Region 8 PAC

PEF Region 8 Political Action Committee Meeting

Minutes

Thursday, May 7, 2007

Meeting called to order 6:03 PM.

Motion to accept agenda made by Maddie Shannon Roberts, seconded by Don Reinhard, passed.

Motion to accept minutes made by Bill Wurster, passed.

The PAC Officers Report given by Tom Commanzo. Discussion included Campaign Finance Reform - there is no bill yet. The third PAC PAL information will go out soon. Tom reminds the PAC PALs to send in their visit cards. Special Elections - PEF endorsed Robert Gigante for surrogate judge in Staten Island.

The Legislative Reception for 2008 is tentatively scheduled for March 24, 2008.

Presidential Candidate Endorsement.

Due to the early primary in New York State, we need to move up our process. The Executive Board has requested regional PACs to make their reccomendations so that President Brynien can present our choice to the parent unions.

The AFL-CIO supports Hillary Clinton as a favorite sister and asking locals for support. Barak Obama has been endorsed by Opra Winfrey. Our endorsement of a candidate would allow involvement in the campaign as well as support for the candidate and may influence the endorsement of our parent unions.

Motion to endorse either the Democratic or Republican candidate made by Mario Chiarello. Discuss whether this is an endorsement or authorization for President Brynein to speak on behalf of a candidate in front of our parent unions. Many PAC members feel this is too early to make a choice. Question called. Fails, 6 for and 25 against.

Motion to endorse Hillary Clinton made by Marge DeVoe, seconded by Mike Blue. Discussion of her labor record and vote to authorize the war in Iraq follows. Question called. Passes, 19 for, 8 against and 2 abstain in a roll call vote.

PAC PALs Report.

The information for the next round of PAC PAL visits will be coming out next week.

PAC Budget.

There will be a meeting on May 25, 2007 at 1 PM at PEF HQ to discuss the PAC budget. Tom Commanzo and Kevin Jones will be at this meeting. Anyone who wants to attend may do so.

Local Elections,

The Local Elections sub-committee has been named. Herb Hennings discusses the candidate questionaire. He says no one had issues with the 2005 questionaire or made any reccormendations to change it, so we will use the same one this year.

Discuss Senate Bill S1458, Retiree Health Insurance Bill.

New Business.

A request is made to make greater use of email for distribution of the minutes, agenda and other PAC information.

Adjourn at 7:28 PM.