Tag: tom perez
DNC Shelves New Panel To Oversee Party Spending

DNC Shelves New Panel To Oversee Party Spending

This article was produced by Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

A proposal to bring unprecedented oversight to the way that the Democratic National Committee spends the billion dollars it raises between presidential elections was rejected by the DNC Rules and Bylaw Committee Tuesday, after a spirited debate highlighting that there is no independent oversight reporting back to the DNC’s 450 members.

The decision did not come without some Rules Committee members saying that the oversight issue was legitimate. But they did not feel that creating a new elected committee to review the DNC’s spending decisions was the best approach. The oversight proposal was the last piece of business from the DNC’s post-2016 Unity Reform Commission recommendations, which sought to heal the party’s internal divides after that cycle.

“I am disappointed,” said Jim Zogby, a longtime DNC member and Arab-American human rights leader, who noted that Tuesday’s proposal was the latest in a series of efforts to introduce greater transparency and oversight before 2020’s election.

“We are clearly out of time on it,” he said. “But what I don’t think we are out of time on is empowering the membership and becoming a more accountable and transparent organization. And I don’t think that can be done unless it’s done in a democratic way through election of an independent group of members. I will be back, if I’m on the DNC, to raise it again.”

Zogby, who has been a DNC member for nearly three decades and has served on its top national party committees for half that time, reminded the Rules Committee that very few people in the DNC have any real impact on how the party spends its money.

“Look, I’ve been a DNC member—this is my 27th year. I was an executive committee member for 16 years. The issue of never seeing the budget, never being able as a member to evaluate the budget, sticks in my craw. I think it should stick in the craw of every member of the body,” he said. “At the end of the day, the ability to know how money is spent, and have some say in it, or, at least, as the [DNC] bylaws call for, to evaluate it, is essential for the governing body of any organization.”

“We shouldn’t have to wait for an exposé article to be written or a book to come out to tell us that there was a problem,” he continued. “We have to govern ourselves. We have to be able to, say, among ourselves, ‘I don’t like the way this loan got taken out.’ ‘I don’t like who got that contract.’ And it’s not a question of micromanaging.”

Some Rules Committee members were sympathetic to the concerns raised by Zogby on behalf of the Unity Reform Commission, but said that creating another committee to independently review spending decisions by the DNC Budget and Finance Committee was not the best way to achieve that goal.

“I strongly share the view that the DNC should be more transparent in terms of its budget and financial activity,” said Frank Leone, a Rules and Bylaws Committee (RBC) member from Virginia. “I don’t think this is the way to do it, though. It seems that creating a new committee and, basically, to second-guess the work of the DNC, I’m not quite sure is the best approach… And I think things have changed a lot in the last two years and that has to be recognized.”

Leone’s last point was referring to the current DNC leadership, under Chair Tom Perez, saying that the party’s spending has been much more transparent and accountable than in previous years. Another objection came from David McDonald, an RBC member from Washington, who said looking retrospectively could distract from current campaigns.

“If you just look at the cycle we are in right now, instead of focusing on the presidential election in 2020, it [the proposed oversight panel] would be in the process of gathering information about what we did in 2018, and discussing it, and trying to evaluate in the context of all of the other entities that were spending money in 2018,” he said. “It’s basically a proposal to have an independent entity do what the Budget Committee is already supposed to do.”

Zogby countered that retrospective oversight was a compromise intended to not interfere with the DNC’s current efforts. But he kept returning to his main point: that there was no substitute for independent oversight of the DNC’s overall spending decisions.

“The [DNC] chair simply cannot appoint the committee that oversees the finances of the chair and the expenditures that are determined by the chair. That simply makes no sense,” he said. “We would not get into trouble—and we have had trouble—if the Finance Committee… [had had] an oversight committee that can do the due diligence and report back to us, ‘This happened. That happened. This didn’t happen. That didn’t happen. We make these recommendations for the future.’”

Don Fowler, an RBC member from South Carolina and a former DNC chair (1995-1997), said the issue was that DNC members tended to be afraid of confronting their national party chair.

“The lack of appropriate supervision, if one wants to make that charge, of the chair and the administration in every DNC since [former chair] Bob Strauss [1972-1977], has been a reluctance to confront the chair—period. That’s the holdup,” he said. “If you create this new committee, the same thing will happen. The DNC has never confronted the chair about the matter of spending, and even the suggestions as to what should go into the budget have been almost non-existent.”

Zogby countered that wasn’t always true. In his prior efforts organizing ethnic caucuses inside the DNC, he said that he has repeatedly been able to get neither support nor answers about withholding financial support. But Donna Brazile, an RBC member from Washington who has been interim party chair, twice agreed that the real issue was strengthening the DNC’s top committees to challenge the chair—and possible White House pressures.

“I understand the frustration as well as the goals of the Unity Reform Committee in terms of trying to ascertain how the DNC can become a more transparent body, especially during an election year when we have the White House,” Brazile said. “And the White House, in many ways, is also dictating and controlling how decisions are being made—strategic decisions as well as how day-to-day operations of the party are being made.”

