Democratic male delegate will lose seat to even out genders

Male delegate to lose seat to even gender split

By Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published June 26, 2008 at 8:35 p.m.
Updated June 27, 2008 at 1:13 a.m.

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Pat Waak will make the tough delegate decision today.

The head of Colorado's Democratic Party has a problem to solve today - undoing a mistake that saw one too many men elected as delegates to the national convention in Denver.

Party rules require that every state's delegation be split evenly among men and women. But Colorado, with 70 total delegates, currently has 36 men and 34 women.

That means that Pat Waak, chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, has the unenviable task of removing a male delegate and making him an alternate, then choosing one of the alternates to fill the spot.

In the end, an alternate may be replaced as well because that group also must be balanced by gender.

"I think I know where I'm going, but I haven't talked to the delegates involved," Waak said Thursday.

She knows that her decision, which she expected to be finalized today, won't be popular.

"I think they're going to be unhappy people," she said. "I mean, I would be unhappy if I were in their circumstance. You go for a couple months thinking you're a delegate, and then you're not."

Five other states also have to make corrections to their delegations.

At issue is a party rule that requires state delegates to include equal numbers of men and women and representatives from various ethnic groups.

Colorado's 70 delegates were selected through a process that began with the precinct caucuses in February and continued at conventions for the state's seven congressional districts. Once that process was done, 36 delegates were selected. Another 14 were automatic, including people such as Waak, Gov. Bill Ritter and Sen. Ken Salazar. That group elected an add-on delegate. Seven more slots were filled by other party leaders and elected officials.

That left 12 "at-large" delegates, chosen at the party's state convention in Colorado Springs in May.

"Somehow in the process of doing that, it was not noticed that we had too many males," Waak said.

The national party's rules committee went through the delegates carefully, then notified Colorado and the other states this week that they were not in compliance with the requirements for equal numbers of men and women.

Waak said that moving one of the male at-large delegates into an alternate's slot creates a "domino effect" that is likely to see someone cut out of the process, to be replaced by the next highest vote-getter from the state convention.

Delegates and alternates alike get access to the Pepsi Center during the convention, scheduled for Aug. 25-28.

Waak said she was exploring whether she could get a pass to the hall for the alternate who will be cut in the process.

• June 27, 2008

  11:35 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Scott writes:

  Liberalism run amok. Da comrades! We must have absolute parity. Who cares about competency? Is there also a token race quota?

  Scott

• June 30, 2008

  8:24 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  garydale writes:

  As bad as this is going to sound, the guy who gets cut will have nothing to complain about. Anyone who supports a party that promotes equal outcome over equal opportunity deserves to get the equal outcome back in his face like that. This is why I vote Libertarian. I think Bob Barr will take as many votes out of Democratic hide as he will the Republicans.

  (For an interesting post on that: http://thepolitickingtimebomb.wordpre...)

  Again, Democrats are misguided in their politics. You can't make someone or a group equal. They have to evolve or rise up to the occasion.

  Gary Dale Cearley

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