André Vasquez, who was elected to Chicago’s City Council last year as a socialist, has voted in favor of the mayor’s budget. The Chicago DSA has censured him. This raises a big question: How can a socialist organization make its elected representatives accountable?
I was part of the electoral process this year for the NYC DSA city council slate for the Brooklyn members. We got something like 20 applications and each questionnaire they have to fill out is like 20 pages long. There is a several week process of figuring out whether that race is a good one to run and which of the several candidates that applied would make sense to run. Theres tons of factors to consider, in one district this year 5 people had applied for example. The process is very detailed in trying to do our best to pick both whoever has the most clear socialist, marxist, etc views and who actually has been an engaged dsa member and who has the organizational and community background or ability to mount a successful campaign there. I might have more concrete ideological views than some of these candidates but im no city council material.
Then of course there's the matter of whether DSA helps their campaign or basically runs it. For most local races in most cities DSA can basically run the campaign so they're very engaged and we build a close relationship with the candidate and they become very engaged with DSA like in the recent NYC DSA state slate. For people like aoc and bowman we're definitely just engaged along the campaign and not have much to do with running it, so our relation isn't the same as with local ones. After all the initial process and interviews and forums the electoral group votes who to recommend to endorse, and then the branch electoral committee votes who to recommend, and then the entire chapter votes to endorse. So its a very thorough process imo.
In Chicago i believe they endorsed him in 2018, not saying that things are drastically different today but in many ways they are and the process always get improved from experience. I know with that race there was contention between him and endorsing Ugo which I thought was a much better choice but he lost the primary so Vasquez got the nod for the general. idk much details on the local chapter or what they thought. If a certain branch of a chapter is smaller they might have a smaller capacity to thoroughly vet or less of an ability to endorse a less well known person or someone that requires a lot more campaigning to win than someone who might already have experience or something. Once they win, just like with virtually any other candidate in any party, we can't control their thoughts lol, if someone decides they dont want to abide by the orgs base and go off to do something like this i mean breaking ties is the only thing to do. Its a shame but thats what happens when we still dont have any serious established political influence and institutional power. I'm glad DSA is holding him accountable on it though.
To be fair the other remaining 4 DSA alder people did vote no for this budget as they should have. So fortunately it's just one bad dude out of 5. It's not ideal but its still a really good effort by the DSA here in Chicago and I hope they can flip more seats in the next election too. If 4/5 seats the DSA earn each election actually stick with the DSA we're like 20 years away from full communism with just that. So. Critical support for CDSA right now with this
There's no amount of vetting that will stop this, an entirely different organizational structure is necessary.
Trail and error, we'll get there. Unlike the OG's, we have a century of real world examples to point to. We're building up from practically nothing. We'll get there, and I'm not just comforting myself by saying that. We'll definitely get there, you'll see....
the problem is that even if he's expelled from the party, he's still got a 4 year term.
they gotta vet their people harder, or it's just going to be a way for the dnc to infiltrate and sabotage progressives.
I was part of the electoral process this year for the NYC DSA city council slate for the Brooklyn members. We got something like 20 applications and each questionnaire they have to fill out is like 20 pages long. There is a several week process of figuring out whether that race is a good one to run and which of the several candidates that applied would make sense to run. Theres tons of factors to consider, in one district this year 5 people had applied for example. The process is very detailed in trying to do our best to pick both whoever has the most clear socialist, marxist, etc views and who actually has been an engaged dsa member and who has the organizational and community background or ability to mount a successful campaign there. I might have more concrete ideological views than some of these candidates but im no city council material.
Then of course there's the matter of whether DSA helps their campaign or basically runs it. For most local races in most cities DSA can basically run the campaign so they're very engaged and we build a close relationship with the candidate and they become very engaged with DSA like in the recent NYC DSA state slate. For people like aoc and bowman we're definitely just engaged along the campaign and not have much to do with running it, so our relation isn't the same as with local ones. After all the initial process and interviews and forums the electoral group votes who to recommend to endorse, and then the branch electoral committee votes who to recommend, and then the entire chapter votes to endorse. So its a very thorough process imo.
In Chicago i believe they endorsed him in 2018, not saying that things are drastically different today but in many ways they are and the process always get improved from experience. I know with that race there was contention between him and endorsing Ugo which I thought was a much better choice but he lost the primary so Vasquez got the nod for the general. idk much details on the local chapter or what they thought. If a certain branch of a chapter is smaller they might have a smaller capacity to thoroughly vet or less of an ability to endorse a less well known person or someone that requires a lot more campaigning to win than someone who might already have experience or something. Once they win, just like with virtually any other candidate in any party, we can't control their thoughts lol, if someone decides they dont want to abide by the orgs base and go off to do something like this i mean breaking ties is the only thing to do. Its a shame but thats what happens when we still dont have any serious established political influence and institutional power. I'm glad DSA is holding him accountable on it though.
To be fair the other remaining 4 DSA alder people did vote no for this budget as they should have. So fortunately it's just one bad dude out of 5. It's not ideal but its still a really good effort by the DSA here in Chicago and I hope they can flip more seats in the next election too. If 4/5 seats the DSA earn each election actually stick with the DSA we're like 20 years away from full communism with just that. So. Critical support for CDSA right now with this
There's no amount of vetting that will stop this, an entirely different organizational structure is necessary.
Trail and error, we'll get there. Unlike the OG's, we have a century of real world examples to point to. We're building up from practically nothing. We'll get there, and I'm not just comforting myself by saying that. We'll definitely get there, you'll see....