There is an important opportunity this weekend to elect delegates who will choose the new California Democratic Party Chair at the State Convention in April. With a new leader (Art Torres is retiring from the position which he has held for over a decade), there will clearly be an opportunity for a new direction. We received this email from the John Burton for Party Chair campaign. Given the importance of the race, we wanted to pass this on to you. 

This Saturday and Sunday, January 10^th and 11^th, every Assembly District will elect delegates to the State Convention. 

The
delegates elected at this meeting make up 1/3 of the voters who will
choose the Party Chair at Convention in April.  This is a huge
opportunity for activists to elect delegate candidates who are
committed to electing John Burton as our next Chair!

We
need YOU to turnout voters to the delegate elections.  Voters must be
registered Democrats who were eligible to vote in the November 2008
election in the district caucus they are voting in.

Please do the following two things to help our campaign be successful this weekend:

#1.  Attend and vote in your district’s delegate election.  For a list, go here:  http://www.cadem.org/site/c.jrLZK2PyHmF/b.4818171/k.4638/Assembly_District_Election_Meetings.htm

#2.  Send a personal email out to all your contacts, either in your assembly district, or regional/statewide. (we
have attached a sample email alert for a district-specific message, as
well as a regional/statewide message) If you use Facebook or another
social networking site, send a note to all your friends!  Please cc us
on the email at info@burton2009.com!

Every district will elect 12 delegates (6 men and 6 women).  There will be a Burton Volunteer at each site with the list of Candidates pledged to support Burton.  People don’t have to know the names ahead of time to go vote.

If you have any questions, please contact us at Shawnda@Burton2009.com

Thanks!

/The Burton Team

Also, we want to refer readers to this post by PeteB2 over at Calitics:

CA Dem Party Delegate Elections are Next Weekend: Support Progressives

Thank goodness the Progressive Democrats of America, SoCal Grassroots,
and the Progressive Caucus of the CA Democratic Party have joined
together to run Progressive Slate candidates for next weekend’s state
party delegate elections (election times/locations here).
 The statements of the candidates give you so little to go on, and
sitting through several hours to hear them speak individually before
figuring out who is really the progressives of the bunch is a really
arduous thing to go through.  I believe we can really make a positive
change in the party by getting real progressive activists in delegate
positions who can challenge the party when necessary. 

The list of causes
that candidates on this slate need to advocate for is something I agree
with nearly to a tee, and I really appreciate that they are laying out
what the criteria for selection is.  

Please go read the rest of this post at Calitics.

Give
us your thoughts and ideas on where you would like to see the
Democratic Party going, now that we’ve got new leadership in our
country and a hope for real change in our country and its politics.