The Democratic National Committee is cracking down on gun control advocate and DNC vice chair David Hogg’s plans to spend millions primarying incumbents he deems “ineffective.”

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin will call for DNC officials’ neutrality to be codified in the party’s official rules and bylaws, two Democratic sources tell CNN. Martin has already been telling DNC members of his plans and will explain more in a call with members Thursday afternoon.

. . . “No DNC officer should ever attempt to influence the outcome of a primary election, whether on behalf of an incumbent or a challenger,” Martin told reporters on a call Thursday. “Voters should decide who our primary nominees are, not DNC leadership.”

The DNC’s Rules & Bylaws committee is expected to vote on Martin’s proposal next month in a virtual meeting. If the committee approves the proposal it will advance to a full vote of the DNC membership in August.

The push for the new rule comes days after Hogg, who beat out a crowded field to become one of three DNC at-large vice chairs in February, announced his plan to help primary incumbent Democrats in safe districts through his group Leaders We Deserve. The organization plans to spend a total of $20 million in next year’s midterms supporting young people running for office.

Hogg stressed that his effort would not target Democrats in competitive districts or use any DNC resources, including voter files or donor lists. He told CNN in an interview last week that he would not endorse in the presidential primaries if he is still a DNC leader.

“I don’t take it personally,” Hogg said of the criticism of his primary challenge. “There’s a difference in strategy here, and the way that we think things need to be done.”

  • ctkatz@lemmy.ml
    37·
    12 hours ago

    uh huh.

    if bernie actually did the work to attract me actual base of the party, which by the way are not college age kids but black people, specifically black women, he would not have lost the primary.

    and since that election he had another 4 years to work on his extreme deficit with black voters, but had zero outreach with that cohort. instead he doubled down on the youth vote.

    that’s not a strategy to win a primary. but it’s a perfect strategy to try to split off young voters into not supporting the democratic choice in the future. and not shutting down conspiracy theories about rigged primaries doesn’t help either. what it does is create distrust where there shouldn’t be, fracture the party to turn against itself instead of the real threat which is the republican party, and in fact increase the chances that republicans win in greater margins because the super bernie side refuses to be smart and do damage limitation by not voting for the viable non republican candidate.

    and by the way a few additional things that need to be considered:

    1. if he wants the democratic nomination, why doesn’t he formally join the party? what he was asking for has been equal access to resources without a full commitment to the party. you all would rightfully object if I declared I’m running for president as a democrat even though I’m a registered non partisan. what makes him any different from me as far as the party is concerned?
    2. it really is rich how you are all upset about the democrats (allegedly) putting the thumb on the scale for a candidate so now there is a pledge that all people in dnc leadership have to agree to that formally states that leadership will be neutral in all party races from now on. so which is it, you don’t want the dnc influencing races or do you not want the voters in the districts to decide who their candidates should be without party influences?
    3. you also all think that the super progressive democratic candidate will play everywhere in the country. sure, it may work where I live. but I’m a blue® dot in a state trump won by 31 points. you have to run candidates that will win and super liberals in places like appalachia, oklahoma, or wyoming would consider it a good race if they lost by 50 points.

    what it seems like to me is that what the vast majority of people here want is to destroy the democratic party from the ground up in the name of a stupid purity test the vast majority of the party does not agree with, and they want to do it while the most dangerous, insane person who is also the head of a violent cult is in the white house. you’re trying to make your own left wing cult with either bernie or aoc as the head and the rest of the party is not with that.

    as I said above I’m not a registered democrat. I find myself politically closer to aoc and bernie. and I’M telling y’all that following and supporting hogg’s move will end the democratic party or any viable non republican party for generations.