What a transformation we’ve seen in national politics! We all seem energized and enthusiastic in a way that didn’t seem possible a while ago. The Board and Officers of the DRC unanimously endorsed Kamala Harris as our nominee for president at our meeting in Cazenovia on July 27, and everyone’s excitement was evident. That doesn’t mean there still isn’t a lot of work to do and tough battles to be fought, but I think that Harris’ selection of Tim Walz as her running mate will be really helpful to us as rural Democrats.
I wanted to update you on other decisions we made at our meeting. First, we voted on allocating what we earned from our April conference back to our member counties. It is not our intention to hold onto a surplus when that money could be doing good in our rural counties who can all use it this fall. Each county will be getting a check for $425. These are not housekeeping funds; the money can be spent for campaigns. If your county wants its check sent somewhere other than the mailing address we have for your county chair, please contact Treasurer John Hurley at jhurley1039@gmail.com. You can also contact him for a copy of the Treasurer’s report he presented, which broke down the conference expenses in some detail if you’d like to see just what it costs to put on our conference every spring.
We also voted to allocate our federal PAC funds evenly by counties to our congressional candidates. Democratic candidates in DRC districts will receive 1/47th of our PAC funds for each DRC county within that district. If a DRC county is split among 2 (or, in the case of Niagara, 3) congressional districts, their 1/47th share will be split proportionately.
We will schedule two Zoom sessions with ActBlue to help candidates and committees use this online fundraising platform. We’re working on the dates and will send out information as soon as the details are nailed down.
Our next Board meeting, which will be held via Zoom, is tentatively scheduled for Sunday evening, November 24, at 7 p.m.
Judith Hunter
Chair, Democratic Rural Conference of New York State