by Paul Bass The New Haven independent
The people in charge said they weren’t taking a vote this year.
The people who didn’t like it conducted their own vote.
In between, they argued about whether their ward has a democratic “tradition” that deserved to be upheld.
The people in question were members of Westville Ward 25 Democratic committee. They held a meeting Sunday to hear from Democratic candidates for elected office — and to argue about how to go about having their voices heard at a party endorsement meeting this coming week for a contested state representative seat.
Forty people filled folding chairs at Sunday’s meeting in Edgewood Park’s Coogan Pavilion to hear from candidates campaigning for public office and to debate democracy while younger New Haveners navigated banks and quarter-pipes in the skateboard park immediately outside the open back door.
Ward 25 usually turns out more voters than any of the city’s other 29 wards. Its Democratic ward committee attracts some of the most involved citizen campaigners in the city as well, with strong opinions about democracy, as evidenced by Sunday’s meeting.
The meeting came four days before a New Haven Democratic Town Committee (DTC) meeting on Thursday to endorse a candidate for 92nd District state representative, the city’s most contested state legislative race this year. The co-chairs of all the district’s wards will cast votes at the meeting. The district itself encompasses parts of Amity, Westville, Edgewood, Dwight, West River, and the Hill.
All three Democrats vying for the 92nd District nomination live in Ward 25: incumbent State Rep. Patricia Dillon and challengers Eli Sabin and Justin Farmer. (Click here, here, and here for stories making the cases for their candidacies.) As in the last competitive race for the 92nd District seat, held in 1984, this campaign has been marked less by differences of opinion on policy as arguments for experience versus new generational approaches.
In six elections since 2013, Ward 25 has undertaken an unusual process for ward committees: It has held a vote among all committee members, with the ward’s co-chairs committing to cast endorsement ballots based on that vote rather than on their personal preferences. (In 2013, for instance, a co-chair cast a vote at a local convention that differed from his personal preference, based on the ward committee vote.) Ward 7’s Democratic committee has also adopted the practice.
This year Ward 25 Democratic ward Co-Chairs Janis Underwood and Adam Marchand, a Dillon supporter, told the ward committee crowd that there would not be a vote. They said they’ve heard from committee members informally and are aware of their views.
Sabin supporters at Sunday’s meeting called for a binding vote as in years past to preserve what they called the ward’s democratic “tradition.”
“We were the only one in the city that did that. It was a point of pride that we did it that way,” said longtime committee member Nicholas Neeley.
Underwood argued that the formal binding vote is not a “tradition” but rather one of the ways the ward has conducted the process in the past. She said there wasn’t enough time to plan a vote this year. (Click on the above video to hear more from the debate.)
Former Alder Ina Silverman, a Sabin supporter, responded by walking to the front of the room and handing Marchand a bag. “I made up three pieces of paper with three pens” so the co-chairs could conduct a vote, she said.
“I won’t do that,” Marchand said. He argued that “if we were going to do a straw poll,” the committee would have had to publicize it in advance and make arrangements for absent members to cast advance votes.
He said his vote at Thursday’s party meeting will be “based on what I think is the right thing for my ward, for my city, what I think is the right thing to do.”
“Of course I’m listening to what people have to say,” he added.
The main job of New Haven’s ward co-chairs is to cast votes at party conventions and other meetings that endorse candidates running for elected office. Candidates who receive a convention endorsement automatically get their names on either a general election ballot or, if there’s a primary, a primary ballot. The argument at the Ward 25 meeting came down to representative versus direct democracy: whether ward co-chairs decide on their own how to vote as representatives of the committee (like elected office-holders voting on laws on behalf of constituents), or whether co-chairs must cast convention or other endorsement-meeting votes based on a vote of their constituent committee members. Ward 25 in the past has been the only in the city do to do the latter besides Ward 7. (Sabin has won non-binding votes this year in Wards 3 and 26.)
Silverman invited the crowd to stay after Sunday’s Coogan Pavilion meeting to participate in a non-binding vote using the materials she brought.
“You’re free if you want to do that. That’s not what we’re going to do here,” Marchand replied.
After the formal meeting ended, some of the attendees filled out ballots. Twelve were cast for Sabin, seven for Dillon.
Underwood later noted that the poll did not include all votes of the 27 committee members present or the 40 total members. “I’m wondering if this was an accurate ‘representation’ of this ward committee,” she said. She said she will “continue to take advisement from committee members” before she votes at Thursday’s DTC meeting.
However delegates vote at Thursday’s meeting, the candidates are expected to proceed to an Aug. 11 Democratic primary — at which point they can be expected to continue making plenty of pitches in Ward 25.
State Rep. Patricia Dillon (center), State Sen. Gary WInfield (right), Probate Judge Americo Carchia at Sunday’s ward meeting.
State rep challengers Justin Farmer (at right above) and Eli Sabin (below) at Sunday’s meeting.
Ward Co-Chairs Adam Marchand (above) and Janis Underwood (below): We’re listening to everyone’s views.