DSA’s National Convention [Credit: Democratic Left]
The recent passage of “One Member One Vote” in NYC-DSA and the national push to implement it across all major decisions brings a key question to mind: What is democracy in DSA?
One Member One Vote (1M1V), a proposal authored by members of the Groundwork caucus, is motivated as a means to ‘broaden member-democracy’ by delivering major decisions – usually conducted by elected delegates – to the membership as a whole. National leadership, federal endorsements, and even straw polls on specific issues would each be separate OpaVotes in every member’s inbox.
But democracy is more than an online ballot. Democracy is the ability to listen and be heard, to engage in the exchange of ideas, to be informed, and have real stakes in the process of changing the organization. The 1M1V proposals do not aim to create democratic spaces in DSA or develop members to become confident political actors. These proposals serve as shortcuts, or even undermine these goals.
One Member One Vote?
The current proposal from Groundwork would host NPC elections by email ballot, between 30 and 60 days before DSA’s biennial National Convention. The authors claim this proposal is “inspired by the recent reforms which revolutionized the UAW,” or the movement within unions to directly elect their national leadership. But affinities between Groundwork’s proposal and the goals of democratic union movements do not go beyond the surface level.
A crucial difference between what's being proposed here and how unions elect their leaders is timing. UAW, Teamsters, NALC, and ILWU all elect their leaders after their conventions. There is wisdom to this. The broader membership can focus on the election of convention delegates and the consideration of resolutions that could change the national organization. Only after the convention does the focus shift to national leadership, on who can best helm the next term and carry out what's been decided by Convention. This also allows room for discussion and consideration of different viewpoints throughout the organization before, during, and well after national deliberation takes place.The 1M1V proposal of a relatively short process before Convention only makes it harder for members to make informed choices, much unlike the unions that the authors source inspiration from.
The bylaws of UAWD give a better example of the struggle for democracy within UAW. UAWD emphasizes that they need a union "controlled by an informed membership." UAWD has annual national meetings where Steering Committee officers are directly elected, and important matters are discussed — and only by those in attendance. Votes are not exported to a digital process divorced from national decision-making
But why is this? A previous section of the UAWD bylaws gives us a clue:
“Spirited debate is the hallmark of any democratic organization. It creates an environment for creativity and developing innovative ideas to put forth the best possible solutions to any adversity it may face.”
Members unable to attend the annual national meeting are also unable to engage in spirited debate — the "hallmark of any democratic organization!"
Outside of meetings and conventions, the 1M1V proposals present concepts not at all based in union democracy: electing leaders through online ballots, before national convention, and generating decisions from non-attendees. It is a struggle to describe "1M1V" proposals as anything like what unions practice today.
The State of Democracy in a 1M1V Chapter
Members of Marxist Unity Group were early proponents of the Chapter Town Halls resolution adopted by the 2022 NYC DSA Convention. Some clauses of this proposal describe the motivation:
Whereas open debate and discussion amongst members, elected leadership and endorsed elected officials are essential to the healthy functioning of a vibrant, democratic socialist mass membership organization,
Whereas developing a vibrant social and political culture within DSA can help bring in members of the working class to our organization, which is crucial to the future success of DSA and of the movement for socialism,
Whereas there are a substantial number of strategic questions (e.g., electoral strategy, labor strategy, the role of Socialists in Office [SiO] and their relationship to DSA, coalitions with other organizations, international solidarity and BDS, etc.) that are crucial to deliberate on democratically,
This proposal was part of our vision to build democratic spaces, develop members to engage in our democracy, and introduce the public to what these spaces look like. NYC-DSA has held multiple town halls since, and the impact has begun to build the hunger for input and debate across the Chapter.
Our last endorsement cycle has seen particularly high engagement and input. The prospect of Zohran’s mayoral campaign was debated in each branch and voted on before it came to Convention and then debated again. Members, even of similar ideological tendencies, were able to share differing perspectives on the potential campaign, engage with others, and have their ideas engaged with in turn.
