San Juan County to send five delegates to congressional district caucus

Published 4:34 pm Wednesday, May 4, 2016

by David Turnoy

The second step in the process of Washington Democrats selecting their presidential candidates to the national convention took place on Sunday, May 1, at the Grange Hall in Friday Harbor. One hundred four delegates were seated: 79 delegates for Bernie Sanders and 25 delegates for Hillary Clinton. Because San Juan county is allocated five delegates to go on to the congressional district caucus and the state convention, four delegates were allocated to Bernie and one for Hillary. Under the rules, if one candidate has more than 75 percent of the delegates, they get both of our alternates, so they both went to Bernie.

Close to 30 people ran to be a delegate for Bernie to the next level, and about 10 ran to represent Hillary. Each had to speak to their whole caucus to try to woo the voters. Once the secret ballot was completed, Diane Martindale of San Juan Island emerged as a landslide victor for the opportunity to represent Hillary. The Bernie delegates will be Learner Limbach and Marta Nielson both of Orcas, and Robert O’Connell and Kate Czaya of Lopez. The two alternates for Bernie are Susan Toch and Barbara Starr, both from San Juan Island.

A number of resolutions were passed that will be forwarded on to the state platform committee. These include changing our caucus system so that voting is done a primary, supporting the carbon tax initiative, curtailing Navy actions in our region and other items of interest. For a full report, see the longer article online or on the local Democrats’ website or blog.

Thanks to everyone who made this event possible. A lot of people put in a lot of hard work. You can see their names in the longer article also.