The Democratic National Committee is moving forward with a proposal to void the elections of David Hogg and Malcolm Kenyatta as vice chairs of the DNC, putting the question to the full committee “as soon as practicable.”
If successful, a revote would likely remove Hogg from party leadership.
The proposal stems from a complaint from the Native American activist Kalyn Free, who also ran for DNC vice chair, and is separate from Hogg’s efforts to support primary challenges against incumbent members of Congress. Free filed her complaint to the DNC at the end of February over rules requiring an equal number of male and female officials in officer positions.
But Hogg’s recent actions may affect the outcome of a new vote. Hogg has drawn widespread criticism from DNC committee members over his efforts to put $20 million toward removing members of his own party in primaries.
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The credentials committee, consisting of two dozen DNC members, voted overwhelmingly to hold the new election.
It’s now up to the DNC’s chair, Ken Martin, to decide when to hold this vote. The next scheduled DNC meeting is in August, but Martin could hold the vote sooner.
Martin has been vocally against efforts to primary incumbents, reiterating in a statement on Saturday that voters and not party leaders should decide who represents them. It’s a long-standing position for Martin — one he voiced during his campaign to lead the DNC. Martin is also pushing for a proposal mandating that DNC officers stay neutral in all primaries.
“I am disappointed to learn that before I became Chair, there was a procedural error in the February Vice Chair elections,” Martin said in a statement following the vote. “The Credentials Committee has issued their recommendation, and I trust that the DNC Members will carefully review the Committee’s resolution and resolve this matter fairly.”
Hogg, for his part, didn’t seem to buy that the revote proposal was about gender-equity rules.
“Today, the DNC took its first steps to remove me from my position as Vice Chair At-Large,” Hogg said in a statement. “While this vote was based on how the DNC conducted its officers’ elections, which I had nothing to do with, it is also impossible to ignore the broader context of my work to reform the party which loomed large over this vote.”
“The DNC has pledged to remove me, and this vote has provided an avenue to fast-track this effort,” Hogg said.
After two vice chair positions were filled by women, the DNC then held two separate votes to fill the remaining spots. One ballot had all five candidates on it, and the other had only Kenyatta and Hogg, the only two male candidates.
This was done to ensure that a male candidate would be elected to one of the positions to keep in line with DNC rules. But it also led to a gap: The female candidates had access to 411 votes, while the men had access to 817.
“The women had no chance of winning this election. This was a failed election,” committee member David Walters said during the hearing on Monday evening. “It should be redone, it’s not that inconvenient. If we’re a party of fair elections, and if we want to do the right thing, we have to stand up and make sure we do something to correct this.”
Hogg and Kenyatta’s counsels each said they had no control over how the election was conducted and that the challenge wasn’t timely.
Meanwhile, Kenyatta is caught in a unique position. He received significantly more votes than Hogg, winning the male-only ballot, yet he could be forced to compete in an election once again.
“What is also clear, and which the challengers can’t refute, is that Vice Chair Kenyatta won his election fair and square,” Mohammed Tazbir Alam, Kenyatta’s counsel, said during the meeting. “No amount of numerical analysis of the votes cast can show otherwise.”
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Katherine Swartz is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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