CD4 Congressional District 4, this is a group or district of about 7 counties in the SE part of our state, we apart of CD4 and attend an annual meeting about how we are organized. 

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Washington Days (KS Only) Washington Days is a yearly weekend event where the entire state's Democratic party gets together in Topeka, usually at a grand hotel. The hotel has suites / rooms / caucuses that get together in various groups. The groups specialize in LGBTQ+, Farm, General issues and would be called something like: LGBTQ+ Caucus. Those caucuses get together and have a speaker to update those interested in what is going on. Website is available when it's close to Feb/March: https://kansasdems.org/washington-days

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Chair / Vice-Chair Chair (top most elected official of said group) and Vice-Chair, the second highest elected official of said group. The Kansas State party that oversees all operations in the state has a Chair and Co-chair. These seats are usually required to have different sex identities. 

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Secretary This elected official seat usually records meetings and contacts group members.

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Treasurer This seat defines the future spending plan / budgets for the year and alerts us if our funds are low or if we are doing well. They track all finances. 

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County Party Officers Party Officers include the Chair, Co-Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer. 

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GOTV Get out the vote, means that the party must create iniatives to get out word that there is a vote, and do all it can to let voters know when the vote is. 

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Precinct memebers A precinct member is an elected member of the party. If you want to run as a precinct person, you are added to the ballot in the county and people in the county in your precinct (the small neighborhood you are running) can vote for you. Your name appears on the ballot in your precinct (like a neighborhood) Additionally, the party Chair can add you as well which requires no vote. ​The goal of a precinct person is to knock doors, be in contact with your precinct about who is running, and what stuff is going on. The more in contact with your precinct you are, the more likely we get more voters to vote, and candidates to win! 

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Precinct A designated area in a neighborhood, city or township. It can be of any shape and include many or few people as set by the precinct boundary lines. 

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General Election A general election is usually at the end of the election season, and is the final election that puts candidates into office. The general election includes the winners from each party from the Primary Election. 

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Primary Election Primary elections are elections held with in a party. So if there are two or three or more people running for the same office who are all Democrats, a primary election would narrow that playing field to only one candidate. If there are multiple seats open for an office, the playing 

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County Election Office County Election office is the center seat for all elections in a county. The county election office is self-funded and can be run out of the County Courthouse as it is in our County. This office goes through the great trouble of providing ballots for every single district/precinct, etc. Each ballot must be catered to each district. For instance, one of the smallest offices is the precinct person, and the election office must create a special ballot for every single precinct. https://kansasdems.org/washington-days https://www.hvcoksvote.gov/

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DemoFest Demofest is a convention of Dems in Wichita that takes place on a saturday, usually late summer, early fall. This is similar to Washington Days in Topeka, but has been less popular as of late. The new idea for the Dem Party is to break it up into multiple counties across the state. 

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County Commission The County Commission is a paid office, usually in the 30-40k range for our area, that meets monthly to determine whether current issues affecting the county are a yes or no. If you are elected to this seat, you would deal with issues like county roads, rural water, etc. 

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City Commission The City Commission for Newton is a non-paid office with a yearly small stipend. The board usually meets monthly to determine city-only issues.

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School Board School board members are unpaid but someone in this position would help determine the trajectory of teachers pay, school curriculum, school budgets and bond projects. 

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US House or US Senate The US House and US Senate together makes up Congress in Washington DC. The US Senate consists of a 100 member body, with each state getting 2 representatives. the US House consists of less than 500 members and each member represents based on population and not state lines. 

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KS House or KS Senate These two chambers in the State House or Capitol Building represent Kansas on a state-wide level. These two chambers combined are referred to as the Legislature. They make bills that usually dig our state deeper into holes that make our state harder rather than easier to live in. 

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Minutes (of a meeting) Minutes are the general proceedings of a meeting. They are recorded as events by the secretary.

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Independent A candidate running independent would have no backing from the Dem or Rep parties, and they would normally go at it alone by knocking doors, without the help of things like VoteBuilder, or the working knowledge or state or local parties. Voter Registration lists can be gotten from the County Election office usually in a very large spreadsheet file for a fee. Candidates with a good background in running campaigns would have less trouble here, but new candidates would greatly be bolstered by supporting the knowledge of the local county party, state party, or federal party. We do support independent mindsets, but they must be registered Dem for our party to help monetarily. A candidate who is Dem wanting to run more independently, can do so if they request less guidance or support from the Party. 

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Candidate Campaigns Candidate campaigns are simply a candidate running for an office, with their treasurer and issues to follow -- these three things constitute the beginnings of a campaign. They must file to run for an office with the county office, state or federal by their designated deadlines. The next steps are to create awareness and fundraise for yard signs, billboards, ads online or TV, etc and biggest of all is KNOCKING DOORS. 

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Note: A candidate's campaign can't control the local Dem party, and the Dem party can't control a candidate's campaign. The campaign can elect to or not receive help from the Dem Party. Dem Party members must understand they can volunteer under the Dem Party (helps all campaigns fairly) but can also separately volunteer for a campaign at a separate time. Blurring of these lines creates issues for other candidates trying to run, where a particular candidate is favored perhaps without realizing it. When one candidate is preferred over others, regardless of funding, etc, then less candidates tend to win -- from our perspective. A candidate can't make a request of the party that unfairly disadvantages other candidates running. 

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"A bill is in Committee" This means that a bill has been written up by a smaller group of people in our congress or KS state house / KS legislature, and has not been accepted yet to the floor for a vote. When the bill gets to the floor for a vote, then it has a greater chance of becoming law. When the bill is being presented on the floor for a vote, all parties can vote on it or add to it. The additions to the bill are called amendments and those amendments must be voted on individually by the entire voting body.

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Positions within the State House 

Majority Leader - controls the party with the most elected seats

Minority Leader. - controls the party with the 2nd most elected seats 

Senators - they are in a chamber called the Senate and they debate / create bills

House Representatives - they are in a separate chamber  and they debate / create bills

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How a bill becomes a law For a bill to become law, the bill must pass both chambers (House and Senate) and be signed into law by the next authority in line, which is the governor for state houses,  or the president for US Congress. ​​​When a President signs a bill, it becomes federal law, and when a governor signs a bill then it becomes a state law. Each of these people can Veto (say "no" to) the bill, where the bill is then dead or it can be voted on by a super majority to override the veto in the House or Senate at the State or Federal level. A super-majority vote is anything over 50/50. So a 60/40 split may override a veto for a ruling body or a 75/25 vote win must be required for a different ruling body. 

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