In the end, only after vigorous discussion, did we come together and approve Zohran’s campaign for mayor. Our State Assembly campaigns similarly saw heightened debate and discussion. The initial Chapter-wide Electoral Working Group (EWG) meeting saw over 300 members, or ~5% of the Chapter, attend. Members were particularly interested in the endorsement for Assembly District 37, which saw Emilia Decaudin – who had already launched her campaign – vie for endorsement against Claire Valdez. We actively discussed the prospects of running Soto’s race in the Bronx and Huntley’s race in a district that overlapped with Hakeem Jeffries. And only after this discussion did we come together and ultimately endorse Valdez, Soto, and Huntley.
It is only through building context in spaces like these that we learn and grow as capable members in DSA. It’s in spaces like these that new leaders are born. This is what ultimately serves as the backbone of our democracy and makes us distinct from board-run NGOs. It’s this unique quality that we should build upon, which goes much deeper than any online vote.
1M1V proposals, on the other hand, generally disregard this crucial aspect of democracy. For example, candidate endorsements in NYC-DSA - which has some 7700 members - take place over the course of several weeks and multiple rounds of discussion. The EWG, geographic branches, and the Citywide Leadership Committee all play distinct roles in propelling discussion and debate within the Chapter before their relative votes.
Even in this system, mediated by the limited agency of several organizing spaces, the outcome of online polls is usually decided by inertia or a race to whip the most paper members, instead of the full product of deliberative discussion. NYC-DSA is unfortunately very weak, relative to its membership, in producing skilled parliamentarians, or members experienced with navigating democratic decision-making. The chapter spaces rank-and-file branches engage with the most, the geographic branches, have anemic decision-making structures outside of electoral endorsements and the infrequent email vote proposal.
And these problems only get worse when you scale them up. The 1M1V proposal offers DSA - which has some 70,000 members - just two discussion forums compacted into 14 days before ballots are sent out for federal endorsements. This process suggests a DSA more geared toward achieving the outcome of this or that result as opposed to developing the organized membership to think critically and engage with others. These proposals are structured in a way that members could receive a deluge of faceless emails in their inbox that are somehow meant to represent the future of our organization.
Imagine receiving an OpaVote to decide the National Political Committee (NPC) – a crucial role that decides the direction of DSA for the next two years. To make an informed decision, a member would have to read the candidate statements for each applicant, attend an NPC forum, and consider the caucus, if applicable, the candidate is coming from. Of course, a member could simply skip over this process, vote based on whoever reached out first and not ever be involved in hearing different ideas or perspectives. It would certainly be easier.
After this NPC is seated, the same member could receive a new ballot to decide the direction of DSA. For this example: Should DSA adopt the One-State position for Palestine? To make an informed decision, one would do some serious reading, examine the history of Palestine and the proponents of the solution, and engage with Palestinian comrades on the issue. This would take several dedicated days, even weeks. Alternatively, it would be much easier to simply select a choice and move on. Would democracy be improved in DSA if we increased the number of people that simply hit a button and move on? Making an informed choice can be a journey, but it is our responsibility to push the information to the membership and generate discussion for members to make that choice, instead of seeking a rubber stamp for a choice that has already been made for them.
This is not an argument against the idea that members can make informed choices or have more input on the national stage of the organization. For example, members of the Marxist Unity Group pushed for discussion forums for input on how we can engage in the 2024 election. This helped foster the creation of the Workers Deserve More platform, which presented a political alternative to the two capitalist Parties.
What I argue instead, is that in order to make a choice we must deliver the environment for members to evaluate the choices they have and the options before them. As TDU stresses, “The more informed the members are, the more we can all exercise our rights.” Democracy is the creation of democratic spaces where information is relayed and ideas are exchanged. The idea that we can offload the decision-making process to mail-in forums is a false solution.
We can go a lot further to actually build democracy in DSA by standing by the fact we are a member-run organization with democratically elected leadership. Democracy lives in the spaces we build when we actively engage with our fellow members. Democracy is fostered by members that feel confident speaking for the first time, when someone writes an article to elaborate on their views, and when opposing ideas are considered and explored. Democracy is more than an online ballot.