Harrison Cole of Marxist Unity Group reports on the 2022 YDSA Convention.
“…for the union makes us strong!”
After singing all six stanzas of the union anthem “Solidarity Forever”, the 2022 YDSA Convention was complete. The convention was held over the course of three days from July 22nd to July 24th. Many of the delegates arrived July 21st and left July 25th, as did my delegation from Wayne State University in Detroit.
After a nearly 12 hour car drive from Detroit to Minneapolis, we managed to get to the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities just after dark. We were some of the first delegates to arrive. Some 120 delegates from YDSA chapters all across the nation were due to meet the next day to decide the future direction of the youth wing of the Democratic Socialists of America.
As we began checking into Comstock Hall, more and more delegates kept arriving after us. Soon, the lobby of the dormitory was full of boisterous discussion around resolutions, amendments, and candidates for the National Coordinating Committee (NCC).
The past year had been a particularly tough one for us in YDSA. A second year of COVID saw plenty of chapters fold, with plenty more losing members and now trying to dig themselves out of a rut. The 2021 YDSA convention had featured many close votes that caused their fair share of drama. For example, the resolution recommitting YDSA to the rank-and-file strategy lost by just a couple of votes after multiple repeat votes. As an alternate to that convention, I did not have the opportunity to experience many of these decisions first hand, but hearing about the resulting drama made me a little wary about what was to come in this weekend’s deliberations. However, as I returned to my room the first night, I was optimistic that the convention would not be as contentious.
Now is a good time to briefly break down some of the factions present within YDSA, or at least those who released voting guides and were active in convention politics.
Bread and Roses — Perhaps the largest organized caucus within YDSA (and possibly DSA as a whole), Bread and Roses is a self-identified Marxist caucus, focusing much of its organizing around labor and “class-struggle elections.” Bread and Roses has had a large influence on YDSA for quite some time. As of late, Bread and Roses has been experiencing more internal divisions, but they reached compromises in time for the convention.
T.R.A.I.N — TRAIN presented itself as neither a caucus nor a slate, but a loose conglomeration of various independent NCC candidates, which released a voting guide prior to the convention. Some members of this were former members of other caucuses like Green Bloc, or what was Collective Power Network. Their name stands for Transforming national infrastructure, Radical labor organizing, Anti-imperialism, Integrate YDSA into DSA, and National support for grievance infrastructure. The only items their voting guide recommended a ‘No’ vote for outright were those moving YDSA towards independence from the Democratic Party, seemingly on the grounds that it contradicted what had been determined at the 2021 DSA Convention and that YDSA should not have political disagreements with DSA.
Marxist Unity Group — Marxist Unity Group is a newer caucus, formed only this year and (at the time of writing) has not held its founding congress. The founders of Marxist Unity Group come largely from the publication Cosmonaut, and can be described as coming from the Orthodox Marxist, or Leninist trend. Some would describe them as Neo-Kautskyists. I am also a member of this caucus.
Reform and Revolution — Reform and Revolution was originally founded by a number of former Socialist Alternative members who left SAlt to join DSA. Reform and Revolution identifies largely with Trotskyism, and heavily associates themselves with Rosa Luxemburg.
Green Bloc — Green Bloc was a loose group of anarchists and libertarian socialists with a focus on eco-socialist organizing. They have shrunk considerably, and by the time of convention, were on the way out as an actual caucus. They are now practically defunct.
Mass Action — A very new grouping of individuals, based largely around direction from Trey Cook from University of Vermont YDSA. Their name likely comes from the Peter Camejo article entitled “Liberalism, Ultraleftism, or Mass Action” I do not have a good handle on their politics other than they claim to be guided by Marxist principles, and seek to do what they deem is most ‘practical’ for the organization.
University of Central Florida — While they’re not an official factional grouping, I thought it appropriate to include UCF here. They were the single largest grouping of votes at the convention, with nearly 20 amongst themselves, and they voted as a bloc, which gives them a spot on this list. They seem largely to be based on consensus and follow their chapter chair, Evan Caldwell. It is hard to describe their exact politics as well, though they are most adjacent to TRAIN and advocated for their NCC candidates.
