I survived a Texas State Senatorial District Convention!

...and after all that, I didn't even get to be a delegate to the state convention...

So last Saturday, I, and about 1,300 of my fellow citizens in Texas State Senatorial District 25, all tried to get in to the San Antonio Municipal Auditorium at the same time. (There's more than enough room in the auditorium for that many people, just not room for everyone to come through the doors at once.) However, having cleverly volunteered to serve on a committee (the Rules Committee - there's a laugh), I was able to stroll in, go to my committee meeting, and pick up my credentials later on the strength of my - somewhat tenuous - political connections. Who says status doesn't swing any weight in the Democratic Party?

They opened the doors at 8:30 a.m., when the gavel to open the convention wasn't scheduled to fall until 2:00 p.m. (there was some thought that delegates would sign in, get their credentials, then go to the César Chávez march scheduled for that morning. Don't think it happened.) To add to the confusion, District 21, which has a much smaller reach in Bexar County, was holding its convention in the lower level of the Municipal Auditorium, so we periodically had bewildered District 21 delegates show up wondering where to go.

Of the hundred or so precincts in the district, the delegations from more than forty were contested, meaning that the long-suffering Credentials Committee had to consider every single one of those arguments and come to some decision about them.

At 2:00 p.m., registration was temporarily halted so that a temporary roll of delegates could be established. Establishment of the temporary roll of delegates allows the convention to elect a temporary chair and a temporary secretary, and set a temporary quorum so that those delegates whose places are not being contested can vote on the Credentials Committee's decisions on those that are. I have no idea what happened during that part of the convention, since it turned out that, even though the Rules Committee's work had been completed much earlier, we were pressed into service as ad-hoc, pro-tem Sergeants-at-Arms, and at that point sent out to block the registration lines so that no one could sign up until after the temporary roll had been established.

So, once we had a temporary quorum, registration started back up again and the rest of us stood around, and sat around, and wandered around, waiting for the Credentials Committee to finish their work. Nothing can happen until the Credentials Committee has settled all the contests, at which point the permanent convention roll is established, a permanent quorum is set, and a permanent chair and secretary are elected.

When all the "permanents" have been settled, each delegation can then caucus and elect its delegate to the state convention.

There was a brief interesting spell when a small man with a large Napoleon complex - David Van Os, a previous unsuccessful candidate for something or other - proposed that all delegations that were not contested be allowed to go ahead and caucus to select their state delegates. That was roundly voted down. We were by God going to be sure that everyone suffered equally.

Finally - FINALLY! - the Credentials Committee began its report. A motion was made to accept the report (essentially all the Committee's decisions on the contested delegations) as a whole, but it turns out Texas Democratic convention rules don't allow for such a painless solution. So we had to listen to every single solitary decision and vote on it.

THEN - at 8:00 p.m., when the convention began at 2:00 p.m. - at last we had our permanent roll, and permanent quorum. You might have expected a Bedlam of celebration, but by that time we were all too stunned by sheer ennui.

There was an actual contest for the seat of permanent chair, but the poor man who had been temporary chair all this time won that. I'm not sure if it was reward for his dedication or punishment for his short-sightedness in accepting the temporary appointment.

After all that had been settled, the precinct delegations were allowed to caucus and elect their state delegates. This - the primary purpose of the convention - happened at about 9:00 p.m., seven hours after the opening gavel, and took approximately ten minutes.

With the delegates elected, we proceeded to vote on the report of the Resolutions Committee. I think (though I really don't remember) that there was a motion to accept the report of the Resolutions Committee as a whole, by acclamation, but that also went down and we voted on every resolution. There was a roll-call vote on whether or not to seat the Florida and Michigan delegations at the national convention, which - Hillaryites will no doubt be thrilled to hear - was won by a very narrow margin by the "ayes."

I stuck it out as long as I could, but since I had to get up early the next morning for a riding lesson, I left at about 11:00 p.m. I heard from a friend whose husband was his delegation's chair that he got home at 4:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Another friend, chair of her delegation in a different district, got home at 2:00 a.m.

