EDITORIAL

The San Francisco Democratic Party may wind up kicking out one of its most active clubs this week. It's a bizarre concept, and the members of the Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) shouldn't tolerate it for a second.

The Harvey Milk LGBT Club, one of the city most eminent Democratic Party organizations, may be effectively voted out of the party for refusing to abide by an outdated and counterproductive endorsement rule. Local party procedures require that chartered clubs endorse only Democrats; that might make sense for statewide and national races, but all local elections in California are nonpartisan. And since the Green Party has emerged as a real contender in some local races – and, sometimes, as the standard-bearer for the progressive agenda – the ban on cross-party endorsements could badly damage progressive alliances and the effectiveness of a club like Milk.

In the 2003 mayor's race, for example, the Milk Club endorsed Tom Ammiano, but when Ammiano failed to make the runoff, the club members did what most progressives did: They backed Matt Gonzalez. The decision had nothing to do with party affiliation and everything to do with issues. The Democrat in the race, Gavin Newsom, was wrong on homeless policy, tax policy, development policy, and a lot of other things.

Same goes for the 2002 School Board race, when the Milk Club backed Sarah Lipson and Whitney Leigh, both of whom had strong educational platforms and both of whom happened to be Green Party members.

The Milk Club has never been blinded by party loyalty, and that's to its immense credit. The members are Democrats, and active Democrats, but when it comes to local races, they realize that sometimes the local party establishment is allied with all the wrong people and taking on all the wrong issues.

Here's the problem: In recent years, the official process for chartering Democratic clubs has been pretty lax; frankly, nobody really cared if the clubs were "re-chartered" every year or not. But now the DCCC seems to care, a lot – and when the Milk Club's charter comes up for reauthorization Jan. 25, there are some DCCC members who will almost certainly vote to bounce the club from the party.

The Democratic Party's obsession with crushing the Greens has been, and remains, foolish, particularly in San Francisco. The Greens and progressive Democrats agree on many of the most important issues and ought to be working together on a common agenda. The only ones who benefit from driving a wedge between these two groups of activists are the top-level party hacks and machine leftovers who want to keep using the local Democratic Party as a tool for real estate developers, lobbyists, and corrupt backroom dealmakers.

Besides, there's a First Amendment issue here: Who gives the DCCC the right to censor what its chartered clubs say?

If the DCCC wants a strict interpretation of the operating procedures, then the bylaws should be changed. Let's face it: The Milk Club is an important part of the Democratic Party, and any DCCC member who votes against reauthorizing the club's charter will be forever branded as a friend of the bad old machine powerbrokers and a foe of progressive reform.