DNC Shedding Public Employee Union Bosses

Sunday turned out to be the night of the long knives in the Democratic Party. 

Two top union leaders–from public employee unions, no less–have resigned from the Democratic National Committee. Randi Weingarten, colloquially known as “The Devil” in some circles, and the less well-known but nearly as important Lee Saunders of AFSCME have left the Democratic National Committee. 

NEWS: Randi Weingarten is out at DNC, citing disagreements with Ken Martin in a resignation letter.

“I appear to be out of step with the leadership you are forging.”

She had been on DNC since 2002.

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Both are leaving due to disputes with the relatively new Chair of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin, who until recently was the Chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Minnesota’s unusually named Democratic Party affiliate. 

MORE DNC NEWS: Lee Saunders, the president of AFSCME, is also out at the DNC.

This amounts to the exit of two of the highest-profile union leaders aligned with the Democratic Party.

The Times reported Randi Weingarten’s exit earlier.

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This is very significant news, and it has been kept under wraps for about 10 days in Weingarten’s case, and even longer in Saunders’. 

The leaders of two of the nation’s largest and most influential labor unions have quit their posts in the Democratic National Committee in a major rebuke to party’s new chairman, Ken Martin.

Randi Weingarten, the longtime leader of the American Federation of Teachers and a major voice in Democratic politics, and Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, have told Mr. Martin they will decline offers to remain at-large members of the national party.

The departures of Ms. Weingarten and Mr. Saunders represent a significant erosion of trust in the D.N.C. — the official arm of the national party — during a moment in which Democrats are still locked out of power and grappling for a message and messenger to lead the opposition to President Trump. In their resignation messages, the two union chiefs suggested that under Mr. Martin’s leadership, the D.N.C. was failing to expand its coalition.

Both labor leaders had supported Mr. Martin’s rival in the chairmanship race, Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Mr. Martin subsequently removed Ms. Weingarten from the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, a powerful body that sets the calendar and process for the Democratic Party’s presidential nominating process.

Neither union leader had supported Martin for the Chairman’s job, but normally that would not create an irreparable rift given the high stakes involved for both the Democratic Party and the public employees’ unions. The relationship between the Democratic Party and public employees is so symbiotic that it is hard to imagine one thriving without the other. 

“While I am proud to be a Democrat, I appear to be out of step with the leadership you are forging, and I do not want to be the one who keeps questioning why we are not enlarging our tent and actively trying to engage more and more of our communities,” Ms. Weingarten wrote in her resignation letter to Mr. Martin.

Ms. Weingarten is an influential figure in the Democratic Party and the leader of a union that counts 1.8 million members.

Mr. Saunders, whose union represents 1.4 million workers, declined his nomination to remain on the D.N.C. on May 27, his union said on Sunday.

“The decision to decline the nomination to the Democratic National Committee was not made lightly,” Mr. Saunders said in a statement to The New York Times. “It comes after deep reflection and deliberate conversation about the path forward for our union and the working people we represent.”

Things are not all well at the DNC. As you recall, David Hogg was just kicked out of his position as Vice Chairman of the Party for being of the wrong gender as well as for wanting to drive the party further to the left by supporting leftist challengers to Democratic incumbents in safe seats. Weingarten supported that effort as well, suggesting she thinks that Martin is too conservative. 

A Minnesota Democrat and prominent supporter of Tim Walz is not lefty enough. Go figure. 

Democrats, it seems, are not just lighting Los Angeles and other cities on fire; they are lighting each other on fire as well.