Friday
As Friday dawned, there was already some contention on Twitter (the de facto forum for much internal DSA and YDSA debate). Members of Bread and Roses had posted an article in support of their amendment to resolution 10, which dealt with YDSA’s international work and orientation, in YDSA’s official publication of The Activist. This led to an argument about the role of this publication. As is officially stated, The Activist is intended as a space for debate, and both sides of the debate around resolution 10 had a chance to be heard. I personally saw nothing wrong with the publication of the article, though I disagreed with the positions it argued. I just hoped that as the day went on, the level of debate would not degenerate into personal insult and smears and discussion would center on the matters of politics that the body had been convened to discuss. I had already heard rumblings of various shifting alliances and deals being made behind the scenes, namely that one person listed as affiliated with TRAIN had gone rogue and refused to endorse other members of that group and planned to speak against one of their resolutions. After the convention, I heard that this individual had never consented to being added to the TRAIN hodgepodge in the first place.
As the beginning of the convention drew closer, my chapter delegation made our way to the convention venue, along with some comrades from my caucus, Marxist Unity Group. We were the first ones to register and we settled in for the day. We all broke up to attend different pre-convention breakouts. I personally attended the breakout held by comrades from the Reform and Revolution caucus. We discussed the need for electoral independence from the Democratic Party, the role of caucuses, and other pressing questions of that nature.
Finally, the time had come to begin the opening ceremonies, and the delegates filed into the auditorium. After a useful training on Robert’s Rules, we heard from Robin Wonsley, an ex-Socialist Alternative member of DSA who ran and won on an independent ballot line for Minneapolis City Council, and Sheigh Freeberg, another DSA member running for Minnesota State Senate. After their speeches, we officially began deliberation for the evening.
The convention approved the Presidium, the agenda, and the consent agenda unanimously in short order a little after 5pm Central. Following this, the first item on the agenda was already one with some contention — Resolution 7, which would establish national leadership development trainings. However, this resolution also included a clause saying that failure to go to one of these meetings would result in a chapter’s charter being frozen by national. The Presidium further ruled that the clause about freezing the charter would make this resolution also affect the YDSA Constitution, requiring a 2/3rds majority to pass. Amendment 1 to Resolution 7 would remove this clause. After nearly an hour of deliberation, Amendment 1 barely passed with a vote of 76–73. The resulting amended resolution passed unanimously right after. I voted for the amendment, and subsequently for the resolution. I believed that freezing a chapter’s charter simply for not being able to attend a meeting was a drastic step to take, and believed that instead of punitive measures, we should be using incentives. For example, giving those chapters a discount on the chapter kits that are available with a banner, stickers, buttons, and so on. I thought that punishing these chapters would cause them not to interact with national even further, and may continue to grow a divide between the two.
Next up was Resolution 12, which would establish the National Organizing Committee as a standing committee for YDSA. The NOC was established the past year to assist in coordination of national work. This was the first resolution that had clear divisions along caucus lines. This resolution was being pushed primarily by TRAIN. On the other side against this resolution was led by Bread and Roses, among others. After around half an hour of debate, Resolution 12 failed 59–76. I voted for this resolution, as I believed that the National Organizing Committee would facilitate better organizing for campaignsand other initiatives at a national level. Many resolutions recognized this and directed the NOC to do this or that. Unfortunately, with this not passing the NOC is now essentially defunct, and its responsibilities are delegated to the NCC.
After Resolution 12 was Amendment 2 to the YDSA Constitution. Amendment 2 would establish Scottish single-transferable-vote as the official method to select delegates and national officers, and also eliminate the separate election of NCC co-chairs. The amendment unfortunately failed. I voted in favor of the amendment. I believe that it is crucial for all YDSA chapters to be on the same playing field, especially nationally. There is no reason why two chapters should be electing members to the same body, but with different voting systems. I also think the separate election for co-chair using Borda count is wholly unnecessary. We have had two uncontested co-chair elections back-to-back, and I see the separate election as being one of the many reasons why. The separate election also takes away from the effectiveness of STV for the remaining seats, especially with the quotas, which I will discuss later on in this article.
