The San Francisco Young Democrats are proud of our endorsement process in the SD-3 primary. Our choice to endorse early was was initiated by a vote of our membership in March of 2007 to invite both Senator Migden and Assemblyman Leno to participate in a debate and to add the SD-3 endorsement vote to our already-scheduled CYD statewide election endorsement vote at our April 07 meeting. SFYD has anti-stacking provisions in our bylaws which require attendance of at least one previous SFYD meeting within the last calendar year in order to vote. Because we gave a month (ie-1 meeting) notice for this vote, and it was so early in the election cycle that neither candidate had sent their people to our meetings, our process eliminated the ability for either candidate to pack our organization. As a result, our vote truly represented the will of our membership and not the candidate most effective at club-packing. We also had the highest turnout in an endorsement vote that we have had in our organization's recent history.

In the month leading up to our debate, which was the first in the campaign for SD-3, both candidates were given equal opportunity to reach out to our members and engage them directly. The San Francisco Young Democrats are proud of the integrity of our process, and it is in large part a result of that integrity that we remain one of San Francisco's largest Democratic clubs as well as the largest YD club in California.

Below are some links to stories published about our debate and endorsement vote:
California Majority Report
LA Times' Political Muscle
SF Bay Guardian Blog
Sacramento Bee blog
Bay Area Reporter

Additionally, video from the debate was posted at Calitics.