2007 TCDP Convention

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Elections vital, Dems tell Dems

By RANDY KREHBIEL World Staff Writer
4/1/2007 8:36 AM


Tulsa County Democrats want bygones to be bygones, and focus on winning.

Tulsa County Democratic Party leaders pleaded with delegates at Saturday's biennial county convention to let bygones -- in some cases barely gone bygones -- be bygones for the sake of winning some elections.

"The important thing, when all is said and done, is to rally behind our slate and elect Democrats to office," state Rep. Eric Proctor said in his opening remarks at the Transportation Workers Union Hall.

Later, moments after losing her bid for a second two-year term to Elaine Dodd, incumbent county chairwoman Patti Basnett said, "Some of us like to stir the pot, but we have to work together if we're ever going to elect Democrats."

Dodd, county chairwoman in 1989-1991 and 2003-2005, said Basnett would continue to have an office at party headquarters.

"Patti and I are friends," she said.

"The Republicans hope we can't hold together," state Rep. Jeannie McDaniel said in nominating former City Council candidate Jon Kirby for vice chairman. "This is the year we have to hold together."

Kirby's opponent, Tom Bomer, told the delegates: "The Tulsa County Democratic Party has been like a family that's been having a feud for a very long time. We've got to stop it."

Bomer then withdrew, giving the office to Kirby.

Jack Boyte, elected secretary to complete the slate of county officers, said, "We're going to kick out those guys who think The Flintstones is a documentary."

All of this came after lengthy, contentious and at times arcane wrangling over how Tulsa County's 79 state convention delegates would be chosen.

The method narrowly approved by the rules committee at an earlier meeting called for electing 72 delegates, apportioned by party registration, from the three-county commission district. The remaining seven delegates were to be elected at-large.

That plan was thrown out on a floor vote and replaced by one that elected state delegates proportionately by interest group instead of geography. Debate on the subject was such that at one point it included a discussion on whether delegates should vote by standing or by holding up their credentials.

Dodd and University of Tulsa law professor Gary Allison, two of the leading advocates of the interest group plan, said it was more representational and would prevent more influential blocs -- identified in a handout as organized labor and trial lawyers -- from electing the county's entire slate of state delegates.

Rules committee chairman George Otey said the alternate method supported by Dodd and Allison was unnecessarily complicated and did nothing to prevent the so-called "slate" voting.

In the end, a labor coalition whose membership included national committeeman James Frasier wound up with the most delegates -- 24 -- while Allison's "progressive revival" group was allocated 17. The remaining 38 delegates were spread among nine other groups.

Only three of the nearly 200 items submitted by the resolution committee were discussed, and only one was voted down.

That was a proposal by attorney Greg Bledsoe and endorsed by Tulsa City Councilor Roscoe Turner for the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission to terminate its contract with the Indian Nations Council of Governments for planning services.

Turner said Tulsa was being "wiped out" by its suburbs and blamed INCOG for favoring those suburbs over Tulsa.

Frasier said the issue was too technical to be voted on at short notice, and in the end that position prevailed.

Approved without discussion was a resolution supporting Tulsa's proposed annexation of the county-owned Expo Square, a matter of intense controversy at February's Republican county convention.

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I thought a hockey game was going to break out there for a while.