Up next was Amendment 3 to the YDSA Constitution. This amendment is for programmatic unity – changing the requirement of membership to be the acceptance of the YDSA platform adopted at the 2021 YDSA Convention. This amendment would also remove the ban on members of self-described democratic centralist organizations in YDSA, and instead replace the ban with a ban on law enforcement officers, and anyone who was a member of an external organization seeking to overturn internal YDSA democracy. A secondary amendment to this item was retracted after a decision to suspend the rules for a minor change in wording. This was another item divided along caucus lines. MUG, R&R, and Green Bloc were in favor of this amendment, while B&R, TRAIN, and UCF were not. The amendment failed 62–64.
I voted for this amendment and this was perhaps the one I supported the most. The acceptance of the platform is a very basic, low bar for membership. Right now we have no basis for membership, and political unity within the organization, which is something we desperately need. This is the very basic starting point if we wish to establish ourselves as our own party, and the very basic starting point for things like electoral discipline. While this was not directly written by a member of Marxist Unity Group, it was sponsored by me as one of our members. The amendment bore similarities to an amendment put forward by the original Marxist Unity Slate last year at the 2021 DSA Convention. I am happy to see that support rose from 35% at last year’s DSA convention, to 50% here over the course of a year, and I hope support continues to grow so that we may implement programmatic unity next year in both DSA and YDSA.
The evening ended around 7pm Central with the unanimous adoption of Resolution 2 — which was recommitting YDSA to the rank and file strategy in labor work. I voted in favor of this, I believe the resolution is key to having a direction for our labor organizing in the future, although I disagreed with a couple small parts of it.
As we left the venue to find something to eat, I was surprised by a few of the votes. For starters, I was surprised that there was no opposition to the rank-and-file resolution, even though last year it had failed after much deliberation. However, the thing that perhaps stood out the most about the day was how civil the debate was. I found that the vast majority of debate seemed to be in good faith and there were few invectives being slung online, a relief compared to last year’s convention.
When we got back to the dorm, there were numerous delegates in the lobby talking about the day and planning for tomorrow, as individuals and groups filed in and out of dorm rooms talking in private. I was excited for what was to come the next day, as it was slated to be the longest day of debate and seemed to be the most contentious as well.
Saturday
As I returned to the venue on Saturday, I was informed by delegates affiliated with TRAIN, as well as UCF, that they were going to attempt a lightning round in the morning deliberations, in order to fit more time in to potentially reintroduce a couple of resolutions from the previous day, most notably Resolution 7.
We began deliberation again a little after 10am. First on the agenda was Resolution 4, which would call on DSA’s National Political Committee (NPC) to suggest the addition of a YDSA coordinator position to local chapters, as well as match funds that YDSA chapters raise. Amendments related to cutting the NPC out of the decision, and also taking away the requirement for the position to be a voting member were both rejected by the body, and Resolution 4 passed unanimously. I voted against both amendments, and voted for the resolution.
While at the moment this is just a request to DSA for this to be implemented, I saw no way of it being implemented on any scale without support from the NPC. The amendment to cut them out would simply dilute the power of this resolution – decentralizing an already very decentralized organization. I also did not believe that voting power should be taken away from the YDSA representative position. Here in my local chapter of Detroit DSA, we have a YDSA coordinator who has a voting position and represents multiple YDSA chapters, totaling well over 50 dues-paying members. I do not see any reason why these people should not have a voice simply because they attend a university and are more plugged into us at the moment than DSA. I believe having this voting position would increase our voices in every DSA chapter and help to further integrate us, expanding the YDSA to DSA pipeline.
