Notes On Corruption: Villaraigosa defends vote revising DNC platform on Jerusalem, God

The DNC is unwilling to follow even its own rules, as this now-famous video of the chair of the convention “declaring” a 2/3 approval of a platform change where none such existed, reveals. 

Note just a few things—reminiscent, once again, of the actions of current leadership of The Episcopal Church.

1) Despite the obvious lack of a 2/3 majority vote for the change in the platform, the delegates didn’t know “the rules” enough to make a formal challenge.  Even I, watching the video at the time, recognized that such an outrageous violation of the rules would have some means of protest.  But nobody knew it quickly enough to act formally.

2) Note that the “establishment” Democrats—the leaders of the convention and the behind the scenes apparatchiks—recognized that the platform was a public relations disaster, and that something had to be done asap in order to “fix the optics” in front of the viewing masses.

3) Note that the “radical activists” out on the convention floor didn’t care about the optics. In this respect, the “establishment Dems” are like Episcopal bishops. They know that the pew-sitters aren’t going to like God taken out of the Book of Common Prayer—or whatever their current little fad is at the moment—right now it’s canonical changes forcing parishes to consider transexuals for clergy and lay leadership along with same-sex marriage—and so they want to obscure it.  But the foaming revisionists aren’t going to allow that. Which means you lose “votes” at the polls, that is . . . stewardship dollars in the parishes.

4) Note finally the brazen chutzpah of the chair—he compliments himself about his “decisive” violation of the rules, through Obama’s words.  Kind of like the way Katherine Jefferts Schori “decisively” and openly violates the canons when she wants to get rid of a bishop or a priest or a Standing Committee.

What a disgraceful display from the chair, Villaraigosa, who *knowingly*—as is obvious from his panicked behavior on video—violated the rules.

From The Los Angeles Times, where there is more:

Such a change requires a two-thirds vote by delegates, and on Wednesday they were asked to approve language invoking God and affirming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Villaraigosa, the convention chairman, called for a voice vote three times before declaring the amendments approved. Some delegates and journalists on the convention floor at the Time Warner Cable Arena were adamant that one could not audibly be certain they heard two-thirds of the delegates present say “aye.”

“It was a lot of ado about nothing,” the mayor said Friday. Villaraigosa said that when reporters told him after the vote that they did not clearly hear two-thirds support, he responded, “That’s nice to know. I was the chairman and I did, and that was the prerogative of the chair.”

Villaraigosa noted that any delegate who objected to the process could have made a formal challenge within 10 minutes of the vote.

“Not one person objected. It’s more a media concern than a delegate concern. I can tell you this — the president of the United States said, ‘Wow.’ The president said, ‘You showed why you were speaker of the California Assembly,’” Villaraigosa said. “The president, the vice president, Mrs. Obama, all of them acknowledged the decisive way I handled that.”