece we have amazing candidates I think Keith is amazing, I think Greg is amazing, I think Jamie is amazing, everything that I’ve heard from Perez I love so far. For me this isn’t a competition as much as it is lay out our vision and fundamentally you get to decide who’s going to do the best job. One of the things I’m asking people to do is really think about the criteria they’d like to see in a Chair. Then contact the 447 voting members and let them know who you think fits those criteria. So I have a lot of people who are supporting both Keith and I, I have people that are supporting both Ray and I. You know I know people who are supporting multiple candidates I am actually totally okay with that. You unfortunately don’t have a vote in this race, but you do need to have a voice in this race. I think the best way you can have that voice is to really think about what’s the vision I have that I can get behind and then what candidates are out there that fill that and communiciate that to the voting members so that might be three that might be all five of us for all I know. Ultimately the 447 voting members are the people that are going to need to make this decision and we have some amazing leaders out there in the community and they are thinking carefully about what the people in their state care about and want to hear from you so I urge you to reach out to them and have that conversation with them. I have this question, what do you say to those that have lost trust in party politics? This is a really hard time to be in politics. I think that goes for the primary as well as the general election, things got really messy, and we’re more fragmented than we’ve ever been. So I just want to say hold on and please trust that we all have the best of intentions, we all have incredibly big hearts and we want to do the right thing. People are scared, and they’re mourning and we need to give those folks time but we have leaders who are truly committed to bringing everybody together in the party. I am committed to making sure that we have a reconciliation process in place so that people can feel what they’re feeling, be heard, be listened to, and then fully invest in the future vision of our party. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve made so many and have reached out in so many ways to make myself accessible so I can hear from you I think it’s really important that this vision of where we go as a party comes from you and not just from my head I’m doing my best to assimilate all of the information that comes in and make sure that that’s part of my platform. So one thing you’re gonna notice that I might talk about something and that thing is going to evolve. I’m not a static thinker, I start with an idea in state parties and then as I have conversations and collect feedback from people it continues to evolve and turn into something that I think is much stronger than where my little head came from that’s my whole goal of trying to bring diverse thinkers together to talk about these issues. And I hope that in moving through a process like that we will start to develop trust amongst each other. I think that trust is developed when we can listen and people feel like they’ve been heard and create a process where they actually see the results of their actions and that’s what Ispecialize in more than anything else. There’s a joke kind of in Idaho and amongst the executive directors that be careful what idea you give Sally because the next thing you know it will be a reality. I really don’t think that we can just afford to sit around in a room and have philosophical conversations and come up with great ideas that we can never make happen. Figuring out how to implement those as soon as I can. I really, this is a journey. We are not the normal business organization, we are not a normal organization, we are a values-based organization that is intent on changing the world that’s what we all come together is that we have a vision of how it can be better and things have been really rocky. We need to get the DNC back to a place where we can trust its leaders. We also have to get ourselves back to a place where we can trust our neighbors and community, and i think it’s going to take all of us pulling together and really stretching ourselves, going out of our comfort zone, running for Chair is certainly not in my comfort zone in any way shape or form but this is a critical time and we don’t get to stay safe, we really do have to take some risks, so I urge everybody to join me in that process try to reach out to somebody who sees the world a little differently than you and make sure that you’re listening more than you’re talking and make sure that you try to really deeply understand them ask questions say tell me more about that, don’t jump to judgements and do not assume that people’s intentions are anything but good. We’ve had amazing kind-hearted people in this party we are all doing the best we can and we need to kind of step back sometimes from our own pain and I hope by leading by example and talking about some of these issues that that helps us come together in a way that is I don’t know maybe a little bit easier I think it’s really hard and need to continue to commit to doing that hard work together. “And Melissa sent us a question why is there a discrimination law for disabled couples to get married?They are penalized when they get married to another disabled person and lose a large amount of benefits. It costs more to live as two people than one, copays, food, etc. Basic items Why hasn’t this been addressed by other people?Wow Melissa I really appreciate you bringing that issue up and I would definitely love to hear more information about it, obviously that’s not an experience that I’ve had and the only way we can make sure it’s brought up is by having a conversation. So if you don’t mind emailing me details about that sally@wethednc.org I’d really love to learn more about that issue. “We have a couple questions. Breanne and Aaron have both asked about how we contact the peope that will be voting for DNC Chair and how we are able to reach out to them.” I like that, so there is a public contact list that we’ve been working on just making sure that we have as much information as possible and then I know that it’s circulating around the internet but we’ll also be releasing it. So that you can email and send letters to those folks who are voting. I think I just heard that we might be out of questions. And so I’m so thankful for everyone who joined us today I think this has been really great and I hope you just remember that there are all the ways you can contact me. Whatever you feel comfortable with I know that posting public statements and comments that people can react and make other comments on is not comfortable for everybody so please if you’re watching this but you haven’t been able to ask the questions you want to please don’t hesitate to message me or email me again, sally@wethednc.org, I’m happy to set up time to chat with people if there is a larger concern that you have and you want to set up a phone call, really, however you want to interact I’m here for you that is the whole reason that I’m running this race is to make sure that we pull in as many voices as we can into the party and make sure that we create a party that we can trust again that’s responsive and that we all feel we can be a part of so that our community can really move forward and make the biggest impact on democracy that we possibly can because if we don’t save it I don’t know what happens and I hate to think about it so I’m putting all of my energy into making sure we get the DNC in a place where they really take that on and that we can respond to the Trump Administration with whatever starts to come our way because that’s what we really need to do is make sure that we get our country through these really dark times so thank you for being a part of that, thank you for joining me here today and have an awesome rest of your night. Happy New Year!