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DFA Planning Summit with Jim Dean |
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Jeff Gardner, Bob Flisser, Rosi Efthim, Creed Pogue, Jim Dean, Nathan Rudy, Mitch Manzella
New Brunswick, April
3 -- New Jersey for Democracy, a grassroots, progressive, political
organization, held its second annual leadership conference yesterday at Rutgers
University. The conference, attended by local leaders throughout the state,
helped set the goals and agenda of the organization for the coming
year.
Jim Dean, the Chair
of Democracy for America and brother of Democraic National Committee Chair
Howard Dean gave the keynote address (Click to read Jim's post on BlogforAmerica). Dean spoke of the need to challenge
Republicans for every level of office in every state. "There are places where
Republicans always run unchallenged and we have to start challenging them. There
are red states and red areas of blue states where we ran against Republican
machinery last year and we surprised them. We will continue doing
so."
Also addressing the
conference were Congressmen Frank Pallone of the sixth district and Rush Holt of
the twelfth district. Pallone spoke of the Republicans holding closed-door
sessions in Congress, locking Democratic representatives out of the process and
disenfranchising the people they represent. Holt spoke of the need for voters to
be confident that their votes are being counted and that all eligible voters get
a chance to cast their votes. Holt is the sponsor of the Voter Confidence and
Increased Accessibility Act (HR 550), which is meant to restore confidence in
elections and the electoral process.
Holt also spoke in
support of New Jersey Assembly bill A33 from Reed Gusciora, which would require
that all voting machines produce a voter-verified paper
record.
Other issues
discussed by the conference were saving Social Security insurance from being
dismantled by the Bush Administration, restoring ethics in government,
supporting "pay-to-play" legislation and countering right-wing bias in the news
media.
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