A few observations:

• As mad-dog crazy as our convention was, we could have been worse off. One of the other districts held their convention in a warehouse, and almost had the whole thing shut down when the Fire Marshal came by and determined that the occupancy load exceeded that allowable for the building. I also heard that Austin has two districts and has traditionally held their conventions together as a Travis County convention, a system which worked well when both districts' delegations totaled about 300 people. However, they were determined to continue business as usual this year even though attendance was predicted to be 13,000.
• Any time a race is hotly contested and rouses great public interest, as this one is and has, there will be a huge influx of new, inexperienced participants into the system. The system needs to plan for this.
• The women Clinton delegates - not so much the men - are bone-deep, cold, mean angry. Their demeanor displays the combination of incredulity and fury you would expect from someone who has just been told that a treasured family heirloom has been wantonly destroyed for the sheer malicious joy of the vandalism. Their girl's march to the coronation has been interrupted, perhaps permanently, and they may never recover. One, a woman I had never seen before and devoutly hope never to meet again, screamed at me for no reason. (A precinct delegation had attempted to elect a temporary chair, since their regular chair had been unable to attend. Some question had come up in that connection and as a member of the Rules Committee I had been asked to help settle it. This woman shoved herself into the middle of our conversation and screamed, "NO! We are NOT going to move Obama alternates into empty Clinton seats. I am on the Credentials Committee and that is not going to happen." Aside from the fact that her shriek had nothing to do with the issue in question, the convention was going to move Obama alternates into empty Clinton seats, if, and only if, there were no Clinton alternates available. Since I was a member of the Rules Committee, I was able to set her straight about that.)
• The on-the-ground Obama workers still have a lot to learn. Clinton supporters had a table set up inside the seating area and were selling buttons, caps, T-shirts and bumper stickers. I found a couple of Obama organizers and asked if there would be a sales area for Obama and was told, "Well, our fund-raising is going pretty well, so we don't need to do that." Can you say "missed the point entirely," boys and girls?
• Obama's folks also need to learn a lot about fighting dirty, not so much so that they can fight dirty too, as so that they can protect against it. They flat got outmaneuvered on two votes, one of which resulted in a Clinton-leaning delegation's being seated from a contested precinct.
• I had so much fun that I applied to be an at-large delegate from the district (after the precinct delegates are elected, a number of at-large delegates are selected to make up the necessary percentages of Presidential preference, ethnicity, gender, etc.) but didn't make it. I would have thought never having supported a Democrat for President before in my entire life would have carried some weight, but apparently not.
• The whole day, two old sayings ran through my head: Will Rogers' "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat," and the Iron Chancellor's "Laws are like sausages. You should never see them made." In this case it was candidates, but the principle applies.

Jury Duty redux

I thought I would finish up my jury duty experience.

The case was murder - a drugs for sex deal that didn't work out. After the drugs and the sex, the victim said she also wanted money, and the other participant didn't want to pay. His story was that she came at him with a knife, he tried to take it away from her, and in the struggle she was stabbed. She fell down and went into convulsions and he panicked and choked her to death.

The difficulty was that there was a confession to the police - ON VIDEO. However, the accused originally went in to talk to the police about a different question, a misdemeanor warrant. The questioning turned to the murder and after some discussion (but not the confession), the accused said he wanted a lawyer. The detective stopped the questioning and left the room (as he was required to do), but after about twenty minutes returned and started asking questions of the accused in order to fill out a booking sheet on the misdemeanor warrant. It was in the course of that questioning that the confession was obtained.

After all the evidence was presented, we were given the charge of the court, which says, "If you find that the prosecution showed [this], then you must find the defendant guilty," etc. It also mentions that the defendant must have been properly Mirandized, and that if he asked for an attorney he must have one before any further questioning or interrogation can take place. The charge does not say, "except for questions for the booking sheet," or "except for questions about another alleged infraction," or anything else. It says, "before any further questioning or interrogation".

To one other juror and me, that meant that the confession had to be thrown out, since it had been obtained after he asked for an attorney, and would never have happened if the detective had not returned to the room to start asking questions again. The rest of the jury (except one woman who sort of felt sorry for the accused because he was homeless and seemed to be mildly retarded) thought we were crazy and kept saying, "What if the detective came back and asked if he wanted a drink of water?" We sent question after question out to the judge about this point, and got back only "You have all the evidence and information necessary to render a verdict." We deliberated five hours the first day after we got the case, and when we finished up I went home and cried.

Jury deliberations took a total of seven hours, after which we found him guilty of manslaughter, not murder, because without the confession the evidence wasn't strong enough.

I amazed myself. My adamant stance on the inadmissability of the confession took me completely by surprise. I have always been furious when I read news stories about criminals being released on a "technicality". If they were guilty, they were guilty and should be punished, and never mind the small details. Walking into the jury room at the beginning of the trial, I would have expected myself to be a "hanging juror." I still don't know where my attitude about the confession came from, but it showed up completely formed and deeply rooted.

Help! I'm being held prisoner in the courthouse, or, Jury Duty - Day 2

The worst part about jury duty on a criminal case is not being able to talk about it. It's so hard to sit through that stuff every day and not be able to debrief at the end. I am so glad I decided against law school a long, long time ago. I wouldn't have liked corporate or non-litigation law and being in criminal courts all the time would have driven me to suicide.

Jury Duty

I don't know what's wrong with me. I have a face that prosecutors and defense attorneys both seem to love.

