Alice Germond is Secretary of the DNC, and a member of the Rules and Bylaws Committee.
She considers herself the guardian of the rules.
Article 9, Section 12: of the Charter of the Democratic National Committee states: All meetings of…official party committees…shall be open to the public and votes shall not be taken by secret ballot.”
On Saturday, a secret meeting was held, at which votes were taken.
At the end of the morning session, a one hour lunch period was announced, and the afternoon session would commence after that lunch. Members of THE PUBLIC were told to return in one hour.
THE PUBLIC, which had a right, under the charter to attend the meeting, showed up.
The Rules and Bylaws committee did not. Alice Germond, who as all members of the RBC, had been told that the afternoon session would begin after the one hour lunch period, did not show up to perform her duties as Secretary of the Party. Neither co-chair showed up. None of the members showed up.
The PUBLIC, which has the right to attend ALL meetings of the RNC, showed up.
As co-chairs and party secretary, Roosevelt, Herman, had a responsibility to return to the meeting room and recovene the meeting at the time announced, and Germond had a responsibility to be there to record the procedings at the time announced. But they didn't show up.
Two hours after the scheduled time announced TO THE PUBLIC that the meeting would resume, James Roosevelt announced that “Members over lunch have reviewed the testimony and oral arguments that were made/given this morning and are ready to proceed to motions….”
Mr. Roosevelt could not have known that the members were ready to procede unless a secret meeting had taken place, and a vote taken in secret.
Alexis Herman then announced that the co-chairs had decided that 10 minutes was sufficient to air the questions regarding three resolutions -- remember that only TWO challenges had been made, so A VOTE had to have been taken to limit the resolutions pursuant to the challenges.
According to Germond, 10 minutes was sufficient to discuss all the issue because of the length of time spent in the morning session on questions, etc.
When I asked Germond how it was possible that all necessary questions and discussion had been done in the morning, when it took three hours for HER to return from a one hour lunch break, she hung up on me.
Now admittedly, I'm not Mr. Polite -- Alice Germond is completely full of shit (she had the nerve to tell me that Dean and Pelosi were neutral... I think that was the point where I became contentious) -- so I suggest that other people call Alice Germond, and ask her
1) Why she did not return to the meeting as scheduled and announced at the end of the morning session.
2) Why the co-chairs did not reconvene the meeting as announced TO THE PUBLIC as scheduled.
3) Why a meeting OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, that THE PUBLIC had a right to attend, was not reconvened on schedule.
4) Why discussion was allowed to continue IN PRIVATE by her for two hours after THE PUBLIC was told the meeting would be resumed.
5) How, under the charter of the Democratic Party, a scheduled one hour lunch turns into a three hour discussion OF THE BUSINESS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE, business that UNDER THE CHARTER HAD TO BE DISCUSSED IN PUBLIC, does not constitute a "non-open meeting" which is prohibied under the charter.
I suggest that you be polite -- but also demand to know why SHE did not to return to the meeting as scheduled -- because the time of the meeting reconvening had been announced TO THE PUBLIC, and absent a vote of some sort, it was her RESPONSIBILITY to be in attendance as the secretary of the party at the time the meeting was supposed to resume.
Her phone number is 304 725 3293
she told me before she hung up on me that she had to go to dinner, so if you do get an answering machine, keep trying every 15 minutes, because at some point she will get home and be available to answer your calls.
(BTW, her husband is Village elder Jack Germond)
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Alice Germond
She came across as an idiot. Anyone wearing their hair in the style of Olive Oyl is not believable.
Pat J
Pat...
when you call her, don't mention her "despite the fact that I'm enormously rich, I want people to think I'm cool, so I'll wear crap from the sixties" fashion sense....
i betcha they're changing that whole "public mtg" thing
as i type, and going back to private ones--it was foolish for any of us to think that the real wheeling and dealing was going to happen in front of cameras -- or the public.
When Brazile gets to be head of the DNC, she'll bring back the "good ol' days" of smoke-filled rooms and Tammany Hall, etc--it'll just be with a different crowd in charge than the old fat white guys who used to run it.
