Who we are:
UDCAL (United Democratic Clubs of Alabama) is a working group of county party chairs, SDEC members, Democratic club presidents, and Democratic volunteers. What unites us is a commitment to working for our party all year, every year. We are the volunteers who are here through every election cycle and every non-election year. We know the most about our communities because we live in them, and we are going to be working for Democrats no matter what. That means we’re prepared to work with anyone who wants to see Democratic values and policies discussed and implemented anywhere in Alabama. We’re prepared to seek out folks in communities that haven’t heard from Democrats in years and let them know we’re here.
Our Mission:
To strengthen county-level organizing across Alabama by connecting organizers who can share resources and ideas and to build an infrastructure of Alabama Democrats built from the ground up by the people in and for their own communities and counties.
We meet monthly and have begun a yearly conference with the goal of building friendships and community among Alabama Democrats.
What We Believe:
- We believe that people should think for themselves and be relied on to make decisions for themselves and for their communities. We work hard to practice this in our organizing work, and we strive to seek consensus and work with all appropriate transparency.
- We believe that Alabama needs a strong Democratic party as a counterweight to the Alabama GOP’s supermajority. Alabama needs a real opposition party in order for our voters to have choices at the ballot box and accountability from our leaders.
- We believe the most important place to be politically involved is in our own communities.
- We believe that political involvement does not begin and end with candidates and elections. In order to have influence as a party, we need to be present in our communities all year, every year. Even the best, most well-funded candidate will not win in a district with no Democratic infrastructure.
- We believe it will take a long time to create statewide networks of functioning county party organizations. It took Georgia about a dozen years–but look where they are now. We can get there too, and now is the time to start and not give up. We can begin to build a strong statewide party from the bottom up; many of the local organizations are already there, they just need to be connected and united.
- We believe that we don’t need to be professionals to do this work. Local volunteers have the biggest stake in local and state politics, and in a democracy it’s the people who rule ourselves. This is our work, and to do it right, we need to do it together.
Meet our Steering Committee Members
We are passionate Democratic organizers from across the State of Alabama, and we welcome anyone to join our steering committee!
Emily Jortner
Lee County
Marsha Sturdevant
Shelby County
Linda Turner
Houston County
Bryan Fuenmayor
Mobile County