“We don’t need an oversight committee,” she said. “We need to strengthen the executive committee and the current budget committee to do their job—to provide accountability; to provide transparency. I don’t know about many of you, but when I was on the executive committee, I challenged the chair. I didn’t always win. And when I was [DNC] chair, both times, they challenged me.”

“But, Jim, you’re right, there are decisions that I made as chair from that interim period of 2016-2017, as well as 2011-2012, that the only institution that I had to reply to was the White House, and then, of course, the nominee,” she continued. “I would hope that we would find ways to take some of this [oversight proposal] language and strengthen existing apparatus that we have, because I do believe we are on that path that you’d like to see us on.”

But Zogby, in response, said that accountability, “no matter how cumbersome,” was the hallmark of democratic institutions. Friendly and unfriendly party chairs can come and go, he said, but that wasn’t the same as formally instituted oversight.

“The fact that the existing [Budget and Finance] Committee has improved their work is something that all Democrats should feel good about,” he said. “But none of that is the same as oversight. And that is the fundamental distinction. They [the Finance Committee] make the decisions and do all that stuff. At the end of the day, the empowered body of DNC members ought to have the opportunity to, in a structured way—not a meeting of 450 people [members]—to ask questions and come up with some recommendations independently of that committee.”

 

Steven Rosenfeld is the editor and chief correspondent of Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He has reported for National Public Radio, Marketplace, and Christian Science Monitor Radio, as well as a wide range of progressive publications including Salon, AlterNet, the American Prospect, and many others.

DNC Chair Perez Announces ‘Lottery’ For Democratic Presidential Debates

DNC Chair Perez Announces ‘Lottery’ For Democratic Presidential Debates

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez does not have an easy job on his hands. With 23 candidates already declared in the 2020 primaries, the party will struggle to run a thoughtful, fair, and transparent process that gives each contender the consideration they believe they deserve.

And last Friday, Perez announced a decision that is guaranteed to rankle some candidates — and it’s already looking to be a confusing mess.

Perez told The Hill that the committee will hold a lottery to determine which candidates will be on that stage for each of the two nights scheduled for the first primary debates. Each night will have 10 candidates, and he says he wants to determine randomly which people will appear first and second.

“We wanted to make sure we didn’t have our thumb on the scale,” Perez said. It’s an understandable and admirable attitude, especially given that the DNC faced extensive accusations of bias during the 2016 primary.

But when Perez elaborated on his concerns, the plan became less clear.

“I don’t want people thinking that night one is the varsity event and night two is the JV, or vice versa,” he said. “We’re going to make sure that we mix it up.”

This is a reference to the Republicans 2016 debates, which were also bogged down by an excess of candidates. The RNC used polling to rank each candidate in the race, and it had the lower ranked candidates compete in a lower profile debate held separately from the larger group with higher polling.

But the idea of “mixing” up the debates actually contrasts with the idea of a “lottery” that Perez is floating. (He said the details have been worked out yet.)

Precisely because a lottery would be random, the outcome may well result in an uneven distribution of strong candidates across the two nights. It’s perfectly possible, then, that, say, Joe Biden, who leads the field in polling, could end up on stage with California Rep. Eric Swalwell, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton. Meanwhile all the other candidates with a larger national profile thus far — Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg — could end up in the other debate. In this sense, the outcome wouldn’t be that the debates were “mixed up,” but quite uneven in terms of featuring the most prominent candidates.

With this kind of outcome, Biden might be peeved at being pitted against significantly lower ranked competitors. Or Sanders, Warren, and Harris might be annoyed that they don’t have the chance to go after Biden early on to stand apart, while someone like Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan might get a chance to gain new prominence by incisively cutting down the former vice president.

Alternatively, if Biden, Harris, Warren, and Buttigieg all end up on the same debate night, people might come to think of that as the “real” debate, with the other formidable contenders receiving less attention. And no matter what Perez says, some voters will convince themselves there was nothing “random” about the process.

There are other controversies likely to arise, too. While the DNC has set a cap for the first debates at 20 candidates — 10 on each night — it also has a separate criteria for who can participate.

“Candidates must receive donations from 65,000 unique donors in at least 20 states or reach 1 percent support in three sanctioned polls to qualify for the first two debates in June and July,” The Hill explained. So if more than 20 candidates meet these qualifications, some will be nixed.

“Most of the candidates appear to have reached the fundraising or polling thresholds, making it likely that Perez will have to turn to tiebreakers to determine the top 20,” the article continued. “The unlucky 21st candidate could potentially miss the debate stage by a dozen small-dollar donors or a fraction of a percentage point in the polls.”

This, of course, just replicates the problems that Perez said he wanted to avoid by having separate “varsity” and “JV” debates.

Will any of this matter in the end? It’s impossible to say. Perhaps Biden’s lead will stay strong throughout the primary and will hardly waver. Perhaps someone else is destined to shoot past him. Campaigns are just made of moments, and a debate can create the opportunity for the right movement to take off. But there are also broader forces at work, and it’s difficult to predict how big a role the debates will or even could play.

And with 23 — and potentially more — candidates competing, it’s going to be a steep challenge to give everyone the feeling that they’ve been treated fairly. There are sure to be plenty of contentious fights ahead.

