2026 Member Convention Bulletin

Issue #7 - Tuesday, May 26th, 2026

Preliminary Convention Agenda Announced 

The preliminary agenda for our 2026 Member Convention has been released, find it and all proposals submitted for the Convention here. A final draft agenda will be released on Saturday, May 30th.

The Co-Chairs have proposed a series of special rules for the Convention that can be found at the bottom of the agenda document. Notably, there are special rules that require amendments to either Resolutions or the proposed Bylaws Revision to be submitted in advance. Amendments must be submitted by Friday, May 29th using the Google form linked here. 

Additionally, under these special rules motions to consider the Bylaws Revision by seriatim/by paragraph will be considered out of order. The membership will have the ultimate say on whether or not to adopt these special rules at the beginning of the meeting following the adoption of the agenda. 

Chapter Officer Candidates Announced

Candidates for Chapter Officer elections have been announced. Find the election packet here with info on all candidates running and their statements. There will be a candidate forum at the Convention where members will be able to hear from each candidate running. Additionally, it will be possible for additional nominations for candidates to be made from the floor at Convention.

Convention Updates 

Convention is 11 days away! Be sure to RSVP if you haven’t already, and if you plan on attending consider signing up to volunteer at Convention day-of.

Important Deadlines to Remember:

• Saturday, May 16th: Bylaw amendments due

• Sunday, May 17th: Officer nominations open

• Friday, May 22nd: Resolutions due

• Saturday, May 23rd: Draft agenda released

• Sunday May 24th: Officer nominations close

• Tuesday, May 26th: Officer candidates announced

• Friday, May 29th: Amendments due

• Saturday, May 30th: Revised agenda released

Key Links:

• Amendment submission form

• Officer Election Nomination Form

• Volunteer sign up form

• RSVP form

• Microsite with all info

Member Submissions 

Responding to last week’s prompt: our chapter’s current priorities are contesting for state power, labor, and party-building as outlined in resolutions adopted in December 2025 and March 2026. 

Should these continue to be our chapter’s priorities? And if so, what should that priority work look like in the next year? For the latter question, please focus on one of three priorities (or another area of work you think should be a priority instead).

Violet J, Northside Blue Line Branch, Revolution Caucus

With the priorities "contest for state power" referring to our electoral work, and "party-building" referring to internal organizing, I'd love to see "labor" as a priority turned into a verb that spells out our goals for Chicago DSA in the labor movement. I find the other priority names to be very helpful north stars for what our long-term goals are in these arenas, and I'd love to hear from my Labor Branch on how they might frame the goal of their work. Which is all to say, yes! These priorities must continue and expand!

Emma Caterine, Labor and Northside Red Line Branches

Yes these priorities should continue, but they must be more fully implemented and given teeth through organizing. We should have every electoral and labor leader in the chapter commit to monthly one on ones prioritizing newer members who show promise as organizers. I have supported and will continue to support electoral and labor as priorities because they build power with mass collective action. I would oppose adopting any kind of activism as priorities (such as protesting the war in Iran) because I think DSA as a democratic organization moves too slowly and is too mercurial in leadership to be effective at the kind of direct action that gives activism power to make changes. Instead, as part of the party building priority, we should be joining activist organizations and being vocally DSA members there. For example, once my leadership term ends I plan on getting involved in local activism against crisis pregnancy centers. Rather than trying to start that work in DSA, my hope is to find the people already doing that work effectively and talking to them about DSA (and as a bonus getting to yell at misogynists!).

Leonard P, Northside Blue Line Branch

Party-building doesn’t mean just the legal process of creating and administering a political party. It also means preparing ourselves, in the here and now, for the responsibilities and requirements of a party, when it finally comes into existence. This requires commitment, communication, and dedication, and takes on many forms: structural work, social cohesion, defining and refining our values, and engaging in the outward-facing political work that a genuine worker’s party needs. 

What needs to drive all of that work is constantly keeping in mind what makes us different *as a socialist organization*. What does socialism mean to us? What makes us different from any other progressive formation? What is the socialist vision that we strive for, and how do we get there? What are we, as an organization and as a proto-party, offering that people can’t get somewhere else?

We will make mistakes along the way to be sure, and that is a process in itself, but it’s something we should take seriously if we really want to be the foundation of something that is essentially completely absent from American politics.

Sean Duffy, Northside Blue Line Branch, Bread & Roses Caucus

We should renew our current priorities for a full year, as passing the resolution I have submitted for Convention (“Building the Party in 2026-2027”) would do. 

