Lunch break at the Democratic Platform Committee Meeting

I have a few minutes to write a quick update since I finally managed to secure myself a wifi connection downtown. The Democratic Party is currently having their Platform Committee Meeting at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. I've looked through the draft of the party platform for 2008 and it looks good, however, there is nothing about reforming the primary process. Word has it that there is an amendment in play to get primary reform language into the document.

Suffice it to say that, thus far, there has been a lot of boring parliamentary procedure bantered about and little has changed in regards to the actual draft of the document (not that much of it needs to be changed, but primary reform is a big deal, seeing as how over half the party did not vote for Obama).

I get two hours of free wifi time on downtown Pittsburgh's network. I'll see if I can write anymore updates as the day wears on. I'll definitely write a full report when I get home this afternoon/evening.

Update: important issues regarding voter rights are not part of the platform

There were two proposed ammendements to the Democratic Platform, numbered 93 and 102 which directly addressed voting issues in regards to the Democratic Primary. Ammendment 93 would have made it so that caucuses were scrapped in favour of primaries while ammendment 102 stated that there would be no geographical preferences giving one state a disproportionate delegate advantage over another. Both of these ammendments were struck down on a technicality (ruled out of order) - the only ammendments to suffer this fate - as not being under the juristiction of the Platform Committee. The Chair claimed that such matters were the domain of the Rules Committee.

This is neither a good day for the Democratic Party or Democracy. If the voice of the people is not to be heard, what matters the rest of the platform?