Sunday, January 14, 2007
Four out of four! DNC adds policy to website
Good news. I had a feeling that once the political arms of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) added their non-discrimination policies to their respective websites that the DNC itself would feel the pressure to add it as well. Bingo!
I am happy to report that my campaign to have all of the national party arms add their non-discrimination policy to their websites has been a 100% success.
Here's a recap and an easy way for you to gain the attention of folks in positions to make things happen. Armed with a $9.20 domain name -- www.WhereIsThePolicy.com -- (the most important activist tool of the 21st century) an activist can demand and make change.
Here's the recap:
The matter of these policies came to my attention when a political activist in Florida told me this past April that the non-discrimination policy of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) did not include "sexual orientation" as a protected class. Over at PageOneQ I did some investigating and reporting.
In response to my report, the Committee yanked the policy and, within a couple of days, reposted it with "sexual orientation" listed. There are lingering questions as to whether or not the policy was quickly changed or whether it was simple an error of omission on the website. You can read these and judge for yourself:
In response to inquiry, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee yanks job policy from website and UPDATE: Dem. Organization Changes Website.
At the same time, I learned that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) did not have their policy posted at all. At first the staff there were not very responsive. Once I asked them to confirm their individual emails so I could post them on this site to ask readers to write them on the omission they got it together and posted the policy.
I summarized the story here:
Finally, the Democrats are getting it....
In the same article I reported that the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Governor's Association (DGA) did not list their policies on their sites. When I told some friends that I was going to pursue this, they asked me to wait until after the election. I postponed my campaign for nine months, until this week when I decided to pick this up and run with it.
I visited all four sites. The DCCC was missing the policy they had on their site previously. In all fairness, they did a redesign and as soon as I spoke to their press office, they linked it.
The DGA was next. At first I encountered a little bit of resistance. I explained that The DSCC and the DCCC had added it and that now that the election was over I was poised to launch WhereIsThePolicy.com to encourage the national Democratic organizations to post the policy. Within a few days the DGA had the policy posted too.
Now that the political arms had done the right thing, it was time to move on to the national Committee. They were a little tougher. The DNC spokesperson defended, time and time again, the Party's decision to not post the policy on line.
Not only did the party appear to be hiding its non-discrimination clause from the public, but also an individual calling the DNC about applying for a job was refused a copy of the policy. "Unbelievable," I thought.
"We do not post any personnel policies on our website," I was told back in April and again this week.
"This is not a personnel policy, it's a public statement," I explained to each person at the DNC I spoke with. Non-discrimination statements not only serve to educate perspective employees, but also are an important signal to other political organizations and companies.
Unsatisfied with the response I was getting, I decided to escalate the contacts and spoke with the Director of Communications of the DNC. I explained my campaign and why I thought the policy should be posted on line. I also asked who at the DNC was directly responsible for the decision to omit the policy from the site.
It wasn't more than a day or so when I received an email from the DNC's communications office. They added the policy!
Four out of four! It's nice to know that with a little bit of activist pressure, even one guy at one computer, can change these huge organizations.
So: The DNC, DSCC, DGA, and DCCC... Not bad for a couple of hours work.
Cost of www.WhereIsThePolicy.com: $9.20
Cost of web access, one week: $16.00
Demanding and receiving action from multi million dollar political machines: Priceless
By: Michael Rogers
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