And i also bet they'll be purging the Clinton supporters from that Committee and others--all those who spoke against these "deals" in public--instead of "unifying".
I like the way you think.
How does she pronounce her last name -- with a soft g?
It's a hard g
.
You're barking up the wrong tree
This isn't going to change anything.
I've worked for a nonprofit for 18 years, including 10 years as a committee staff liaison. Committee agendas change and committees can decide to do things at the last minute. If one of our members sent this to us, it would get a polite response but nothing more would come of it.
Pursuing this is a road to nowhere. I guarantee it.
I don't do stuff because I know it will have an impact...
I do it because somebody has to do it, because its the right thing to do.
If Alice Germond gets pissed off, too bad. Hundreds of thousand (if not millions) of Americans are pissed of because of the abject corruption of her and her peers.
"enormously rich" ?
how the hell do these people always end up in power?
note: don't e-mail me with your guess.
p. luke -
is there any topic, qualitative or quantitative, that you will not tackle?
No...
Of course not. Why should there be?
Because I'm not qualified (as Germond told me). Fuck
that. I can understand simple sentences. I can watch TV. That qualifies me to say with absolute assurance that a "behind closed doors" meeting occurred during which business before the dommittee was discussed during the time when Germond and her friends were SUPPOSED TO BE MEETING IN PUBLIC, and some kind of "vote" was taken that changed the agenda, specified the number of resolutions that would be considered, and limited debate.
Alice Germond and the committee members can discuss stuff during lunch. They can (as she told me they did) discuss this stuff the night before in bars.
That the committee can get away with. But this was a date on which a publicly announced meeting was held, and at which these issues were to have a full public airing, and which had a timeline and an agenda -- and that timeline included a ONE HOUR lunch during which backroom deals could be made and still have the fig-leaf of staying within the rules.
You don't have to be an expert to figure that out.
All you have to be is enough of a pain in the ass to make the phone call, and get them to lie to you.
My Mama Told Me That Was Cheatin'
And she told me that goin' on CNN and acting like you are neutral the whole time you're advocating for your candidate is cheatin' too!
OxyCon
corrine
i understand and accept you point.
but
there are two ways to work with a political party -
1) inside the system
or
2) outside the system.
anyone who suggests the strategy that p. luke has suggested
and
anyone who feels the call to follow it
IS NOT WORKING INSIDE THE SYSTEM.
i would add,
why should they???
for folks to agree to work or to want to work inside a system,
requires that they feel they will be treated fairly and given a fair hearing.
this is, i think, where anglochel's writings
(http://anglachelg.blogspot.com/)
about "legitimacy" articulate the intellectual foundations of rebellion.
personally, i think to call ms germond and ask politely to be heard
would be a complete waste or time.
better to call and bitch loudly.
what i have observed is that folks gifted, or grafted, with power
love to avoid direct communication with hoi polloi,
in fact,
are desperate to avoid contact with such sweaty masses.
when a group assumes this position, the best approach is a frontal assault.
it may not gain you much in the short run,
but it is an effective way of hitting the donkey upside the head to get its attention.
it's the difference between
micropolitics - work patiently, meeting by meeting, year by year, be polite, wait your turn, be understanding
and
macropolitics - i expect to be listened to and treated respectfully as a member of this group.
if i'm not,
i'll work to change this organization to insure that i am listened to.
Paul; did you call her a "pederast" too? :-)
Teh Rulz: They didn't have a private meeting; they had a discussion over lunch. They didn't conduct votes; they surveyed the opinions of the committee membership. The Rules say they couldn't have a private meeting or hold secret votes, and they would never break the rules; so, clearly, those things you assert must not have happened. How could you think such things? What is wrong with you? Why do you hate Donna Brazile? (OK, never mind that last question.)
But by all means, everybody "Go ask Alice, I think she'll know."
Be good for her to hear from the common folk.
Oh, and yes, this from amberglow - ...she’ll bring back the “good ol’ days” of smoke-filled rooms.... So sweet; don't change. They never went away. SOS. Deal.