Feb 02, 2007  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean is expected to thank gay Democrats for their efforts last year in helping the party win control of Congress and 10 more state legislatures during the Democrats’ annual winter meeting in the nation’s capital this weekend.

Dean’s expected appearance today before a meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s Gay & Lesbian Americans Caucus comes after national exit polling data show that about 80 percent of voters identifying themselves as gay or lesbian voted for Democratic candidates in races for the U.S. House and Senate.

His appearance before gay Democrats also comes a little more than a year after Dean angered some gays by eliminating the party’s constituent “desk” system, including the gay desk, as part of his controversial “50 state” election strategy. The strategy, among other things, called for downplaying the party’s past focus on constituency groups and placed more emphasis on rural, traditionally Republican states by drawing support on issues such as the economy, health insurance, national security and the Iraq war.

Most political observers — including Republican strategists — have said the strategy worked, helping Democrats wrest control of Congress from the Republicans. Gay Democratic leaders have predicted the election results would have a dramatic impact on gays by releasing gay-supportive bills that Republicans had bottled up in committee for the past 12 years.

Minnesota activist Rick Stafford, the chair of the DNC gay caucus, said caucus members have joined forces with the gay group National Stonewall Democrats to encourage party leaders to help elect more gays as delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Stafford said DNC officials have promised to facilitate gay Democrats’ plans to work with leaders of state parties — including those in traditionally conservative “red” states — to include gays in their delegate selection plans. In a proposal that could become controversial in some states, Stafford said the gay caucus is calling on all state parties to set as a voluntary “goal” a contingent of gay delegates to the 2008 convention that come to at least 6 percent to 7 percent of the total number of delegates.

“We think this is very reasonable and very doable,” Stafford said.

“What we plan to do is offer to provide the state parties the resources and support they need to do this,” he said.

Brian Bond, director of the DNC’s fundraising and political outreach effort to gay Democrats, said DNC officials also plan to offer support for state parties by helping the gay caucus and the National Stonewall Democrats identify potential gay delegates.

 “This is not just a one-way street,” Bond said, noting that anyone interested in becoming a delegate must become informed of the delegate selection process.

Most delegates are elected in primaries or caucuses on the congressional district level, with others appointed later by party leaders.

Not all gay Democrats agree with Bond’s assessment. Donald Hitchcock, a former DNC gay outreach coordinator that Dean fired lasted year in a dispute over the party’s response to anti-gay ballot measures in the states, pointed to the DNC’s decision not to include gays in the party’s official affirmative action rule for selecting delegates.

Party officials, with Dean’s support, placed gays in a separate “inclusion” section of the party rules that calls for “full inclusion” of gays in the delegate selection process and in “all party affairs.”

The rule says state parties “may use goals to achieve these ends,” but that “in no event may such participation be accomplished by the use of quotas.”

Stafford said the gay caucus proposal that state parties seek out 6 or 7 percent of their delegate contingents as gay is understood to be a voluntary goal, which he predicts will be far less controversial than some may expect.

Hitchcock and other critics of the DNC, meanwhile, have raised objections over the selection by the Democratic Leadership Council, an independent group of moderate Democrats, of former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.) as the group’s new director. Most gay activists in Tennessee denounced Ford for his strong support for a ballot measure banning same-sex marriage during his campaign last year for the U.S. Senate. The seat became vacant when former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R) chose not to run for re-election.

Many of the Democratic Leadership Council officials have close ties to the DNC, making the DNC reluctant to speak out against Ford.

Hitchcock and his domestic partner, longtime gay Democratic activist Paul Yandura, criticized the DNC for not providing more support to the opposition campaigns that sought to defeat anti-gay ballot measures in Tennessee and other states.

Damien LaVera, a DNC spokesperson, said the DNC provided some resources to groups opposing the ballot measures but said the DNC had to use the bulk of its limited funds to help Democrats win races for Congress.