Opening The DNC’s Black Box
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Micah Sifry shares the 449 names of the members of the Democratic National Committee today. Those names have been a secret until now.
On February 1, the DNC will vote on a new chair.
SO FAR, EIGHT CONTENDERS FOR THE DNC CHAIR have demonstrated sufficient support to be included in a series of public candidate forums that the DNC has organized: Quintessa Hathaway, an educator and failed congressional candidate from Arkansas; Ken Martin, the Minnesota Democratic Party state chair; Martin O’Malley, former Maryland governor and 2016 presidential candidate; Jason Paul, a local Democratic party activist from Newton, Massachusetts; James Skoufis, a New York state senator from the Hudson Valley; Nate Snyder, a national security expert who served in various positions in the Biden administration; Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic Party state chair; and Marianne Williamson, the author and two-time Democratic presidential candidate. The first of these forums is tonight.
Wickler and Martin have greatly improved the position of the Democratic Party in their states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. They seem like the best bet to move the national party forward. I’ve been wondering if they might split the vote and allow a less effective alternative to win.
Why, in a Democratic/democratic system, have the names of the representatives been kept secret? We may speculate about elites and smoke-filled rooms. Some of the members are finance people, presumably big donors. But one wonders about the balance between them and, say, workers. And I suppose those kinds of folk don’t like phonecalls and emails urging them to support one or another candidate.
“There are incentives for the DNC to keep us [members] apart,” Kapp added. “So we can’t organize, so we can’t talk to one another, so we can’t grow and learn.” Most crucially, “so we can’t organize against, or, if we wanted, in favor of whatever leadership wanted. By keeping us apart, they’re really able to organize and control these meetings from the top down.”
Sifry does some analysis in the article and presents the list. Check out the members in your state and press them to vote for Wickler or Martin. Let’s have some representative democracy!