As you may have seen, our photos section is down for maintenance! This means that we're doing updates, and hopefully adding pictures of you!

We love to see pictures of Young Democrats in action; doing what we do best: organizing, recruiting, campaigning, and having fun. Do you have pictures from Convention in Vancouver? Or pictures from your chapter's latest meeting, project, outing, or campaign event? If you have pictures of any YD events, please send them or links to them to pictures@ydwa.org. We'll put the best ones on the YDWA website to share with all our great YDs.

On April 5th and 19th, Young Democrats participated in legislative district caucuses, where many of us were elected to be delegates to our upcoming congressional district caucuses and to our state party convention in Spokane!

Not a delegate, but dreaming of Denver? If you missed your LD caucuses, you still have a chance to be a national delegate! You may join in at the congressional district caucuses May 17, or join many of your fellow YDs at state convention in Spokane in hopes of being elected one of Washington's 17 at-large national delegates.

If you want to be a national delegate, you need to fill out the Declaration of Candidacy form and get it to the state party offices by May 2 at 5:00 p.m.. The form is available as a downloadable PDF from the state party's Web site. The form and more information can be found by clicking here.

Remember, the Congressional District Caucuses are less than a month away! Find your location by clicking here.

The Young Democrats of Washington completed their first round of endorsements of candidates for state and federal offices during the YDWA convention. The committee will meet again soon to consider additional candidates. If you are interested in finding out more about our process, please e-mail endorsements@ydwa.org. Our next Endorsements Committee meeting will take place May 4th in Bellevue.

The Young Democrats of Washington proudly endorse the following candidates:

For the office of Governor: Christine Gregoire
For the State Supreme Court: Mary Fairhurst and Charles Johnson
For Attorney General: John Ladenburg
For the Commissioner of Public Lands: Peter Goldmark
For the office of the President: Barack Obama

For the office of U.S. Representative:
Brian Baird 3rd CD
Norm Dicks 6th CD
Mark Mays 5th CD
Darcy Burner 8th CD

For the office of State Senator:
Rosemary McAuliffe 1st LD
Margarita Prentice 11th LD
Phil Rockefeller 23rd LD
Craig Pridemore 49th LD
Phyllis Huster 5th LD
Jon Haugen 18th LD

For the office of State Representative:
Al O'Brien 1st LD
Don Barlow 6th LD
Marko Liias 21st LD
Sam Hunt 22nd LD
Sherry Appleton 23rd LD
Tami Green 28th LD
Steve Conway 29th LD
Dave Upthegrove 33rd LD
Sharon Nelson 34th LD
Kathryn Haigh 35th LD
Michael Sells 41st LD
Liz Loomis 44th LD
Deb Eddy 48th LD
Timm Ormsby 3rd LD
Troy Kelley 28th LD
Kelli Linville 42nd LD
Ross Hunter 48th LD
John Driscoll 6th LD
Tim Probst 17th LD
Vanessa Duplessie 18th LD
Mike Rechner 20th LD
Ron Weigelt 31st LD
Daryl Daugs - 35th LD
Scott White - 46th LD

The YDs had an excellent 2008 convention March 27th through the 29th in Vancouver, hosted by our friends in the Clark County Young Democrats chapter. We heard from U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, and from the Young Democrats of America president David Hardt, among other elected and party officials.

In addition to caucus meetings, seminars and creating our 2008 platform (done in a record three hours) we held elections for the YDWA board. Congratulations to all of our new and returning officers! Their contact information can be found at www.ydwa.org/contact.

Also, congratulations to our award winners!
Man of the Year
Chiho Lai and Forrest Smith

Woman of the Year
KD Chapman

Rookie of the Year
Robin Ledbetter

County Chapter of the Year
Clark County

College Chapter of the Year
University of Washington

Half Lifetime Achievement Award
Aaron Belenky

Honorary Young Democrat
Pat Notter

Thank you to everyone who came out and especially to those who helped. We're all looking forward for an equally exciting and eventful convention next year!

The Young Democrats of America Pacific Region has a new website.

The Pacific Region includes the YDA Chapters of Washington, California, and Alaska. The region currently has open appointments and positions to several difference committees! They are:
Budget Committee Representative
Community Service Committee Representative
Finance Committee Representative
College Caucus Representative
High School Caucus Representative
GLBT Caucus Representative
Labor Caucus Representative
Minority Caucus Representative
Rural Caucus Representative
Women's Caucus Representative

The responsibilities of these positions include taking a part of the committee meetings, which may be in person at YDA meetings as well as conference calls, having a willingness to actively participate, and making sure to keep the Region updated on what is going on!

If you are interested in applying or have any questions, talk to our Regional Director Rob Dolin at robdolin@wuxx.com.

The Young Democrats of America met in sunny Anaheim, CA for the winter meeting of the National Committee. Roughly 200 YD leaders came from across the country, for the 3 day meeting.