I have been called for jury duty three times, empanelled three times (that's when you get put in the large pool from which the jury will eventually be selected) , and PICKED three times, the last time just today.

The first time was a criminal trial, aggravated sexual assault of a child. The second time was a civil trial, and I think the judge just used us to intimidate the plaintiff and defendant because all we did was hang around in the hall outside the courtroom until we were let in and the judge told us the parties had settled. This time is another criminal trial, a felony, and I think that's all I'll say about the case until it's over.

What is the deal with the people who set up jury duty? They take something that 99.99999% of the population doesn't want to do anyway, and then make it as hard and unpleasant as possible. First we had to be downtown at the courthouse at 7:30 a.m. today. I don't know why, and I doubt they do either. Then when we got there, could we go into the Central Jury Room and sit down? Of course not! We had to line up in the hall and wait until 7:45 a.m., at which time somebody came out and took the jury questionnaires we were supposed to have filled out ahead of time (and which, of course, a whole bunch of us hadn't filled out.) THEN we got to go in and sit down and a judge came in and harangued us for at least 45 minutes. After that we got to mill around until they started calling jury pools. At least I got called early and didn't have to spend the whole day in the Central Jury Room.

Here's the thing: jury duty is supremely important. It's the basis of our entire justice system. Wouldn't you think the people in charge of it would want citizens to WANT to be there? Given that any of us might at some time be unlucky enough to be up against the courts, wouldn't you want the people judging your case to be as at ease and unstressed as possible? Why start them out grouchy from the very beginning?

Once you get into the courtroom, it gets a little more interesting. The prosecutor tells you in general about the case, and the names of the defendant and (in this case) victim, in case anybody in the jury pool knows any of them. Then they start questioning the potential jurors individually about their ideas about the justice system in general. This is called voir dire (French for to speak the truth) and includes questions about things like would you be able to disregard evidence if the judge tells you to, and, if you find the defendant guilty, would you be able to consider the entire range of potential sentences? Since this is a felony case, people were also asked if they or a relative or close friend had had anything similar happen to them. To be sure that nobody is biased, they also ask if you know any police officers, or, of course, the defendant or any of the lawyers.

During the whole process, the judge and both sets of attorneys tell you REPEATEDLY that if there is any reason you should be excused (exclusive caregiver of a small child or disabled person, etc.) or don't think you can follow the law, you should let them know. They DON'T WANT YOU under those circumstances. Once we got picked, it was pretty late in the day, so the judge told us we were excused until tomorrow, but we had to go into the jury room and give them our names and phone numbers. At that point, one of my fellow jurors asked the bailiff, " So we don't get a choice? We have to come back tomorrow?" I'm not sure what she thought we had been doing all day.

Lifestyle

Why can't we say that AIDS is a lifestyle disease?

I used to smoke. If I died of emphysema or lung cancer or heart disease, there are people who would have no difficulty saying it was a result of my former lifestyle. Some might even say I "deserved" it - I knew when I smoked that it was not healthy.

I am (for now) overweight. If I died of stroke or heart disease or complications of diabetes, there are people who would have no difficulty saying it was a result of my lifestyle.

People who drink to excess die of liver failure, alcohol poisoning, ruptured esophagus or kidney failure. Rarely does anyone feel constrained NOT to say that those deaths are the result of lifestyle.

AIDS is often the result of unprotected random sex or shared use of dirty needles. Yet it seems to be absolutely forbidden to say that AIDS is a lifestyle disease. Not that AIDS is a punishment for sin, or God's way of cleansing the earth of the depraved - just that AIDS might be contracted as the result of certain unadvisable behaviors. Doesn't it seem that such a stance might make it difficult to communicate how to avoid or prevent AIDS? Isn't this just a little shortsighted?

There is a big difference between pointing out that certain outcomes are the logical, often foreseeable results of certain behaviors, and saying that the outcomes are deserved or are punishment for those behaviors. If we can't talk honestly about connections between cause and effect, the future may be dangerous.

NEWS FLASH!

Late-breaking news: this week we learned that Diana Windsor, the former Princess of Wales, killed ten years ago in a car accident, is...STILL DEAD!

There was a public memorial on the tenth anniversary of her death. Why?

I know that sounds heartless, and I'm sorry. I'm very sorry for her and her family. She was a young woman when she died, and was deprived of many years of a normal life span. Her sons, whom, by all accounts she adored, were deprived of her presence and left to the tender mercies of a father of whom the best thing that might be said is that he has difficulty putting anyone else's interests ahead of his own.