Resolution 3, calling for dues sharing to YDSA chapters, also passed unanimously with little debate. I supported this since it made no sense to me why DSA chapters get a portion of their members’ dues while YDSA chapters did not. Next was Resolution 13, calling for stipends for members of national bodies in YDSA. Amendments related to lowering or eliminating stipends were both rejected and the resolution passed. I voted against the amendments and for the resolution. I believe that professionalization is key to forming a party. We need to get out of the current mold of a volunteer NGO. This resolution allowed us to do that by paying our national leaders, and also funding various initiatives. We have a lot of money as YDSA and DSA, and we’re not using it on anything at the moment. With this money, we can encourage people to get further involved with national, and run for offices like the NCC by making it possible to devote time they would otherwise spend working to the duties associated with leadership.
At this point in the morning, we were about an hour ahead of schedule, so Resolution 17 was moved from the afternoon agenda to the morning. This Resolution dealt with improving collaboration between YDSA staff and leadership. The amendment to this resolution was rejected, and the resolution passed. I voted against the amendment and for the resolution. To my understanding, the amendment was in conflict with the YDSA constitution because our constitution states that the NCC is the direct supervisor of staff, meanwhile, the amendment would have required the NCC to go through the NPC regarding staffing decisions. I thought the core resolution was positive as I believe that staff needs to be held more accountable to the national elected leadership – especially since staff has a major say in operations despite being unelected. We were still about 40 minutes ahead of schedule.
The body then suspended the rules again to add Resolution 14 into the morning session from the afternoon. This Resolution deals with establishing a national day of action in mid-October to fight for abortion and LGBT rights. The amendment to this resolution essentially deleted the entirety of the text, without adding much. There was vigorous debate over this resolution, which was stopped after about 40 minutes in order to break for lunch.
We came back and debated for another 20 minutes or so after lunch. The rules were suspended to allow an opt-out for local chapters, and the amendment was retracted by the author. The resolution then passed. I was against the amendment and for the resolution. I believed that the amendment was frivolous by adding nothing other than gauging interest for a campaign, then organizing a cohort for it. The main point of contention was whether or not YDSA had the ability to organize a national campaign like this at the moment. The original resolution before friendly amendments were added called for a march on Washington – but this was removed. It now only calls for a day of action in coalition with other reproductive rights groups, and at the time of writing, organizing around that has already begun.
The following resolution was Resolution 9, which was moved from the Sunday morning bloc to the afternoon bloc, as after Resolution 14 passed, the bloc’s agenda was exhausted. Resolution 9 was concerned with establishing ‘zones’ across the United States, and rotating national events between these zones within a period of a few years. After around a half hour of debate, the Resolution passed, and we broke for dinner. I was originally against this resolution but ended up abstaining. I personally thought that the resolution’s goal of equity was not met. Most YDSA members and chapters live in the midwest and northeast of the country – which is why so many events are held there. The authors also admitted that the regions were made with no consideration to YDSA members or chapters in those regions, and the borders were drawn arbitrarily. I believe that holding all events in Chicago would be the right move. While it is a big city, it is cheaper than either New York or Los Angeles, and also located in the center of the country. Chicago also has numerous union venues, and decent public transit. I would hate to have people from Boston fly to San Diego or vice versa. I also agreed with the debate against saying that if YDSA can fund travel, it would be no issue where national events were.
We reconvened at 3:45 for the evening session. The first Resolution on the docket was Resolution 15, calling for the establishment of materials relating to the “dirty break” from the Democratic Party – a goal that many in DSA espouse, creating guidelines for YDSA chapters’ electoral work, and calling on DSA electeds to begin the process of breaking with the Democratic Party. Resolution 15 had the most amendments of any single item. The first required YDSA chapters to only campaign for DSA-endorsed candidates. The second amendment added a section calling for Senator Bernie Sanders to run for President in 2024. The third amendment removed the creation of dirty break materials from the resolution. The first and third amendments were rejected, while the second was retracted. An additional motion to suspend the rules to amend the resolution to require DSA candidates to run on the Socialist Party USA ballot line was defeated overwhelmingly, with only one vote in favor. The resolution then passed after almost 1 hour and 20 minutes of debate.
