Dear Native American Caucus Members,

Our meeting will be held at the Convention Center in San Jose on Friday, March 28th at 2:30 p.m. We have not yet been given a room assignment for our caucus meeting.

Our special presenter at this meeting will be State Senator Dean Flores who will be sharing with us Hallmark Company’s Beef Recall, the largest in the history of America. Our concern as a caucus is that this meat went to children and Native American elders. I am sure many of you have been following this issue in the news.

Senator Flores will be sharing steps that have already been taken in this matter and issues that still need to be addressed.

At this Convention we will also be hearing from candidates seeking to hold the 19 Democratic National Committee spots that represent our state. The voting on these 19 spots will take place at our June E-Board.

On Sunday the General Assembly will be voting on the State Party Platform. The Convention is also the time to renew caucus dues for this next year. Our dues are $25.00 per year. This money goes for our Scholarship and Student Outreach Program.

There will be no resolutions discussed and acted on by the Resolutions Committee at the Convention since their only business will be positions on the various propositions on the June ballot. All resolutions will be held over to the E-Board on Father’s Day week-end in San Francisco.

The purpose of the Convention is primarily the adoption of a Party Platform, endorsement of district-level partisan races for state assembly, state senate and congress, and the June Ballot Propositions.

We will have a host of candidates parading before us to solicit your support for Assembly, Senate and Congressional races as well as those running for the 19 DNC spots. The two Democratic Presidential candidates are expected at the Convention sometime on Saturday. As you well know, this is an unusual year for Democratic politics. We stand a real chance of holding increased leadership majorities in the Senate and House and regaining the White House. We need to help our two candidates focus on attacking McCain rather than each other. Shall we have a straw vote at our caucus to see who we favor as the nominee, or shall we continue to leave it up to each of us to decide for ourselves, on our own, who we support and why?

Due to the Pre-Endorsement meetings falling on our usual date for our annual Women’s Issues Forum and the Convention taking place in March, too, we have had to postpone our Forum this year.

I hope things are going well for each of you and very much look forward to seeing you in San Jose. Until then, safe journey and stay well.

Warmest Regards,

Chairwoman
Native American Caucus, California Democratic Party