A brief history of the DFL-Progressive Caucus
Prologue:
The roots of the DFL Progressive Caucus were anchored in the various campaigns that sprung up prior to the 2004 Presidential Election. George W. Bush has started an unpopular war in Iraq and launched a number of legislative initiatives which Democrats saw as huge steps backward in our country. Initially there was widespread support for then Senator Hillary Clinton to run as the flag-bearer that could unite these various groups: feminists, peace-activists, environmentalists, election-reform advocates, etc.
Disappointing everyone, however, Senator Clinton refused to step up to the moment and accept the challenge. It appears that her corporate supporters and their advisors suggested that President Bush was too strong and that she should be more cautious and wait until 2008. And she heeded the advice of those Party insiders over the urging of the Party’s activist base! (In hindsight this was her one great opportunity for a Presidential run with wide support across the entire spectrum of Democrats.)
In the political vacuum that followed, a number of candidates stepped forward to claim the field: Howard Dean, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, John Edwards, Wesley Clark, Carol Moseley Braun, Joe Lieberman and others. Other local campaigns also drew more energy from the absence of a single strong name at the top of the ticket (e.g. Barack Obama – already an Illinois state Senator launched his US Senate bid back then.)
Howard Dean took an early lead in the polls – largely the result of understanding the growing power of the Internet as an organizing tool. Dennis Kucinich also used the Web to share a strong progressive platform which likewise struck a chord with younger voters and older progressives. These two campaigns in particular did very well in Minnesota and brought in a whole new generation of voters and DFL activists. (Minnesota’s Kucinich campaign netted 7 delegates for that summer’s Convention – second in number only to Hawaii.)
That 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston, was rivaled in attendance by a progressive Peoples’ Counter-Convention organized and carried out in neighborhoods all over the city, with parades, demonstrations, teach-ins, lectures and local and national organizing. At that Counter convention both the Kucinich and Dean organizations formally laid down their roles as presidential campaigns – and took on the new mantle of online progressive activist organizers. They dedicated their energies to providing economic and organizing support for new progressive candidates working to “primary” out conservative, corporate-friendly, “Blue Dog” incumbents at all levels within the Democratic Party.
They were not the first to come to this strategy – other groups like MoveOn, Credo, Common Cause, etc. were already making greater use of the internet. But Democracy For America (Dean campaign) and the Progressive Democrats of America (Kucinich campaign) had had all too recently gotten a direct and bitter taste of the way corporate insider political agents (and the corporate press) worked hard to suppress newer, younger voices bringing progressive ideals, ideas and energy into the Party.
These activist groups were some of the first (of many subsequently) to really articulate the awareness that the real battle lines in struggle to reclaim our American democracy was not between the Republican Party (already mostly a lost cause) and the Democratic Party – but rather running right down the middle of the Democratic Party itself! And that the only way to change that was to advance a truly progressive agenda (one not shackled by ties to corporate campaign contributions) and to recruit and support younger candidates willing to run on those progressive issues.
[A whole other history can and should also be written of our legacy of progressive movements extending back to the beginning of the era of the early colonies – and of the unique contributions of indigenous governing principles that predated European colonization. Those will be addressed in the future to be sure!]
But more recent mid-late 20th century gains were established by progressive shifts brought to us by the New Deal, the Civil Rights movement, the Peace movement and by the modern Feminist and LGBTQ+ struggles. The driving force, however, for this new round of progressive activism – has been the disruptive technological advances brought about by the computer revolution and the birth and growth of the World Wide Web and the technical achievements of the Internet. (And now further solidified by the global reach that Cell Phone networks and access have provided.)
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Minnesota Progressive Caucus:
With the conclusion of the Democratic Convention that year, and the launching of PDA and DFA, many of the Minnesota activists who had been active in the Kucinich and Dean campaigns were eager to keep momentum going locally as well. Many were seasoned campaigners by now and stepped up to help run John Kerry’s successful Minnesota campaign.
