Feb 03, 2006  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean has abolished the Democratic Party’s constituent outreach desks, including the post of director of lesbian and gay outreach.

A DNC spokesperson said Dean replaced the outreach director positions with a new program called the American Majority Partnership, which integrates efforts to address the concerns of minorities into all of the DNC’s departments and offices. The little noticed move took place last year.

"It’s an expansion of what we had before," said Damien LaVera, the DNC spokesperson assigned to discuss gay rights issues.

But the former chair of the DNC’s Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus doesn’t see it that way. Gay Democratic Party activist and fundraiser Jeff Soref of New York City said he resigned from the DNC and from his position as chair of the gay caucus in August largely because of Dean’s decision to eliminate the gay outreach desk.

"It took us many years to win that position, have it funded and make it effective," Soref said.

Soref said he told Dean "it was not credible" to simply assume that combining all constituent groups into one program without a specific gay coordinator or director would be effective because it would likely result in less attention to the specific concerns of gay Democrats.

"I thought this system could lead to us being re-marginalized by the party," Soref said in an e-mail message to the Blade. "I have seen or heard nothing since that makes me feel that is not happening," he said.

Soref said Dean’s decision to hire gay Democratic activist Donald Hitchcock in September as director of the DNC’s Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council, which raises money for the party from gay donors, was not the same as hiring a full-time outreach staffer to address gay issues.

Hitchcock said he could not comment on the DNC changes or his work at the DNC because new DNC rules put in place by Dean prohibit him from speaking to the news media.

Chris Owens, director of the DNC’s American Majority Partnership program, insisted that Hitchcock works with her on gay constituent outreach efforts in addition to his fundraising work.

According to Owens, the revamped constituent outreach program developed by Dean will be more effective than the previous system because it will "bring in a lot more resources" from all of the DNC’s departments and offices.

"I would argue that we have more than one full-time person in place," Owens said. "One of the goals of the American Majority Partnership … is to make sure we are working across constituencies so we can use issues in a way to unify constituencies," she said.

Until last week, when contacted by the Blade, the DNC Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus and the National Stonewall Democrats, a group representing gay Democrats with affiliated chapters throughout the country, had not publicly acknowledged or expressed an opinion on Dean’s decision to eliminate the gay outreach desk position.

In a telephone interview last week, gay Democratic activist Rick Stafford of Minnesota, who replaced Soref as chair of the DNC gay caucus, said he is willing to give the new approach a chance to work before passing judgment.

"Nothing is cast in stone," said Stafford.

Gay caucus member Ray Buckley, vice chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said he shares Soref’s concerns about the changes but remains hopeful that Dean’s new system will be successful.

"We are unsure whether this will work," he said. "I hope and pray that it does."

Bringing out the vote
At stake, according to gay Democratic activists, is whether gay voters will turn out in force in the 2006 congressional elections to help Democrats win back control of the House and Senate. Exit poll data has shown that between 75 percent and 80 percent of the gay vote goes to Democratic candidates in presidential and congressional elections, but that the size of the gay vote varies from election to election.

Eric Stern, executive director of the National Stonewall Democrats, would not comment on Dean’s changes.

"I see it as a restructuring because that’s the chairman’s prerogative when he or she comes in to take over the DNC," Stern said.

Stern said that while Hitchcock was doing a good job in helping the DNC reach out to gay voters, the NSD believes he needs at least one additional staff assistant to help him.

"Donald needs support in the form of a staff person, and we’ve certainly voiced that opinion," Stern said.

He said the Stonewall Democrats ...