Minutes of June-July-August Oak Park (IL) DFA meetings

Written by: W A Thomasson on Aug 19, 2007 9:25 PM EDT

Linked to groups: Oak Park DFA Meeting

June 6

I apologize for both the lateness and the skimpiness of these minutes. My notes were even more inadequate than usual and with the passage of time my memory cannot fill in the blanks.

Seven people were present. Matt talked about the upcoming meeting of the Young Democrats of Illinois at the headquarters of the Democratic Pary of Oak Park.

Plans for a healthcare forum are moving forward. The forum is tentatively scheduled for August 11 at the OP Public Library.

Eric talked about two candidates we might support. Mark Pera is running in the 3rd Congressional District Democratic primary against incumbent Dan Lipinski. As many will remember, Lipinski because Congressman in 2004 when his father, the incumbent, announced after the primary that he would not run in the general election and persuaded the relevant committeepersons to put his son on the ballot instead. The current Lipinski is as far right (for a Democrat) as his father but survived a three-way race in the 2006 primary.

Pera is a 25-year resident of the district and president of his local school board. He is against the Iraq war and for stem cell research.

The other candidate Eric mentioned is Daniel Bliss, running for the Illinois house in the 17th district (Evanston). This is a predominantly Democratic district currently represented by a Republican. Bliss has been endorsed by Jan Schakowsky and Larry Sufferedin.

In discussing which we might want to support, Bill mentioned that it would be possible to support Pera in the primary and Bliss in the general election.

It was decided that we will invite Pera to speak at our July meeting. Since the first Wednesday is July 4th, that meeting will be scheduled for the 11th and will be held at the OP Public Library. (Note: The library was unavailable on that date, so the meeting was held at La Majada restaurant.)

July 11

At least 20 people (probably close to 30) were present. Several were individual from the 3rd Congressional District who had never attended before. The meeting was held in the back room of La Majada restaurant. This gave us our own space, without competing with other restaurant patrons and also allowed those who wished to order alcoholic beverages. These advantages led us to decide to hold future meetings at this location.

National DFA is planning a healthcare forum in Chicago on August 1st in connection with Yearly Kos. Eric therefore raised the possibility of canceling out own healthcare forum scheduled for August 9th. Bill, however, suggested that the two fora address quite distinct audiences and that our west suburban healthcare forum should therefore be postponed rather than cancelled. Ron, who has play a large role in helping organize this forum, agreed and this was the decision of the group.

Our first speaker was Josh Levin from Iraq Summer, aka NoIraqEscalation.com. This group is targeting 31 Republican Representatives and 9 Republican Senators who are wavering on the Iraq war to get them to change their votes. Several of the targeted Senators have already flipped. Targets in Illinois are Kirk, Johnson, and LaHood. Iraq Summer has paid organizers working in each district and is planning major veterans caravans and rallies in the three districts for Aug. 28. Levin later explained that the reason the group is only targeting Republicans is that they are key. If Kirk flips, he said, Bean will come around. The web site is iraqsummer.org.

We then heard from Mark Pera, who is challenging Dan Lipinski in the 3rd Congressional District primary. Pera, who has four children, is president of the Lyons Township School Board. He is an attorney who currently heads the Environment and Energy Division of the State’s Attorney’s office. (He is phasing out this job to concentrate full-time on the campaign.) He also mentioned that he worked in the steel mils for 1-1/2 years after high school, so he knows what manual labor is like. (If I remember correctly, his father had also been a steel worker.)

“I’m the Democrat in the Democratic primary,” Pera said. Lipinski, by contrast, was one of the few Democrats to vote against stem cell research. Lipinski has also recently said he is against timetables for withdrawal from Iraq, although he has in general tended to flip-flop on the war. Pera favors withdrawal in 120 days, counting from the present. After a few questions in which it appeared that not everyone was entirely happy with Pera’s positions on, for example, hydrocarbon emissions, Muriel came out with a strong statement of support for Pera. He was smart and could learn what he needed to know, she said. Another attendee noted that Lipinski has the lowest leadership ranking of any House Democrat – on some measures he’s behind every member of the minority party as well. And when Muriel said she thought women would like Pera’s positions, Para’s wife noted that he had been the first stay-at-home dad in their town.

Pera had a button available at the Yearly Kos bloggers convention that read, “I support the mainstream Democrat that supports your values.” Many people at the meeting, however, were unhappy with Pera’s refusal to specifically support single-payer health insurance. His position was that he wanted to see everyone covered by health insurance and he didn’t greatly care what method was used. He added that he wasn’t going to tell us what we wanted to hear just because we wanted to hear it. “People in this country are sick of politicians who cater to extreme elements in their parties,” he said. Which led Eric to comment that there needed to be a channel of communications, because candidates and politicians wanted to hear from people.

Questioned about gay marriage, Pera said he would favor a law recognizing civil unions at the federal level and would oppose any constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Since the normal date for the next meeting, August 1, is the date of the national DFA healthcare forum in Chicago, it was decided that the next meeting will be August 8 and La Majada.

August 8

There was a meeting with five people. However, your secretary was unable to locate the group at the restaurant, so there will be no report.

Respectfully submitted,

Bill Thomasson

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Location: Oak Park, IL 60302