Randi Weingarten Believes in Proportinal Rep in the Democratic Party, But Not the UFT

The UFT is all about winner take all and even using the words "proportional representation" for AFT, NYSUT and UFT Exec Board invites the usual response of "we need to speak with one voice." Translated that means dictatorship. Or worse, when we used to bring this up in the 70s we were attacked because Unity said that proportional rep is how Hitler came to power.

So how interesting that most of the primaries have been based on the same concept of proportional rep.

I  don't know how to do the math but let's say that the fact that most primaries in the Democratic party are not winner take all like the UFT but based on various systems of proportional representation where the delegates are apportioned based on percentage votes in various districts or within the entire state. And let's assume (maybe a false assumption) that Hillary benefits more than Bernie from the proportional rep system. If that is so Randi is a cheerleader for proportional rep.

How would a similar system of proportional rep work in the UFT?
Some ideas:
1. Each caucus gets a proportion of delegates to AFT and NYSUT based on their vote totals. Thus MORE/NA would get 25% of the 750 delegates, almost 200 people who would be going to the AFT convention in Minneapolis in July and the NYSUT convention at the NY Hilton in April 2017. But that might tip the balance of control away from Unity.

2. Another idea is to have votes by districts - the 32 local districts and the high school and other specialized districts. Unity would do well in those but  that would at least set up local contests that might be of interest and stimulate participation. MORE would not necessarily do well since it would have to recruit people all over the city but I actually favor this over the 1st option because I think a caucus should have to show widespread support. My guess is that if we did it this way in the recent election we would have to know how many people voted for MORE and Unity in each of the 6 HS districts - there might be a slate in each borough for instance.
In the elementary and middle schools MORE might or might not have won seats depending on the ability to get people on the local districts to run -- well, this is getting too complex for my brain after a few glasses of wine - so I'm back to watching the basketball game.

Fred Klonsky touched on Randi and the Democratic Party:

How is Randi Weingarten’s view of the debate in the Democratic Party like her view of union democracy?