BUT: what did she really do? She was very pretty. (Not beautiful. Sophia Loren is beautiful. Audrey Hepburn was beautiful. Venus and Serena Williams are beautiful. Halle Berry - with short hair - is beautiful. Margot Fontaine was beautiful.) She wore clothes like a dream - but who wouldn't with all the time in the world to work out, a cook to put together delicious low-fat meals, and an unlimited shopping budget? She shook hands gracefully, and put on a Lucite helmet and walked through a no doubt carefully sanitized former minefield. That may be a little unfair, because she did die before she had much chance to do any work with her anti-land-mine association, but really.

She had flaws - as do we all, so that's not exceptional - and not much shame about exposing them. In fact, she did so relentlessly, and apparently with little concern about the effects her behavior might have on her sons. She was, in the current web parlance, an attention whore. Just because she managed at the same time to display some vulnerabilities and a little charm doesn't make all this extended mourning any more reasonable or understandable. Have we become so addicted to emotional extremes that we go looking for reasons to keen, beat our chests, and break out the sackcloth and ashes? Isn't there enough sadness for us in our own lives and those of our families and friends? Do we have to go on these vicarious emotional binges?

And she's going to stay dead, so are we going to have to do this again, and again, and again, and again, at the 15th, 20th, 25th (the Silver Jubilee of the Death of Diana!)and other anniversaries ad infinitum, ad nauseam?

All the trouble in the world...

A news story I heard this morning - about the cruelly unsuccessful forced urbanization of Bedouins in Israel - started me thinking again about something that has occurred to me on and off before.

I think probably all, but for sure at least ninety per cent, of the trouble in the world can be attributed to nation-states' attempts to impose national structure on basically tribal societies.

From the macro view, it explains so much. A tribe is from a relatively circumscribed geographic area. The members are relatively homogeneous in physical appearance, morals, ethics, mores and behavior. Tribes are suspicious, often to the point of fatal hostility, of non-members (if the stories are true, think of how many tribes' names for themselves translated simply to "people" and their names for other groups to "not people.")

Think of:

The former Yugoslavia - fine while Tito and the Soviet Union were around to keep the lid on, but as soon as those control factors disappeared, all the former tribes started right back in killing each other. And they'd had a number of years in forced proximity to incubate their animosity.

Greeks and Turks - they have at least reached a mutual accommodation now, but for years, this was one of the most deadly feuds in the world.

Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland - again, while there is a (so far) long-standing cease-fire, these two groups spent decades attempting to wipe each other out.

The continent of Africa - sadly, many populations of Africa seem dedicated to starving, blowing up, killing with thirst, shooting, and otherwise wiping out most of the rest of the continent. The Hutu/Tutsi conflict, the warlords in Somalia, and the genocide in Darfur are all, I think, the result of a basically tribal mentality, which says that those who are "not like us" must be exterminated, since they may be dangerous. But nation-states like to deal with other nation-states, so all these tribes must be jammed into countries, like jigsaw puzzle pieces being smashed into spaces where they don't really fit.

The longest-running feud of all (at least to modern memory), the Arab-Jew conflict - this is truly a tribal war in every sense of the words, and has been going on apparently for the length of recorded history.

The Mexico/U.S. immigration disagreement - stay with me here, because this is one of those situations that gets complicated in the details. In the U.S., European settlers followed the Protestant/Norse/Germanic pattern with the indigenous inhabitants: burn them out, run them off, or kill them. In Mexico, settlers followed the Roman/Catholic (not Roman Catholic) pattern: assimilate and exploit. That means that, in Mexico, there are numerous descendants of native tribes who were accustomed to wandering around their territories with no boundaries, no limits, and no restrictions. In the U.S. there is a population that believes strongly in boundaries, limits and restrictions, especially where territory is concerned. Mexicans don't really see any difference between this side of the Río Grande and that, so if things aren't going well on this side, no problem - go to that side. To the U.S., the WHOLE POINT is that there is a huge difference between this side and that side, and if you want to come to this side, you need to follow the rules. This is exacerbated by the fact that so often Mexicans look - um, well, different. They speak, you know, a different language. They're not like us. Probably dangerous.

Red states/blue states - possibly an extreme application of this theory, but it still has possibilities. To red staters, blue staters talk funny, dress funny, eat strange food, make fun of "us," think they're so smart, want to keep "us" from driving what "we" want to, won't let "us" pray even when "we" want to, try to keep God out of the public debate, and on and on. To blue staters, red staters talk funny, dress funny, eat strange (and unhealthy) food, want to make "us" go to church and pray even if "we" don't want to, insist on driving gas-guzzling exhaust-belchers and defiling the earth, air and water, want to put God and the preacher in "our" bedrooms, and on and on. To red staters and blue staters, the others are not like us. Probably dangerous.

Tribal differences. All the trouble in the world. And I think things won't get better until we start to understand that the tribal mentality is basic to human behavior - probably hardwired into us - and figure out ways to deal with it.