Here’s an interesting story that comes courtesy of a tipster.
Several days ago, SEIU
Local 99 triumphantly announced the names of the candidates it’s endorsing
for upcoming races for the city council, school district and mayor’s office in
Los Angeles.
According to a
post on the union’s website, Local 99’s endorsement process was a shining
example of bottom-up democracy that featured rank-and-file members questioning
the candidates in townhall forums and then making the endorsement decisions through
democratic votes.
Sounds wonderful, right?
Well… we’ve all learned that things ain’t what they seem to
be in Purple Land. And in this case, an internal email describes what actually
happened.
It turns out that Local 99’s top officials -- including
Executive Director Courtni
Pugh -- secretly made the union’s endorsement decisions BEFORE the membership
meetings actually took place on December 4, 5 and 6.
An internal email dated November 30 spells out the SEIU
officials’ so-called “recommendations” for each endorsement.
Our recommendations are listed below--PLEASE keep all of these recommendations confidential.
The email even explains why the SEIU officials endorsed David
Vela, a candidate for the community college district:
endorsing over incumbent b/c he is a more reliable vote.
The email goes on to instruct Local 99’s staffers to screen
the rank-and-file members who are likely to attend the endorsement meetings so they
can pack the room full of “solid members who will be… voting these ways on
these races.”
Quite an exercise in democracy, right?
