Brief Description:
I am a progressive Democrat who attended my first TDP State Convention in 1984 as a delegate from SD 14. One of the ideas that motivated me as a young Democrat back then was that everyone should give back by performing some sort of national service, whether in the military, the Peace Corps, VISTA or AmeriCorps, which came later. In 1986, I left Austin for two years of service in the Army. After the army, I spent many years living abroad.

I attended the University of Texas with the help of a small Human Rights scholarship that I received when I was 19 after I led a strike against my employer one summer in Houston. I was working as a lifeguard for a local private neighborhood organization that had an unwritten rule that did not allow African-Americans to swim at the pool. Yes, such attitudes existed in Houston even in the 1980s! One day, the manager closed the pool after a guest had brought a couple of African American children to the pool. I protested by leading a strike and was fired. A few months later I got an unexpected call from an organization that had seen coverage of the strike on TV offering me and my co-strikers small Human Rights scholarships. That was one of my formative experiences that led to my involvement in the TDP a couple of years later because I learned that it was possible and necessary to fight for a just society.

Most recently, I have attended TDP State Conventions as a delegate in 2002, 2004, 2006 and again this year.

Since 2004, I have been on the chair's advisory committee on the platform. In 2004, I was also elected to represent SD 14 on the Platform Committee at the State Convention. Both on the advisory committee and on the elected Platform Committee, I have strongly advocated for the party to take progressive stances on issues such as universal health care, ending the occupation of Iraq, the death penalty and other issues. I have also always solicited the input of Travis County Democrats in developing the party platform. This year, I received many excellent suggestions that I was able to get into the draft of the platform.

Last year, I wanted to get the TDP to place a referendum question on the primary ballot asking Texas Democrats if they supported ending the occupation of Iraq and bringing our troops home. I called it the "Vote US Out of Iraq" initiative. I visited many of the Democratic Clubs in Austin asking them to support putting the referendum on the ballot. Every club I asked endorsed the idea. The Travis County Democratic Party County Executive Committee also endorsed the idea. The proposal was brought to the State Democratic Executive Committee twice and it was killed twice, even though a majority of the SDEC supported it. The first time it was tabled because someone made a motion that it was not in the Party Rules that the SDEC could put a referendum on the ballot. However, the Texas Election Code does allow the SDEC to put a referendum question on the ballot. The second time it was killed along with several other proposed referendum proposals after another bogus parliamentary ruling. I worked with several SDEC members, including both of our current SD 14 SDEC members, to build support for the Iraq referendum. We had confirmed that we had the votes to pass it on the SDEC, but someone in the party leadership apparently did not want us to put a referendum on Iraq on the ballot. Part of my motivation was to use the Iraq referendum as a way to engage potential new voters and bring them into the Texas Democratic party.

In 2006, I tried to get the State Convention to approve a resolution calling for the impeachment of Bush. It failed on a close vote on the floor of the convention. It may be too late now to impeach Bush, but I am sure that history will consider him the worst president in U.S. history who deserved impeachment.

I have worked many years against the death penalty in Texas and I succeeded in 2004 in getting a plank in the platform supporting a moratorium on executions. I have held a meeting of an anti-death penalty caucus at each state convention since 2004. We just renamed it "Democrats Against the Death Penalty Caucus". It meets Friday, June 6, at noon in Level 3 Room 6A at the convention.

If Elected to Office:
One thing I want to do is build the party by finding new ways for grassroots Democrats to impact the direction of the party.

Contact Information
Scott Cobb
Phone: 512-689-1544
scottcobb99@gmail.com