California Democrats Set Diversity Numbers for Convention Delegates

SACRAMENTO -- Intent on projecting diversity, California Democrats have spelled out precisely how many gays, lesbians, disabled people and minorities should serve as delegates to the party's national convention.

State party officials sent a memo to 2,500 activists last week, laying out what they called goals for how the 432 delegates should look.

In August 2000, the delegates will gather in Los Angeles to choose the Democratic presidential nominee, and the party is eager to showcase its diversity before a television audience of millions.

According to the memo, 26 percent of delegates should be Hispanic, 16 percent black, 10 percent disabled, 9 percent Asian-Pacific Islander, 5 percent gay, 5 percent lesbian and 1 percent Indian. Half should be men and half women, the party said.

`California has changed'

``California has changed, and the California Democratic Party has kept up with it,'' said Bob Mulholland, a party spokesman who drafted the memo. ``It's certainly a plus to have on national TV a delegation that looks like America.''

Democratic National Committee rules require states to study and analyze the Democratic Party electorate and develop goals for their delegations that reflect what they find, DNC spokeswoman Jenny Backus said.

``The purpose of that is to try and ensure the people who are choosing our nominees and going to the national convention reflect the kind of citizens who are voting for us,'' she said.

Goals based on numbers

California Democratic Party officials formulated their goals based on the state's population and voter-exit polls, Mulholland said.

The party's strong affirmative-action push follows a move by the state's top-ranked Democrat, Gov. Gray Davis, that struck a blow against such preferences.

Davis vetoed a bill last month that would have declared outreach programs for minorities and women permissible despite Proposition 209, a voter-approved ban on preferential treatment by government based on race or gender.

Mulholland said the party's affirmative-action push was completely unrelated to the veto by Davis, who will be one of the convention delegates.

``We're a political party, and as we build our delegation, we ought to have the most diversified delegation,'' Mulholland said. ``The year 2000 is a unique case -- we're going to get lots of TV coverage'' at the nominating convention.

That image is important because it will convey inclusiveness to voters watching the convention through the news media, he said.

Criticism from GOP

Republicans derided the targets as tokenism.

The Republican Party has no such mandate for diversity, said Stuart DeVeaux, spokesman for the state GOP and a former Republican National Committee official.

``We are an inclusive party,'' DeVeaux said. ``If you're a white male and you've done nothing wrong, you're discriminated against by the Democratic Party.''

Replied Mulholland: ``Our delegation of 432 will reflect almost every community in California, and that will bode well for candidates in fall elections. . . . This will be day and night compared to the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.''

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Carl Gutiérrez-Jones
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
e-mail: carlgj@humanitas.ucsb.edu