More DNC Infighting: Union Bigwigs Quit Citing Issues with Leadership

What is going on at the DNC? It hasn’t even been a week since they decided to hold a do-over election in an effort to get rid of David Hogg. That was preceded by an embarrassing leak in which DNC Chair Ken Martin said he was on the verge of quitting because Hogg was undermining him.

“I’ll be very honest with you, for the first time in my 100 days on this job … the other night I said to myself for the first time, I don’t know if I wanna do this anymore,” he said in a May 15 Zoom meeting of DNC officers, according to a recording obtained by POLITICO.

It turns out that before any of that drama happened, two union bigwigs had quit their at large positions at the DNC citing issues with Ken Martin.

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 the 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.

Weingarten in particular took a shot at Martin on her way out the door.

“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,” Weingarten wrote in her letter to Martin, obtained by The Washington Post.

The letter, dated June 5, did not elaborate on her reasons for leaving. Weingarten had served on the Rules and Bylaws Committee since 2009. She was vocally supportive of David Hogg, the Gen Z activist who departed his role as DNC vice chair last week after a messy dispute with Martin and other party officials.

A person close to the DNC, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an internal issue, pointed to Weingarten’s support for a rival candidate for DNC chair: former Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler. Since Wikler’s loss, Weingarten has “been on the other side of the fence as Ken,” making her exit unsurprising, this person said.

I’m no fan of Ken Martin, but it’s a bit odd for Weingarten to support Hogg and simultaneously whine about the DNC  not expanding the tent. Hogg was threatening to primary moderate Democrats with more progressive candidates. Is that rally expanding the tent?

Saunders resignation happened at the end of May. He also supported Wikler for chair and his statement was similar to Weingarten’s if slightly less pointed.

“These are new times. They demand new strategies, new thinking, and a renewed way of fighting for the values we hold dear. We must evolve to meet the urgency of this moment. This is not a time to close ranks or turn inward,” Saunders said in a statement.

It was always a given that the teacher’s unions were donating big money to the DNC and seemed to have a lot of control over what they did. I did not know that Randi Weingarten sat on the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws committee for two decades.

In any case, the ongoing infighting at the DNC seems like bad news for current chair Ken Martin. He’s gotten so much bad press in the last month that I’m surprised there aren’t widespread calls for him to step down yet. Maybe that’s coming next.