Democrats Abroad hosted its annual global meeting on May 21-22. On the agenda, Saturday was allocated for presentations focused on mobilizing the overseas vote in this critical midterm election year, while Sunday's agenda focused on internal business.
3 hours of the Sunday internal business agenda included voting on resolutions and charter amendments.
The DA charter amendments are updates and changes made to the document that outlines the rules that DA follows as an organization. There were 8 on the agenda to be voted on.
DA resolutions are broadly, statements made regarding policy and positions where DA stands as an organization. There were 11 on the agenda to be voted on.
On Sunday, 5 non-controversial resolutions were voted on as a package as the first agenda item in the 3 hour period, in an attempt to save time. All 5 of these resolutions passed.
The remaining amount of time on Sunday was spent discussing one particular resolution to create a Special Committee on FEC compliance for Democrats Abroad. This resolution was deemed controversial, hence why so much time was taken to discuss and vote on this particular resolution. The FATCA repeal resolution was on the agenda to be discussed and voted on after the FEC resolution.
With 1 hour remaining, a motion was made to extend the meeting by 2 hours, but the motion failed. The DPCA accomplished voting on and passing the FEC resolution. Given that time was not extended, the remaining resolutions and none of the Charter Amendments were voted on during the meeting this year.
It is a grave disappointment that the DPCA voting body did not have an opportunity to debate or vote on updating it's position on FATCA. Given the information that has come to light over recent months, it is clear that at the very least a discussion on FATCA is needed to review DA's current position of FATCA reform.
The TTF plans to submit the resolution at the next global meeting, which currently does not have a date set.
For those DA members that are disappointed that DA did not vote on the FATCA resolution last weekend you can email [email protected] and request that your email is forwarded to:
- Your Country Chair
- Your Country DPCA Representatives
- Your Regional Vice Chair
- The DA Global Executive Committee