I was against the first amendment originally, as I had reservations in cases where YDSA chapters were without a DSA chapter, and the amendment did not specify whether an endorsement from DSA meant national or local. However, the rules were suspended twice to add clarifying language that solved both of these issues – I was the only who introduced language clarifying national or local DSA. After that, I voted in favor of the amendment. I do not believe that YDSA chapters should be independent enough where they go around endorsing their own candidates outside of DSA. Also, the resolution itself adds stricter guidelines to YDSA than many local DSA chapters possess, so I did not see any issue with requiring a candidate to be DSA endorsed. I voted against the amendment to remove the creation of materials around the dirty break. I felt as though that was one of the only actionable parts of the resolution. The resolution calls for DSA members in congress to do this or that, but we largely have no influence over them at this junction. However, what we could do is create and promote dirty break pamphlets and materials, which we could distribute, so removing that would be leaving this resolution with just a list of demands. I fully support a break with the Democratic party, and believe that DSA should become an independent socialist party, so I obviously voted for this resolution.
The last item for Saturday was Resolution 10, which would establish a youth wing of the DSA International Committee (IC), essentially fulfilling a provision within an earlier IC resolution in DSA. An amendment to this resolution amended the original IC resolution to include a call against “campism,” along with calls to organize with unions from other countries. The amendment was primarily being pushed by the Bread and Roses and Reform and Revolution caucuses. All other factions opposed it or had no recommendation. The amendment failed with a vote of 54–73. Resolution 10 then passed. I voted against the amendment, and for the resolution.
I believe that the amendment would jeopardize our legitimacy in the eyes of other movements across the world, and the call to oppose “campism” would open us up to attacking places like Cuba, and essentially serving the interests of the US State Department. All too often those who declare their adherence to the “third camp” end up aligned with the first, imperialist, camp. The article previously mentioned as posted in The Activist already attacks Venezuela in a way that mirrors the rhetoric of the US media. The article in favor of this amendment also calls into question whether or not the Soviet Union was more progressive than the United States after the downfall of Stalinism. I say that yes, the Soviet Union was superior to the United States, unequivocally. I am not blind to the issues that the USSR faced. Yes, there were numerous issues with the Soviet Union – but those issues were not unique. However, the progressive parts of the Soviet Union, and by extension the Eastern bloc, were unique achievements. This applies today to countries like Cuba. Cuba is not a perfect country – but its society has uniquely progressive aspects which are admired by socialists across the globe.
Posing ourselves against a supposed “campism” or abandoning the view that US imperialism is the most reactionary force on the planet would make us pariahs globally in the socialist movement. I voted for the unamended resolution because I believed that further integrating our work with that of the International Committee is key to building an international youth socialist movement, and I look forward to seeing what work comes out of there in the next year.
Sunday
Sunday was the last day of the convention. By request of the Presidium, Resolution 8 was moved from the end of the day to the beginning. This was due to the fact that it would have created a separate anti-fascist committee, and committee breakouts were scheduled to be done immediately after the morning session. The resolution passed. I voted in favor of the resolution, I feel that establishing information to work against fascist movements on campuses is important, especially in southern states. In addition, both co-chair candidates were elected by acclamation, after giving five-minute speeches, since they ran unopposed. There were then breakouts for various committees like the International Committee, National Political Education Committee, National Labor Committee, and so on. The convention then heard two-minute speeches from each NCC candidate.
After we reconvened, we debated Amendment 1 to the YDSA Constitution. This would have added a disability quota to the NCC elections. After about 40 minutes of debate, the Amendment failed, 58–62. I voted against this amendment, and my reasoning why will become apparent later in this article when I go more in-depth about quotas. Following this, the last item on the agenda for the convention was Resolution 16, reaffirming YDSA’s commitment to fighting bigotry, inequality, etc. within the organization. By request of the Presidium, this vote was counted, and passed 93–10. I voted for this resolution, though it had no real effect other than reaffirming our commitment to fighting inequality. The convention then passed two additional resolutions, one thanking staff, volunteers, and the Presidium, and another to sing happy birthday to a delegate.
As we were about to adjourn, a delegate made a motion to reintroduce Resolution 7, with part of the rejected amendment’s language included. There was a brief moment of confusion as the Presidium attempted to understand the motion precisely, and other delegates made requests for information regarding the threshold needed to reintroduce this item. After a few minutes of chattering, the delegate then retracted his motion to reintroduce. Following this, the convention was then adjourned with a closing ceremony singing “Solidarity Forever.”
