The New York County UnDemocratic Committee

The New York County UnDemocratic Committee
February 13, 2010
by Jim McCabe

The decision by the New York County Democratic Committee to endorse Senator Kirsten Gillibrand for election in 2010 over the process based objections of challenger Jonathan Tasini underscores the fundamentally undemocratic nature of the Committee. As reported in City Hall News, Tasini objected to the fact that Gillibrand met with the executive committee of the County Committee in January, while he was only offered five minutes to speak before an endorsement vote was to be taken this past Thursday. In his initial response, County Leader / Assemblyman Keith Wright indicates that Gillibrand enjoyed this privilege since “the incontrovertible fact is that [Gillibrand] is an elected official and New York's Democratic Senator.” Of course, what he fails to acknowledge is that Gillibrand was not elected to the seat that she currently holds—which is precisely Tasini’s point—having been appointed by Governor David Patterson in January 2009 to fill the vacancy left by Hillary Clinton’s departure for the State Department. Wright points out that Gillibrand had endorsements from county chairs and committees across the state. Indeed, this was the case by July 2009. However, it skirts the issue of fairness in the process followed by the New York County Democratic Committee that Wright leads. In a follow-up letter to Tasini, Wright indignantly rails “what is not acceptable is for you to impugn the integrity of New York County’s endorsement process as undemocratic in the name of the people when your true motivation may be simply political self-interest.”

Significantly, there is nothing in the New York County Democratic Committee rules that specifically empowers the executive committee to make endorsements on behalf of the County Committee or that describes a process for doing so. The rules simply state “[t]he Policy Committee may also make recommendations to the Executive Committee with relation to endorsement of candidates and positions to be taken on issues.” No doubt the leadership enjoys the lack of specificity regarding process which permits the executive committee to do pretty much whatever it pleases.

The reality is that the vast majority of the members of the New York County Democratic Committee have no influence whatsoever in the business of the Committee which is controlled by the executive committee and the district leaders. There are a few subcommittees of the County Committee and all sorts of subcommittees of the executive committee but no clearly delineated way in the rules for how to get involved. Those regular citizens who even know about the Committee can go through the process every two years of collecting signatures to be elected to this non-paying party position. However, their participation generally is limited to attending one farcical meeting held every two years at which no business of any consequence is conducted. The rules call for divisional assembly district committee meetings but at least in my own district – assembly district 65 – such meetings are never held. It is only in the rare instance when a vacancy occurs in the state assembly that the County Committee members have a role, which is to select the party nominee to run in a special election. Such was the case when Micah Kellner was selected as the Democratic nominee to replace the long serving assemblymember Pete Grannis in assembly district 65. In that instance, it came to light that there were a very substantial number of vacancies in the County Committee seats in assembly district 65 that were actually filled to carry out this important function, a situation that had been publicized well over a year earlier by Grassroots Initiative in its report “Democracy Takes a Nap: Party Politics in New York's Five Boroughs.”

At the fall 2007 County Committee meeting, as a newly elected member of the Committee from assembly district 65, I rose in objection to what was going to be a “slam dunk” motion to approve the Committee’s rules, rules which I ventured to guess most members of the County Committee had never been provided nor read. I had only received a copy after requesting them from the executive director. My main objection was a draconian provision in the rules regarding the number of signatures required to place business on the Committee’s agenda by petition and the related filing timeline which essentially required items to be placed on the agenda even before notice of the meeting had been issued.

To his credit, I was subsequently invited by Denny Farrell, the long-serving county leader, to a meeting of the policy committee to address my concerns. I outlined my proposed rule changes in a letter to Farrell, seeking to make it less onerous for registered Democrats and County Committee members to bring issues before the Committee. I also made a number of other easy-to-implement suggestions intended to bring greater transparency to the Committee’s operations, such as keeping the website up to date, posting the Committee rules and membership, etc. I noted that much of this information is maintained by the non-partisan group Grassroots Initiative and working with them would help to get more party members active at the local level.

At the meeting, Farrell was willing to meet my requests regarding the rule changes part of the way. He agreed in principle to cut in half the number of signatures needed to place business on the agenda of the County Committee via petition. He said the Committee would need to consult with the parliamentarian to effect the change and that he would let me know the final outcome. He also indicated that he'd try to get the election law changed so that the county committee meeting could be held 30 days (rather than the current 20) after the election which would address the timing of the petition filing issue that I had raised.

I left the meeting feeling that some progress had been made. However, the Committee parliamentarian later blocked the changes from moving forward, telling me that I was trying to do an end run in proposing rule changes that hadn't been vetted through my democratic club. I appealed to the male district leader for my assembly district who was present at the meeting in question and had raised no objections at that time (nor had anyone else present). I heard nothing more.

Regarding my more modest suggestions, the executive director had indicated at the meeting that he was working on getting the website updated. Farrell, however, rejected the idea of posting the list of County Committee members on the website as being too hard. While acknowledging that it was an embarrassment that so few seats had been previously filled in assembly district 65, he was not interested in working with Grassroots Initiative and was generally dismissive of criticism by groups outside the party. To this day, the County Committee website remains woefully out of date, virtually worthless as a resource to registered Democrats who might want to become involved in party politics, the media or anyone else.

Keith Wright was installed to succeed Denny Farrell as Democratic county leader in Manhattan last October. If his actions in the recent Tasini incident are any indication, it is “business as usual.” Wright can throw around all the bluster he wants but it belies the reality that the New York County Democratic Committee is a fundamentally undemocratic institution.