The Democratic National Committee took the next step toward deciding whether to call a new election for two of its vice chair positions, slots currently held by activist David Hogg and Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, amid a complaint their election wasn’t conducted properly.
The 400-plus member DNC will vote electronically June 9 to June 11 on whether to accept a recommendation from its Credentials Committee, which requested a new election for the two positions because it found the vote unfairly disadvantaged female candidates.
If the full committee decides to accept the recommendation (plus another measure laying out the schedule for a new vote), it will hold an electronic vote June 12 to June 14 for one vice chair position that must be held by a male. Then it will hold another vote for the last vice chair slot, which could be won by a candidate of any gender, from June 15 to June 17.
Hogg has publicly clashed with party leaders for months over his decision to back primary challenges to Democratic incumbents. While the procedural complaint over the committee election was filed well before tensions between Hogg and the party bubbled over, Hogg has claimed the push for a new election is related to that intraparty disagreement
Kenyatta, whose seat is also in jeopardy depending on what the DNC decides, has criticized Hogg’s portrayal of that vote even as he said he disagreed with the recommendation to call for a new election. And DNC Chairman Ken Martin has also framed the vote as exclusively about a “procedural error” that occurred during the February vote, before Martin formally took over party operations.
