A raft of last-minute proposed changes to Brooklyn Democratic Party rules, billed as reforms by leadership, is drawing the ire of critics who see an eleventh-hour attempt by party chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn to maintain her grip on power after losing the majority of district leaders in the June primary election.
In an interview with Erroll Louis on NY1 Wednesday night, Bichotte Hermelyn said, “We want to create a perception of inclusiveness.” Later, the Brooklyn Democratic organization released a slick video where she described the changes as an attempt to “expand leadership” and “expand representation.”
But the details of the proposals, emailed from Bichotte Hermelyn to current district leaders late Wednesday night, are drawing condemnation from party reformers and elected officials, including state Attorney General Letitia James, who suspect Bichotte Hermelyn is trying to pack the executive committee with dozens of loyalists.
“New Yorkers deserve leaders who are committed to serving their communities, not rewriting rules to hold onto power,” James and Public Advocate Jumanne Williams wrote in a joint statement. “Changing the makeup of an executive committee on the eve of a leadership vote goes against what we believe in as Democrats and should not move forward. Brooklyn Democrats deserve a process they trust.”
The changes would add more than two dozen new voting members on the party’s executive committee who in turn would select the party chair in the upcoming election this fall.
The changes also assure that former party chairs are able to vote in future leadership contests for life, even after they stop serving as district leaders, meaning if Bichotte Hermlyn loses her seat, she would still get a vote in perpetuity.
That proposal also appears to mean that Clarence Norman, a former party chair who resigned in 2005 after multiple corruption convictions – including one for soliciting bribes from judicial nominees — would also get to vote on party leadership. Alleged corruption in the judicial nomination process is one of the key critiques of reformers aiming to transform the party.
“It’s almost like an ironic joke,” said Mark Hanna, an attorney and one of the district leaders aligned with the party’s reform slate. “You think we’re all corrupt taking payments for judges? Well, here it is, here’s the man himself, and he’s now voting again.”
Hanna called the changes a, “jawdroppingly audacious power grab.”
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Bichotte Hermelyn, a member of the state Assembly representing Flatbush, East Flatbush, Midwood, and Ditmas Park, summoned current district leaders to vote on the proposed changes at a meeting next Tuesday night.
A slate of reform district leaders, who overtook Bichotte Hermelyn’s supporters during the June primary, had announced they were backing a new leader of the party, but they won’t take their seats until the fall, meaning Bichotte Hermelyn still holds a majority of votes.
If the changes are passed, the 22 votes the reformers amassed will be irrelevant by the time the fall election rolls around, district leaders said.
After the leadership elections, an additional rule change Bichotte Hermelyn proposed would allow the appointment of additional voting members from each assembly district, bringing the total number of executive committee members to around 90 people.
“Every single district leader could show up to vote and she would outvote us,” said one district leader who, fearing political retaliation, asked that their name be withheld.
Vito Lopez’ Footsteps
There’s some precedent for attempting to pack party votes. Former party boss Vito Lopez installed 11 handpicked supporters to pad out his flagging support before he resigned in disgrace in 2012 following a barrage of sexual harassment allegations.
Reform district leaders had anticipated Bichotte Hermelyn might try some version of this as the chair election approached, once reformers lined up behind Julio Peña, a longtime district leader from Sunset Park who runs an afterschool program.
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Still, the proposals were more extreme than most people had imagined possible. Tony Melone, the head of New Kings Democrats, a reform-oriented democratic club, called them “the most radical changes that anyone can remember.”
Melone said they may have to fight the upcoming changes in court, but that would be a waste of limited party resources better spent fighting Republicans in several contested South Brooklyn districts this November.
“I think everybody in Brooklyn should agree it should not be one person who controls everything forever basically,” Melone said. “Every elected official in Brooklyn should speak out about this.”
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