Prior to adopting these priorities our chapter had followed a “priority campaign” model since Fall 2018, in which we always had “priorities” but those priorities were always specific campaigns, generally issue-focused pressure campaigns. Campaigns would be first authorized at a Member Convention (generally) and then renewed (or not) at each subsequent Member Convention. From 2018-2025 our priority campaigns were: Lift the Ban on Rent Control (later the Housing Justice Campaign) launched in 2018 and non-renewed in 2023; Democratize ComEd launched in 2019 and non-renewed in 2024; Medicare For All launched in 2019 and non-renewed in 2020; DefundCPD, launched in 2020 and non-renewed in 2023; Fix the CTA launched in 2023 and non-renewed in 2025; and Unite and Fight (later Trans Liberation Campaign) launched in 2025 and non-renewed that same year. 

Campaigns are good and DSA chapters, our included, should run campaigns. The problem with the “priority campaign” model, at least for us, was often what was first started as a focused, time-bound campaign with clear win/loss goals would, following a loss of momentum, would spin out into more generalized issue work with diminishing member engagement over time. Further, most of our priority campaigns to date have failed to achieve major transformative wins. At their best, they helped to build our chapter, develop cadre, and raise political consciousness around specific issues. 

Without becoming a single-issue organization, we are unlikely to achieve transformative wins through a pressure campaign anytime soon. Instead, we should embrace being a party which necessarily needs to build the political muscle (state power), economic muscle (labor), and organizational muscle (party-building) necessary to achieve victory through political “force” rather than through mere political “pressure”. 

Josh S, Southside Branch

We need to build working class solidarity across Chicago to achieve these priorities. It’s a problem that CDSA is concentrated in a subset of the city. Even in the Southside branch, most of us aren’t from very far south – my apartment in Hyde Park is 10 miles north of Chicago’s southern border. Folks outside CDSA will assume that our vision of a mass working class party doesn’t cross racial and geographic bounds. It conveys a lack of seriousness that hurts all of our other organizing and DSA’s image. There is no amount of strategizing for the future that justifies the harm to our movement and no tendency that benefits. 

This convention is a juncture with several resolutions on the docket that if approved put us on path toward overcoming the chapter’s uneven attention. “Building the Party in 2026-2027” will go far toward giving branches the resources to build unique communities. While I support this resolution, it has several oversights. One concern is the distribution of events within branches – someone travelling from Altgeld Gardens to the Unity Center for the Southside Branch meeting will spend 1.5 hours on transit or 40 minutes driving if there’s traffic. It also moved significant responsibility to branches, putting the cart before the horse on developing the vibrant membership to justify renewing new offices.

I believe that the “Resolution to Prioritize Geographic Equity and Branch-Based Engagement” written by Carlos M fills these gaps and prepares the chapter for ambitious efforts to engage the south and west sides. This resolution is the instantiation of Carlos’s South Side Strategic Growth & Outreach Plan, which advances the cause of increased engagement by focusing on venue development and branch involvement in recruitment. I urge you to read it and consider – how else can we truly fulfill our chapter priorities?

Text (if this is OK to include in the bulletin response): South Side Strategic Growth & Outreach Plan (Draft)

Have thoughts on one of this week’s Member Submissions? 

Submit a reply using the form here. 

Prompt for discussion, week 7

For this week, we encourage members to submit motivations for or against different Convention proposals, or to raise larger strategic and political questions about proposals that would not be in order as a “point of information” during the Convention. You don’t have to be a hard yes or no on any proposal — “soft” support/opposition or being “on the fence” is OK too! Please focus your response to one specific proposal on the agenda. If you plan to submit an amendment, you can also use your submission to motivate in favor and share that amendment.

Submit a response using the Bulletin Submission Form linked here. Member Responses for this Prompt will be published in next week’s Convention Bulletin. Please try to submit responses no later than Sunday evening every week.

Member Replies

None submitted this week.

This Week in Midwest Socialist

“War is a Blight on Humanity” by Matthew Wehmeier.

“A Vision for a Lean, Political, and Effective Executive Committee” by Ramsin Canon and Keefer Dunn.  

Midwest Socialist welcomes submissions from members of DSA. Midwest Socialists prefers that authors submit a pitch summarizing their idea for a piece before sending their full draft. Please include your full name in your submission so the Editors can verify that you are a member; if Midwest Socialists publishes your piece, you can ask for your byline to use a last initial or pseudonym if preferred. Send your pitches through this submission form. Expect an initial response within a week from submission. See Midwest Socialist’s Editorial Policy for more details.

Be sure to read “Why You Should Write For Midwest Socialist” by Midwest Socialist Editorial Board member Matt Wehmeier