This meeting focused on Labor and Union issues. YDA met with representatives from the Writer’s Guild of America that just successfully resolved a dispute with movie and TV publishers. They talked about the importance of having a unified clear message when making demands, while also being willing to approach negotiations with an open mind. Their strike was successful, and may serve as a model for many future labor actions.

YDs also walked in support of local hotel workers Unite Here Local 681. The workers of 681 are having their healthcare benefits threatened, while still earning sub-standard wages. We heard from many workers who commute 2 hours daily on public transportation, and accept poverty level wages only because healthcare is so crucial to them. In the afternoon, hotel workers from all fields joined with Young Democrats and picketed in front of a hotel while YDA leadership met with hotel management to present the Union’s case and express solidarity with the workers.

The next meeting of YDA will be in Nashville, TN, just slightly ahead of the DNC Convention in Denver, CO.

It's time for the Young Democrats of Washington Convention!

When: March 28th--30th

Where: Vancouver, WA
This event is hosted by the Clark County Young Democrats and will take place at the Vancouver Hilton.

Convention will be an amazing opportunity to meet with Young Democrats from across the state. Party leaders, activists, and officials will also be around for us to learn from and share ideas with. This is a fantastic networking opportunity!

The basic information is listed here, but more on speakers, panels, registration and our banquet can be found on our Convention Website

Saturday night we will be having our Awards Banquet. There will also be a reception prior to dinner. There will be good food, a great keynote speaker, and awards given to the Chapters and Individuals that have helped make this past year a success. Our awards are: College, County, and High School Chapters of the Year, Man, Woman, and Rookie of the Year, Half Lifetime Achievement, and Honorary YD. If you would like to nominate someone or a chapter please email the nominations to amanda.nelson@ydwa.org.

If you are interested in purchasing a banquet ticket, please email convention@ydwa.org.

We hope that everyone will be able to join in to help celebrate the past year, and kick off the new year for YDWA.

On Monday, Feb. 18th, YDs from all over the state traveled to Olympia to lobby their representatives on a variety of issues. Young Dems came from as far away as Bellingham and Spokane to make their voices heard by their legislators, and we accomplished a lot. People lobbied on a variety of bills and legislation, and within the next few days, most of those bills either progressed or were passed.

A few of the issues that our illustrious president and the executive board decided on, and which we subsequently lobbied for, were: having ballot drop- boxes available on college campuses to encourage student participation in the voting process; lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 years old; increasing the required length of notice to be given to people in low- income housing in the event that the owner of the property decides to convert it into condos; granting the Planned Parenthood program $8 million in state funds to replace the federal funding cuts in the last few years so that they could continue to provide services to thousands of low-income young people; and a domestic partnership bill that would give homosexual couples many of the same rights as married couples such as nursing home visits, military benefits and joint property rights, to name just a few.

As most of you know, our legislative chambers are currently filled with a super-majority of Democrats, so most of our issues had a good deal of support from our representatives. When I managed to pull one of my Representatives from the 23rd district, Sherry Appleton, out of session to talk to her about securing the funding for the Planned Parenthood program, it was to her credit that she said matter-of-factly, "Of course I support this. Why are you still talking to me about it?" Read the rest »»

by Aaron Belenky, our Nat'l Committeeman

"In January, Washington State became only the second state in the nation to implement Online Voter Registration. Now new voters can register to vote online. All that's needed is a Driver's License or a Washington State ID card. Voters can even update their registration information when they move by using the online tools.

In 2006, the Secretary of State asked the Legislature to authorize online voter registration. The Legislature passed the law last year, and it finally became a reality in early 2008. We join Arizona as one of only two states offering voters the chance to register online.

If you are not registered to vote yet, or need to change your address and voting information, look for the "Online Voter Registration" link at the bottom-right of http://ydwa.org. You can also visit http:// vote.wa.gov for more details."

This year Washington state held its Democratic caucus on Saturday, February 9th. The caucuses started at 1 pm, and some didn't finish until nearly evening. Yours truly was the volunteer secretary for her caucus in Bellingham's 238 precinct, and it was also my very first time ever attending a caucus. My caucus lasted for four hours; it was an amazing experience.

Most of you that read the newsletter are probably old hat when it comes to caucuses, so the process may not seem so strange to you. But to see it for the first time this year, when so many more people, especially young people, turned out than were expected...it was certainly something. The room I was in was absolutely teeming with young people, most of them from the dorms on Western Washington University's campus. The coordinators from the county Dems had expected between 50 and 100 people to attend, but more like 300 actually came. There was no room to stand; we ran out of sign in sheets. The sheer number of young people wanting to participate in the process, just in my small precinct, was overwhelming. It was difficult to hear people, to explain, and the proceedings were fraught with misunderstandings. For the great majority of the people in the room, it was their very first experience with a caucus as well. It was messy and confusing and difficult to follow at times. Read the rest »»