The results for the National Coordinating Committee elections were announced as:
Co-Chairs
Jake Colosa (Bread and Roses)
Leena Yumeen (Independent)
At-Large
Aron Ali-McClory (TRAIN)
Evan Caldwell (UCF)
Kaya Colakoglu (Independent)
Kayla Sharpe (Bread and Roses)
Margot Grotland (Bread and Roses)
Taylor Clark (Bread and Roses)
Lance Jackson (Bread and Roses)
Analysis
I was pleasantly surprised by a number of the votes, as well as the lack of interpersonal drama at this year’s convention. I also think there were a few critical votes that may signal the direction in which YDSA is headed for the future. Overall, I am personally pleased with the results of the convention and believe this represents a leftward shift within the organization.
Firstly, I believe the vote on Resolution 2 deserves to be analyzed. While last year the rank-and-file strategy narrowly failed, this year it was unanimously adopted. The lack of organized opposition really made a huge difference here, as I believe this victory is directly tied to the collapse of Collective Power Network (CPN), who were the main opposition to the rank-and-file strategy. Just from one convention to the next, there can be major shifts in direction.
Another item that saw a shift in support was the idea of programmatic unity — represented by Amendment 3 to the constitution. While a similar proposal only received 35% of the vote at the 2021 DSA Convention, the split was 50%-50% this time around. If this shift in YDSA is representative of the organization at large, I believe that by this time next year, with enough organizing, we can have programmatic unity enshrined in both YDSA and DSA.
There were other important votes. The item with the single most amount of debate was Resolution 15 — calling for the beginning of the dirty break. While there was plenty of debate against an independent party, the resolution overwhelmingly passed, by about an 80%-20% margin from my estimation of the room, perhaps even more. This is decidedly a leftward shift for the organization — establishing guidelines for how to endorse officials, creating pamphlets detailing the break, and an official call to organize a separate socialist caucus in the house, among other things.
I think this shows that YDSA, at least at the convention, is more radical than DSA itself. I think this is also best represented by the fact that there really is no presence from the right-wing of DSA within YDSA. There is no presence from North Star (the old guard Harringtonites) or Socialist Majority (their more hip NGO-styled cousins) for example. Now with Collective Power Network gone, there seems to be increasingly only left, or left-center factions within the youth wing.
However, this is perhaps a worrying sentiment that is growing within YDSA — and that is one of independence. I do not think that YDSA should be subservient to the exact politics of DSA — I do not think we should be in lockstep. We do need to be a pipeline to DSA, however. We should act as recruiters for DSA, and the first ones to put the rank-and-file strategy into practice. While I support additional funds to YDSA, as well as things like YDSA representatives, funds matching, dues sharing, and stipends, I view all these as tying us closer to DSA. I think it would be a mistake to begin to disconnect ourselves at all from the main organization, or see ourselves as students first. I do not want YDSA to follow the mistakes of past youth movements, like Students for a Democratic Society. I think it is too early to tell if we are headed down that road at the moment. For now, I don’t see YDSA as going anywhere anytime soon.
Bread and Roses I think can definitely be called one of the winners of this convention. After rumors of them being weak, they managed to go out and obtain a majority on the incoming National Coordinating Committee. Not only that, but their two main priorities of the dirty break (R15) and rank-and-file strategy (R2) also both passed. All of their other proposed resolutions and amendments besides R10-1 also passed.
CPN and its remnants’ influence on YDSA is now gone, unless something else takes its place in the future. From my knowledge, there were very few delegates at the convention associated with any of the splinter factions from CPN, and they did not seem to put up much of a fight. The fight CPN put up against the rank-and-file strategy last year was completely undone, and their other creation, the National Organizing Committee, essentially does not exist any longer. This convention served as a major course correction from last year, and a rejection of CPN’s ideas.