And likewise, on that election night, Nov. 2 – we were much better prepared to recognize what we witnessed happening in the vote count in the key state of Ohio, when there was an unprecedented 10 minute vote tally computer crash! We did not buy the explanation that Ohio’s highly partisan, GOP, Secretary of State offered: that during the brief span of this blackout, there had been a sudden surge of votes cast by rural GOP Bush supporters! Rather we saw the clear outline of a well orchestrated computer vote hacking* done on behalf of President Bush’s reelection campaign!
[*Ohio had just switched to an all “black-box” computer voting system – one which (conveniently) provided no paper trail. And the system had been contracted out to a Republican owned firm, whose CEO had even bragged to the state GOP controlled legislature and governor, that if their company got the contract – they could guarantee that George W. Bush would win! The voting result irregularities were so shocking (especially in Democratic districts) and the results so contrary to exit poll evidence, that media watchdogs and statisticians readily condemned the process as fraudulent! Nevertheless John Kerry’s campaign did not challenge the results!]
By the end of the year the now combined forces of local DFA & PDA activists were ready to formally organize – first as the Minnesota Progressive Caucus[and subsequently to apply to the DFL to become the DFL Progressive Caucus.]
Our very first post-election organizing activity as a caucus was to set up a number of Listening Sessions around the state to weigh in on who should replace the outgoing chair of the Democratic National Committee – after their election loss to the GOP incumbent. Howard Dean had put his hat in the ring, but establishment Democrats were strongly opposed and supported a number of centrist Democrat alternatives. We believed that the grassroots of the Party were eager for someone a lot more progressive. And we set about to demonstrate that that was true in Minnesota.
At three different locations around the state we set up an evening encounter between invited local grassroots activists and as many of the four Minnesota delegates to the Democratic National Committee as we could schedule (usually at least 3 of the 4). Our strategy was to avoid focusing on personalities and instead invite grassroots activists to talk about the issues that mattered to them. The role we assigned to our National Committee delegates was strictly to sit and listen – while party regulars lined up behind one of two microphones to share their thoughts about what (not who) was needed in the new national Party Chair. Each speaker in the queue had 45 seconds to make their pitch – before their mic went dead and the other delegate across the room began.
The anger and frustration with ‘politics as usual’ and ‘in-group’ thinking – was palpable; and the demands for much more aggressive campaigning in every district in the country were made clear. Though not mentioned by name, the call to implement Howard Dean’s “Fifty State Strategy” was imperative. After only one or two of these sessions our DNC delegates were convinced.
[This strategy must have been played out in a similar way elsewhere in the country because – despite strong rear-guard opposition form corporate Democrats – Howard Dean was elected the new DNC chair; the 50-State Strategy was adopted and, as a direct consequence, Democrats won a stunning victory in the 2006 mid-terms and took back control of both houses of Congress for George W. Bush’s last two years in office!]
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DFL-PC early years:
Locally the newly petitioning DFL Progressive Caucus was formally accepted at a Spring State Central Committee meeting – not without opposition from more corporate friendly delegates who had found comfort in prior years at claiming the “Progressive” mantle for anything done by a Democrat. They now found themselves facing activists insisting that there were more grassroots oriented interpretations of the word, interpretations that excluded the old guard’s corporate sponsorships.
In the spring of 2005 the six-year incumbent chair of the DFL was also pressured to resign and open up the chairmanship to new people activated by the recent campaign. A three-way race for the new chair of the DFL ensued, with one candidate proposed by the Steelworkers Union, one by the Feminist Caucus, and one by our newly empowered Progressive Caucus. In the end, after 5 ballots we succeeded in electing a new chair and co-chair who had both served within the Progressive Caucus and who subsequently led to some of the most grassroots empowering shifts within our State Party.
In addition to our ongoing opposition to George W. Bush’s Iraq War, the Progressive Caucus was asked to add our support to the campaign for Single Payer healthcare and for Ranked Choice Voting, both of which we gladly took on.
