As we've been covering, David Hogg, a vice chairman of the DNC, has found himself making headlines with how he's helping to plunge Democrats into disarray, given that he's launched a $20 million primary initiative against certain Democratic incumbents. The effort has been news for a week, and Hogg has received criticism from veteran Democratic strategist James Carville, as well as former DNC and RNC chairs. The current DNC leadership now looks to be finally gearing up to take action.
On Wednesday night, POLITICO, which has been covering Hogg's initiative, reported that DNC Chairman Ken Martin was expected to announce during a Thursday morning member call that DNC officers are to stay neutral in all primaries.
As the report began:
The Democratic National Committee is going to force David Hogg to decide: Get out of the primary game or lose his DNC post.
During a member call on Thursday, DNC Chair Ken Martin is expected to announce a proposal to change the party’s rules to mandate all DNC officers stay neutral in all Democratic primaries, according to a person directly familiar with the plan and granted anonymity to describe private discussions. The move comes after Hogg pledged last week to spend millions of dollars funding challenges to “asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats in primaries, igniting a firestorm inside the DNC.
The proposal, if passed at the DNC’s August meeting, would effectively force Hogg to decide whether to step away from his DNC vice chair position or wall himself off from the group he co-founded, Leaders We Deserve, which has pledged to spend $20 million on challenging Democratic incumbents in safe blue seats.
It looks like Hogg is indeed willing to lose his role, as the report goes on to mention. "Hogg said in an interview last week that he would 'fight to remain in this position,' though he told at least two Democrats that he’s willing to lose his vice chair position through this process," POLITICO also mentioned.
NOTUS, which reported on the call even earlier on Wednesday, highlighted even more in a lengthy article, including details which show how Democrats certainly look to be in disarray.
Reporting from Thursday afternoon, including from NBC News, spoke to how that in fact did take place during the morning call, and how it relates to prior issues for the DNC, as well as what the chairman himself ran on:
Democratic party leaders Thursday morning admonished officers to not take sides in primaries, addressing a situation involving activist and Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg.
"Let me be unequivocal. No DNC officer should ever attempt to influence the outcome of a primary election, whether on behalf of an incumbent or a challenger," DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a press call. "Voters should decide who our primary nominees are, not DNC leadership. Our role is to serve as stewards of a fair, open and trusted process, not to tilt the scales."'
As of now, however, the DNC does not have the power to remove Hogg if he refuses to stand down on funding primary challenges through a separate PAC — unless the body changes its rules, a senior DNC official told NBC News.
“Under the present bylaws, there is no action that can be taken against David Hogg without changing to the bylaws to extend that policy of neutrality to all primaries," DNC Finance Chair Chris Korge told NBC News. "There is no codified, legal way to remove an officer for doing what David Hogg has done because it only extends to the presidential race."
Korge said that, as of now, the situation is to be addressed at a future meeting, likely in August.
Korge said he believed it was imperative for the body to formally change its bylaws because the party division the Hogg situation has caused harkens to an old ghost Democrats don't want to revisit.
“It smells like 2016, when progressives said the DNC had it in the bag for Hillary Clinton," Korge said, referencing angst in the party that the DNC had its thumb on the scale to block Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., from the presidential nomination. "No party official, no officer of the DNC, should do anything that would result in the division that was created by the perception that existed back in 2016."
On Thursday, Martin went on to say he had spoken to Hogg about what he perceived as a conflict but he did not expound on whether he gave him an ultimatum.
"I understand what he's trying to do," Martin continued in the press call. "As I've said to him, 'If you want to challenge incumbents, you're more than free to do that. But just not as an officer of the DNC, because our job is to be a neutral arbiter. We can't be both the referee and also the player at the same time. You have to make a decision.'"
In pushing back on Thursday, Hogg cited Trump's power clashes with institutions in saying the party needed to take more aggressive actions. He added that he had not violated any DNC bylaws.
"They’re trying to change the rules because I'm not currently breaking them. As we’re seeing law firms, tech companies, and so many others bowing to Trump, we all must use whatever position of power we have to fight back. And that’s exactly what I'm doing," Hogg said in a statement.
"The role of the DNC is to set the Presidential primary calendar, set the Presidential debate schedule, to help strengthen our state parties, play a key role in building our data infrastructure for the party, and to be the campaign in waiting for whoever the next Democratic nominee is. Nothing I'm doing is at odds with any of that," he added.
…
Now the party is grappling with what to do with [Hogg].
Martin and others on the call did not discuss what next steps they'd take with Hogg. And Hogg maintained in an interview with NBC News Thursday that he was not in violation of current bylaws.
…
Jane Kleeb, a DNC vice chair and the president of the Association of State Democratic Committees, said she backed neutrality, and it was also something that Martin also ran on.
Kleeb noted that enshrining DNC neutrality was something that Sanders "and many other Dems across the ideological spectrum have repeatedly asked us to codify into our bylaws."
Get your popcorn ready, as the foulmouthed DNC vice chairman may be losing his post soon, though that's one more thing Democrats have to figure out. It's worth wondering why these rules weren't in place already.
Former DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile and former RNC Chairman Reince Priebus both appeared alongside Hogg during a panel discussing for Sunday's episode of ABC News' "This Week," where they expressed issue with Hogg's initiatives. "I'd have you removed from the party," Priebus even said to Hogg, while Brazile had pointed out how Hogg's "in hot water with [DNC Chair] Ken [Martin]."
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