IMAGE: Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez during a DNC meeting in February 2017.

New DNC Chair Perez Promises Renewed Focus On Grassroots

New DNC Chair Perez Promises Renewed Focus On Grassroots

IMAGE: U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez addresses the AFL-CIO Convention, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013 in Los Angeles. (US Department of Labor/Flickr)

United: Perez And Ellison Move Democrats Toward A Progressive Future

United: Perez And Ellison Move Democrats Toward A Progressive Future

I was hoping that Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) would win the Democratic National Committee chairmanship because of his experience as an organizer, but former Labor Secretary Tom Perez — who won a narrow victory at the DNC’s Atlanta meeting today — is also a great choice. He’s progressive, pro-worker, an accomplished advocate for civil rights and social justice, and the first Latino in that job. He immediately asked Ellison to serve as deputy chair — a smart move to bring the party together.

Importantly, the delegates at the Atlanta meeting also elected union organizer and immigrant rights activist Maria Elena Durazo — who supported Ellison for the top post — as DNC vice chair. The daughter of migrant farm workers, as head of UNITE HERE’s LA local and then leader of the 800,000-member LA County Federation of Labor, Durazo helped elect progressives throughout the state and helped transform the California Democratic Party into a voice for the disenfranchised, including immigrants.

We now have a Latino and an African American at the top of the DNC, a moderate Democratic minority leader in the Senate (Chuck Schumer) being pushed to the left by the grassroots resistance movement, a democratic socialist (Bernie Sanders) with a large and energized base within the party, and a charismatic and principled progressive woman (Elizabeth Warren) as the strongest voice within the party and the most likely candidate for president in 2020. These are all positive signs.

The battle between Ellison and Perez was often portrayed as a struggle between the party’s “progressive” and the “establishment” wings. That’s a mischaracterization. Both Ellison and Perez are long-time progressives. Perez is hardly a corporate Democrat or a tool of the party’s Wall Street wing. His entire career has been devoted to fighting for civil rights, workers’ rights, and social justice.

Perez is certainly the most progressive DNC chair since Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris occupied that post in 1970. Since then, the position has been held primarily by corporate fundraisers and moderate-to-liberal politicians, including Larry O’Brien, Jean Westwood, Robert S. Strauss, Ken Curtis, John C. White, Charles Manatt, Paul Kirk, Ron Brown, David Wilhelm, Chris Dodd, Donald Fowler, Roy Romer, Steven Grossman, Ed Rendell, Joe Andrew, Terry McAuliffe, Howard Dean, Tim Kaine, and the recently deposed Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

It would be a huge mistake for my fellow Ellison supporters to diss Perez and threaten to leave the Democratic Party. No doubt a handful of Ellison supporters will feel the need to go on the warpath. I hope the media don’t manufacture a phony party crisis by giving a megaphone to the small number of Ellison supporters who think that Perez’s victory is a defeat for progressives. It isn’t.

After he lost the primary fight, Bernie endorsed Hillary. Some of Bernie’s followers attacked him for doing so as a sell-out. A few drifted over to embrace Green Party candidate Jill Stein. But the media exaggerated the extent of the desertion. In fact, about 95% of Bernie supporters voted for Hillary. We need that kind of unity now.

As my friend Gerry McDonough, a long-time progressive activist in Massachusetts, observed: “We’re in a war against fascists. There’s no time for infighting.”

Ellison echoed those sentiments. “If you came here supporting me, wearing a Keith t-shirt, or any t-shirt, I’m asking you to give everything you’ve got to support Chairman Perez,” he said after the vote. “You love this country, you love all the people in it, you care about each and every one of them, urban, rural, suburban, all cultures, all faiths, everybody, and they are in need of your help. And if we waste even a moment going at it over who supported who, we are not going to be standing up for those people. We don’t have the luxury, folks, to walk out of this room divided.”

The task ahead — which Perez supports — is to rebuild the Democratic Party as an organizing party that can take advantage of the growing grassroots resistance movement that has emerged since Trump’s inauguration. That means raising money to hire organizers and put them in states and Congressional districts where liberal and progressive Democrats can win governors’ seats, state legislative races, and the House and Senate races. It means working in collaboration with unions, community organizing groups, environmental and LGBT groups, the Dreamers and other immigrant rights activists, Black Lives Matters, Planned Parenthood, Indivisible and other groups that are already mobilizing on the ground.

The anti-Trump resistance movement is way ahead of the party. The five million strong Women’s March, the battles at airports against Trump’s travel ban, the recent wave of town hall meetings all over the country where angry voters (many of them politically involved for the first time) confronted Republican members of Congress, and the 7,000 local groups galvanized by the Indivisible website all happened without Democratic Party involvement. But we need the party to help expand the protest movement and channel that energy into an electoral movement to put progressive and liberal Democrats in office.

Let’s get behind the Perez/Ellison team, strengthen the progressive movement, and defeat the pro-Trump Republicans in 2018 and 2020.

Peter Dreier is professor of politics and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. His most recent book is The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame (Nation Books). This essay is reprinted from the Huffington Post.