TCDC News, Events and Opinion

I am very honored to be asked to be the guest writer for the Chair’s Message for
-dash-, the Tompkins County Democratic Committee newsletter for September. I am Bill Thickstun, Chair of the Democratic Rural Conference of New York State. The DRC represents the 47 counties in New York with populations of 250,000 or fewer. Democratic County Chairs and State Committee Members from those counties are DRC voting members. We welcome other registered Democrats to join us as Associate Members for $10 per year; you can sign up and learn more about the organization at our website.

Our largest annual event is our spring conference, scheduled in 2026 for May 1-2 at the Hilton Hotel in Saratoga Springs. It gives Democrats from around the state a place to network with each other, learn strategies for winning elections, and connect with our federal and state elected officials.

The DRC is governed by a volunteer board elected from the membership. I was elected Chair at this year's conference after six years as a state committee member and DRC Board member, the last 18 months as Secretary. Earlier, I was Oneida County Democratic Chair for three years, Kirkland Town Chair for ten, and a school board member for 12 years in Clinton (which is mostly contiguous with Kirkland). I grew up in St. Lawrence County, attended grad school at Cornell, and have worked in my database consulting career at colleges and universities across the state. Last year my elder son started a position at Cornell, exactly forty years after my wife and I left.

The DRC was founded thirty years ago to give a collective voice to Democrats from the rural counties. We're an extraordinarily diverse group, ranging from Ithaca at the progressive end of the spectrum to places in remote areas where doing Democratic Party work deserves hazard pay. Under my predecessor Judith Hunter, we expanded our mission to include lobbying state legislators from our counties at the start of their session in January, often on infrastructure issues like rural broadband, EMS services, election reforms, and public education.

The DRC chair before Judith Hunter was your former Tompkins County Chair Irene Stein, who was already legendary by the time I joined the board. So, my strong sense of connection to Tompkins County is both organizational and personal. I wish you a successful election this November to all your candidates running on the ballot in Tompkins County. We must all get to work to get out the vote this November 4^th. 

Bill Thickstun
Chair, Democratic Rural Caucus of New York State