Thinking Through the Bowman Endorsement and the Democratic Process in New York City
Thinking Through the Bowman Endorsement and the Democratic Process in New York City
By: Gant R.
[Credit: Jeenah Moon / Bloomberg via Getty Images]
Introduction
In late May, NYC-DSA announced that Jamaal Bowman was pursuing a local endorsement with only weeks to go before the upcoming June 25th primary election. Despite the narrow timeframe, chapter leadership rushed to implement an abridged version of the normal endorsement process. Within a week a candidate forum was held, and in the following days a consultative poll of chapter membership decided the question of endorsement resoundingly in favor. A full political critique of the Bowman endorsement can be found in this statement written by New York City members of the Marxist Unity Group caucus, of which I am a member. Now that Bowman has lost his seat, there is also further room for serious reflection of the impact of the process on our electoral strategy, and I encourage reading Curtis R’s analysis of the final weeks of the Bowman-Soto field operation in the Bronx. But I want to focus specifically on the democratic process of endorsement in DSA’s largest chapter.
In the aftermath of the lopsided victory, a wave of pro-Bowman social media posts claimed to represent the “silent majority” of DSA which supported endorsement in an apparent vindication of the 2022 Bowman Affair which saw the candidate cut ties with DSA. This account openly dismissed the broad section of the national membership which urged caution, citing Bowman’s troubled past with Palestinian liberation and our own organization. It should be clear that this is a profoundly partisan, not to mention pessimistic, view of our national organization, which represents a variety of competing but ultimately co-existing trends that must learn to live together. New York City is a chapter that has historically leaned strongly towards the right wing of DSA, and is also a chapter where membership is uniquely separated from decision-making, for logistical reasons as much as political. In the best of DSA’s chapters, members can gather in full general assembly on the basis of deliberative and democratic decision-making. This is much more difficult in a chapter like NYC, with thousands of members. But that is no reason not to try integrating the full breadth of representative and deliberative democratic practice into our unique conditions as we look to NYC-DSA’s upcoming chapter convention.
I do not personally believe any changes in process or structure would have resulted in voting down Bowman’s endorsement. It would, however, have elevated the debate on political strategy, made it more accessible to the membership, and allowed for a more concrete record of the political decisions made and the reasons behind them, all to the benefit of our whole organization.
Consultative vs. Deliberative Democracy
Let's start off with the good. It is undeniably positive that an elected official was made to answer tough questions in front of an audience of over 200 rank and file members of our organization - this is without question a uniquely positive aspect of DSA. However, there was unfortunately no real deliberative process for the endorsement proposal. Debate was divorced from decision-making, and no amendments to the main proposal could be put forward. This model of ready-made proposals coming out of committee with little democratic input on the actual content (as MUG NYC has critiqued before) is not a model framework for either participatory or representative democracy.
And this is not a problem unique to this endorsement process. The only truly deliberative bodies in NYC DSA, the steering committee and the citywide leadership committee (CLC), are not bodies that the membership can regularly access. NYC is, in essence, a winner-take-all chapter. Even though the model DSA chapter bylaws set Robert's Rules of Order as the default parliamentary procedure for all member meetings, the NYC-DSA constitution only establishes rules of order for conventions and special meetings. In short, this ensures a lack of deliberative organizing spaces for the full membership. In the average chapter, the general body has at least some recourse to provide a check on the executive bodies in regular deliberative assembly through general body meetings. In NYC, however, the local branch is the only potential outlet for political deliberation where the rank-and-file can meet to hash out questions. But these are not decision-making bodies, and they can only kick proposals up to higher ones through an arcane and lengthy process. In addition, the irregularity of deliberation and lack of clear rules of order has led to an uneven application of democratic procedure.
The endorsement forum was, at the end of the day, well-managed for such a large attendance. But the lack of transparently democratic rules of order was clearly felt. In lieu of motivating a resolution with clear recourse for amendment, NYC leadership instead relies on ad-hoc consultative forums which replace political deliberation with a channel for dissent that membership cannot follow-up on. This particular forum was organized by pro-voters and members of leadership with direct relationships to Bowman, and during the forum, these leaders were responsible for framing the debate and “giving context” to the history of our organizational relationship. The chair even closed the meeting with a pro-endorsement argument, a break in neutrality discouraged or prohibited by Robert’s Rules of Order. When the leadership gets to call the debate and set its terms, and the role of the debate itself is only consultative and not deliberative, full-membership polls tell us astonishingly little about the actual political positions of our membership.
For example, our caucus supported conditional endorsement for Bowman, and many who held our position were forced to vote No. Conditional endorsement was, in fact, supported by many in the chapter. But with no ability to actually amend and debate the proposal, a binary Yes/No vote took the place of substantive deliberation. This is precisely MUG’s critique of the referenda model proposed by Groundwork’s National Political Committee (NPC) members, which atomizes decision-making away from democratic debate and sets aside questions of political strategy. The presentation of polling questions, and even subtle changes in wording, have been shown to have a profound impact on the results. And the proposal/amendment process is also an important means by which to build stronger majorities. Members who support proposals but have misgivings about certain aspects are able to put forward alternatives, while at the end of the day making the proposal better, and allowing for more buy-in and consensus-building. The consultative process can only frustrate and exclude political minorities, while the ultimate result of a deliberative process is better proposals and better debate, regardless of outcome. A debate and vote on an amended conditional endorsement, for example, would have allowed alternative visions for the politics of endorsement to take the stage, building stronger member participation in deciding the political strategy of our organization.
