Brooklyn Dems organizational meeting mostly goes off without a hitch

The Brooklyn Democratic Party has come under fire for lots of things in recent years, and their latest organizational meeting on Thursday signaled more work was needed to make the county committee’s operations run smoother. A contingent of reformers were left frustrated after several rule change proposals were blocked on a technicality and fears about “ghost” proxy delegates were exacerbated yet again. But hey, at least the lights stayed on this time. 

At the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott, a combination of delayed registration and rancor among delegates meant that proceedings dragged along far past schedule. And before things started, organizers had to remind committee members that this was a chance to turn over a new leaf. 

“We're hoping that this goes through very well. We have learned from our past committee meetings, and we have grown, and we have progressed, okay,” Assembly Member Nikki Lucas said. 

The bulk of the meeting was spent filling committee vacancies, but it didn’t take long for that to go awry, as issues cropped up when two candidates who shared the same name tied in voting (which drew some laughs) and former Brooklyn party boss Frank Seddio swore at a delegate asking clarifying questions (which drew some concern). 

As in past committee meetings, a major topic of controversy was the county party’s proxy vote system, which allows district leaders and county committee members to sign their votes over to other members to vote on their behalf. In practice, most votes are signed over to close allies of Assembly Member Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, the chair of the county party. 

Under the current proxy voting system, some members of the Kings County Democratic Committee effectively hold hundreds of votes; during Thursday’s meeting, Lucas and Seddio alone wielded over 400 proxy votes. This arrangement has prompted reform groups like the New Kings Democrats to accuse party leadership of abusing the proxy vote system. 

The issue came to a head when committee members considered a slate of delegates for Assembly District 44 who all happened to have Muslim surnames. The reformers had some reason for skepticism. In 2022, The City reported that some residents of Brooklyn’s “Little Pakistan” found out that they were appointed to the Kings County Democratic Committee without their knowledge. Many feared that these committee members would be used as proxies by party leaders to push through votes, and some of the committee members had even moved out of the state by the time they realized what had happened.

Still, the optics of challenging an all-Muslim slate of candidates were not great, and the reformers who raised concerns about the Assembly District 44 slate were predictably accused of racism and Islamophobia.

“Where the people have the will to run whenever there's a set, to me, a set of Muslims who's looking to participate in democracy, there's an issue. Look at the names in the first slate, they’re ethnically Muslims,” Bichotte Hermelyn said. In response, the room was filled with booing and jeers. 

“Yes, boo to the people who have combated a group of people who've been excluded from a process, and I’m going to tell you something, people have the right to run in any district, wherever you come from, whatever nationality, origin, whatever,” she added. “So if we have a group of people who just want to run, why are we making a big deal about a slate exercising their right to run?”

One of the biggest priorities for the New Kings Democrats was reforming the proxy vote system, essentially limiting the amount of proxy votes a single person could hold at a committee meeting. But party leadership was able to block their proposal on a technicality.

Leaders explained that even though the proposal had been submitted in time for the organizational meeting, it would not be able to go up for a vote because the Rules Committee had not been able to review the proposed changes to the party rules and circulate copies of the proposed changes among members.

New Kings Democrats President Caitlin Kawaguchi told City & State that this year’s meeting went smoother than previous meetings – it only lasted several hours, didn’t descend into a screaming match, and both power and wifi were readily available – but between the fate of the proposed reforms and the fact the meeting was held during a workday, the outcome was disappointing. 

“There was no Rules Committee meeting called prior to this meeting so the insinuation that they should have been submitted at a Rules Committee meeting to be mailed with the notice is impossible because there was no Rules Committee meeting,” Kawaguchi said. “They’re meeting after the County Committee meeting.”

Bichotte Hermelyn, the county party leader who has often been singled out for criticism over issues within the organization, said that she believes Thursday’s meeting went well.

“I join our communities across Brooklyn in expressing extreme gratitude for all who participated in and made the Kings County Democratic County Committee Organizational Meeting a transparent, productive and congenial success, where we listened to the community’s feedback and ensured every vote and voice was counted,” she said in a statement. 

Bichotte Hermelyn also said that the jockeying for power within the county committee should not be confused for a lack of unity within the Democratic party. “In the long term, I've always been a party unifier, and invited everyone to get involved with us. I think often a struggle for elected power is confused with unity as a party,” she said. “We have immense unity in getting grassroots support to uplift our 21 (Assembly districts) through (district leaders) – that's different from an election race for district leader.”