We were also successful in our first attempt at “primarying” out an old guard Democrat and replacing him with a younger progressive (who, as a State Legislator, had also worked with our caucus). We had become increasingly aware that long standing CD 5 Congressman, Martin Sabo, had been voting with the GOP President Bush repeatedly, in matters regarding the Iraq War – despite strong, widely held anti-war sentiment among his constituents. To many within the Caucus it was clear that he appeared “tired” and unresponsive to new ideas and energy – and that he was potentially vulnerable to a primary challenge. So we launched one!
Initially we asked State Rep. Keith Ellison if he would consider running. Keith considered our offer, but Martin Sabo had been a strong mentor for Keith in years back and while he agreed with our analysis and the need for new energy – Keith could not personally challenge his old mentor. So we looked elsewhere.
We found a strong anti-war candidate in St. Thomas faculty member Jack Nelson-Palmeyer. A Peace Studies professor who was very popular with his students – and he was able to take his passionate classroom message and use it effectively on the campaign trail. Jack’s candidacy was wildly popular with younger Party activists who began endorsing him in some of the early SD races in Minneapolis. As more SD conventions endorsed the newcomer over the incumbent, the media started to take notice. At that point a surprise announcement came from the Congressman’s office: Sabo had decided to retire – and was throwing his support behind his Chief of Staff (the same person who had also been the former State DFL Party Chair)!
The press and the public may have been surprised by Sabo’s announcement – but those of us working for the “Back Jack” campaign were not. This appeared to us to have been Sabo’s plan all along – but he had been hoping to wait to the last minute, just before the CD5 convention and make his choice of a successor a done deal. The Progressive Caucus had forced his hand.
And now, with Sabo retiring, Keith Ellison felt free to toss his hat in the ring. Suddenly we had two strong candidates campaigning against funding for the Iraq war. We also now had many other establishment politicians announcing their candidacy as well. At the CD5 convention Keith and Jack dominated the process and set the terms for the debate – with the remaining field trying to convince the delegates that they were against the war too – and not doing a very convincing job of it!
In the end Jack threw his delegate support to Keith – having achieved the goal of getting a strong voice against the Iraq conflict, and Keith went on to win the race and become the first Muslim elected to the US Congress. [And with a wonderful bit of panache, at his swearing in ceremony Keithplaced his hand on a copy of the Qur’an – a copy from Thomas Jefferson’s personal library!]
Also in 2006 the Progressive Caucus supported a candidate for US Senate who strongly opposed the Iraq war – and pushed hard against Amy Klobuchar to take a stronger stand herself. When the candidate we had been supporting dropped out prior to the convention – one of our own members had himself nominated from the convention floor – not with any expectation of winning, but simply to have the opportunity to address the entire convention for five minutes to urge Amy to take a stronger stand against George Bush’s war!
We recruited Jack Nelson-Palmeyer to run again in 2008 – this time as a peace candidate for Paul Wellstone’s US Senate seat – then occupied by Republican Norm Coleman. In the four-way primary race, Jack lost to Al Franken – but again he had the impact of forcing candidates to address the war issue and take stronger stands against continued funding support for our various military incursions.
DFL-PC – an Issues Caucus:
Unlike most of the other DFL Community Caucus and Outreach Organizations, we do not represent any demographically defined constituency. Instead we have continued to concentrate our efforts on highlighting strong grassroots issues and working against the influence of corporate money in determining who gets nominated and who gets elected.
Over the years we have tried to champion issues that may not have a clearly specified constituency – but which have a potentially strong impact on maintaining a healthy democracy. DFL-PC members put a lot of time into framing good Precinct Caucus resolutions – and then carrying them forward through district conventions to the State Convention – where they get voted on to become biennial Action Agenda items or planks in our Ongoing Platform. These in turn are the tools we use to hold candidates and elected officials accountable and help them define legislative and administrative agendas.
In 2014 it became clear that there were enough issues and resolution related to environmental concerns – that it made sense to spin off a separate Environmental Caucus, and many of us remain active in both of these issue-defined caucuses. [See, as an example, the 2020 Progressive Resolutions Priorities and/or the PDFs of Progressive Caucus supported Resolutions for that election cycle.]