Stating the Record, or The Principles of Open Debate
Concerningly, public discussion of the forum itself was prohibited by chapter leadership on threat of code of conduct violations: meaning that, generalities aside, the political content of the forum, or of Bowman’s answers, could not be democratically discussed in DSA’s own party press, even on the pages of the Democratic Left. While the stated motivation for this is understandable, preventing the endorsement statements from getting into the hands of the right-wing press, it ultimately prioritized the needs of the elected over the needs of our internal democracy. It also did not stop audio from the forum being leaked to the New York Times. Hammering on the consequences of disciplinary action for public discussion ultimately provided a chilling effect even on internal discussion spaces, and no official transcript of the forum was ever provided to membership.
For the healthy functioning of DSA’s democracy, every member of our organization should be able to access the answers of a national politician seeking endorsement from our organization. With repeated emphasis that the forum was for “ourselves”, (meaning NYC-DSA members and not outsiders, but also implicitly not DSA members outside the NYC chapter), chapter leadership ignored the fact that the endorsement of a national politician concerns the whole organization. The national boycott from Palestinian organizations resulting from the Bowman Affair and other NYC electoral debacles has led to organizing consequences in chapters across the country. More directly, the ban on public discussion also restricted information to the attendees, effectively prohibiting the majority of chapter members from making a fully educated decision, and relying instead on word of mouth and having the right connections or being in group chats which by chance had substantive debate. This problem goes beyond the bounds of this particular context and raises the question of the lack of a local party press, or any centralized communication in the chapter which could facilitate formal discussion or debate.
The pro-endorsement side also enjoyed support from political tendencies which have long dominated chapter leadership. The Bowman endorsement, in fact, could only be brought forward because individual leaders with personal ties to the candidate had been working for months behind the scenes. They could therefore rely on an advanced whipping operation to shore up vote totals, and no such attempt was made on the No side because of the futility of expending political capital against the foregone conclusion of a Yes victory. Whipping itself is part and parcel of the democratic process, but when it is not attached to deliberative decision-making, and the membership being whipped is not located in an accessible arena of political debate and sovereign authority, (and especially when channeled through an atomized online poll), it is inevitable that many voters will not have gotten the chance to hear both sides of the debate, and therefore make a fully-informed decision. If the only messaging you got around the endorsement was “Palestine is on the ballot” and the need to “defeat AIPAC”, (political positions universally popular with members of our organization), an unconditional Yes vote is without question. But informed decisions are not solely composed of well-reasoned and logically sound basis for support, but also access to the full gamut of political opinion, including the equally reasoned and logically sound reasons for opposition, or posed alternatives. Regardless of political tendency, this contributes to an entrenched support bloc for the existing leadership, and disenfranchises political challengers. It produces a politics of inertia, and not a politics of open debate between alternative strategic choices.
Conclusion
This article has mostly been taken up by negative criticism, and a fully positive alternative would require a far longer piece. But there are a couple glaring structural problems that have seemingly self-evident solutions. It is clear that the chapter is broadly lacking a forum for political debate and a site of sovereignty for the membership where deliberative decision-making can occur across the silos of the working groups, branches, etc. Large-scale deliberative democracy is not impossible, and in fact a necessary function of organizing the working class. Below I outline a few positive principles:
1: Democratic reform of chapter structure. The chapter should introduce fully deliberative democracy in both its representative and direct forms, both building out a middle-layer of leadership which can represent the diversity of the chapter (e.g. proportional representation for branches, removing steering committee voting positions, and expanding the scale and politicization of elections in the Citywide Leadership Committee) and which can take an active role in checking executive decisions. Direct democracy should involve devolving responsibility to the branches so members can engage more directly with decision-making. The chapter should hold more chapter-wide meetings with the full implementation of clear rules of order (e.g., Robert’s Rules). Consultative forums and chapter-wide polls should be minimized and voting should take place at one or another site of deliberation and debate.
2: Democratic reform of the Socialists in Office committee. The actual decision-making of the Socialists in Office committee should be more transparent and accessible to members. No unelected chapter leaders should sit on the committee, meeting minutes should be made available to members, and members should be able to debate more frequently and openly on legislative priorities.
3: Building out chapter-wide spaces for discussion and debate. The chapter needs a multi-purpose local party press which can serve a function for political debate, but also propaganda, agitation, and proliferating the message of democracy and socialism to New Yorkers not in our organization. We should build out chapter-wide publications, platforms of discussion, and communications channels which can replace the haphazard dispersal of information through a maze of group chats or top-down communications. In doing so we make room for widespread and democratic discussion on political strategy, and develop members politically as writers and communicators.
4: For National Democracy in DSA. Local decisions should take into account national structures for accountability and democratic decision-making, like the mandates of the National Convention. Local endorsements of national politicians affect organizing across the country, and should not be taken lightly.
These are necessarily broad and generalized proposals, but I hope to contribute to a discussion that will lead to a partial resolution of some or all of these issues on the path to building a democratic local party organ of the Democratic Socialists of America.