With the passage of so many resolutions supporting more money to be poured into YDSA, this was a major win for those who want YDSA to remain a strong autonomous body. This is also a major win for professionalization not only in YDSA but maybe DSA itself. While many of the final decisions on these resolutions are up to the NPC, it shows YDSA recognizes the need for many of these items and hopefully will encourage similar resolutions to be made at next year’s DSA convention.
With the passage of R15, YDSA is officially calling for a dirty break sooner rather than later. The convention wholeheartedly rejected those who advocated for realignment of the Democratic Party. There seems to be no organized opposition to party building within YDSA, and hopefully this trend will continue into DSA itself within the next year.
With much more additional help from national from resolutions like R7, local chapters will receive more trainings and funds and won’t be left out to dry like many have been in the past. A new national day of action will also help chapters with no campaign on their campus.
Unfortunately, there are a number of issues with some of the items that were rejected, as well as how the National Coordinating Committee was elected. For starters, the rejection of amendment 2 will continue to allow an incongruent method of chapters electing their delegates, putting them on completely separate footings. Additionally, it will continue to allow the use of Borda count, which is as a whole worse than Single Transferable Vote. It also means that we will continue to have separate elections for co-chairs.
Additionally, the NCC elections truly were representative of the uselessness of quotas. YDSA (currently) requires that 4 members of the NCC be people of color, and 5 members be non-men. These race and gender quotas do not work, and are undemocratic as evidenced by the election results. Only four people of color ran, barely meeting the quota, and meaning all four would be automatically elected, regardless of how many votes they received.
This was glaringly obvious in candidate speeches and in first round votes, where multiple people of color had to go up in front of the convention and declare, “Do not vote for me!”, and as such received no votes, and yet were elected anyway. While the gender quota had more people running who fulfilled it, it still allowed for strategic voting — which is something STV is designed to prevent.
This is plainly trying to legislate our way out of our failures at organizing people of color and oppressed genders. Quotas do not work as shown this year with the lack of people of color running, and makes things incredibly undemocratic. It is possible under the current system for the entire NCC to be unelected due to quotas. Only two seats in this election were contested beyond the quota requirements.
As evidenced by the rejection of amendment 1, the convention does not believe quotas work. Disabled comrades came out against the disability quota. Non men have come out against the gender quota, and people of color have come out against the race quota.
In order to fix our democracy, we need STV to actually work, and we need people to actually run and be selected by their politics. This means we need to deal with these quotas in order to ensure that not only YDSA is democratic, but to prevent outsiders and any wreckers from running and getting automatically elected with no votes, just because they happen to fill one of the quotas.
The current system is an attempt to legislate our way out of an organizing problem. We need to improve the representation of oppressed demographics by effectively organizing the proletarian masses. That is the only way we are going to get them involved in this movement – not by treating them as tokens within the current system.
Conclusion
I believe this convention represented a shift to the left within YDSA. We passed a resolution calling for the dirty break, we passed resolutions that sought to further professionalize our organization, and we rejected amendments that would have made us international pariahs in the socialist movement. I believe that within the next year, we should continue to organize towards implementing programmatic unity, which is one of the first steps toward a party. We need to be continually party-building, and merging the labor and socialist movements into DSA, which at the moment is a proto-party. A number of issues also were raised at this convention that YDSA has no real way of dealing with, but DSA does. These issues pertain to electoral discipline for our candidates.
Delegates at the convention spoke out against the NPC’s resolution of the Bowman affair, and I believe there is great desire for us to have more of a handle on our candidates. Not only that, but many people spoke out against the disbanding of the BDS working group. The DSA NPC and our electeds need to be more accountable to us as members. It begins by agitating for the most basic of concepts like programmatic unity. I encourage readers to help Marxist Unity Group push for independence from the Democrats, discipline for our electeds, and programmatic unity by joining us, and running for your local chapter’s delegate positions next year at the 2023 DSA Convention.
Please note that some of the votes have specific vote totals, while others do not. Voting was done by holding up voting cards — no official count was taken if an item on the agenda was obviously adopted or rejected by this count. Only close votes were counted by hand. Any amendments to the YDSA constitution required a two-thirds majority.
