Precinct caucuses continue to play a critical role in our Minnesota political landscape even though the Presidential Primary will be a more important event than ever before.
Caucuses will be held on Tuesday, February 25, 2020 throughout the state in schools, town halls and other neighborhood gathering places. For the two major political parties, these critical activities will happen at the caucuses:
· Adoption of resolutions on issues that will carry forward to higher levels of conventions and eventually result in a state platform that reflects the positions of the party on major citizen concerns and may call for specific legislation.
· Election of delegates to conventions at higher level organizing units that will meet at later dates and endorse candidates, consider and pass issue resolutions and conduct other party business. In this presidential year, attendees seeking to be elected delegates to conventions will be asked to identify their presidential preference (or uncommitted) and there may be sub-caucuses to elect delegates to the next level. The sub-caucuses may also identify a group or issue critical to participants in that group, such as Uncommitted-labor-education.
· Participants will elect local party officers, such as precinct chair and other officials for that precinct. Other local party matters may also be explained and voted on.
· Candidates for election to public offices may visit and speak to the groups.
So we all need to put the caucuses on our calendars and plan to attend. The Retiree Council and MN AFL-CIO will have resolutions on important issues that you will be asked to present at your caucuses. These are important issues that we want all political parties to hear about and take positions on.
If you have a presidential favorite that you would like to support, you need to go to the caucus and seek election to be a delegate to higher level conventions so you can be part of the process of selecting delegates to go to the national convention. The State and District conventions will elect national delegates in proportion to the Presidential Primary results.
We will have more details about caucuses in the next Retiree Bulletin. For information about your own political party procedures, go to their websites.