Illustration by John Hiller/ Staff Illustration
Witman Miller
Contributing Reporter
[email protected]
Last Saturday, August 24, the Democratic National Committee voted to strip the credentials of Alabama Democratic Party Chair Nancy Worley and Vice-Chair Randy Kelley, with the DNC no longer recognizing them as the leaders of the state party.
What a saga it’s been. There are fewer existences more disappointing than that of the Alabama Democrat.
Under the direction of Worley, the state party has slowly devolved into an organization that I, a proud Democrat, can only describe as dysfunctional, embarrassing, and virtually non-existent.
Last year, while running for re-election, she faced a strong challenge from Montgomery attorney Peck Fox, who had the backing of Senator Doug Jones. She narrowly won with the State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC) voting 101-89 in her favor.
It wasn’t long before discrepancies appeared.
Of the voting committee members present, 35 had been newly-appointed that morning by the party’s minority caucus, the Alabama Democratic Conference, chaired by Worley-supporter Joe Reed.
Of these newly appointed members, 26 did not yet have the credentials to vote in the election, according to hearing officer Michael K. Lewis when he presented his findings to the national party’s credentials committee earlier this year.
In response, the DNC invalidated that election, and gave the state party 90 days to change their bylaws and hold a new one.
That deadline was missed.
The DNC then extended the deadline to Saturday, August 17.
That one was also missed.
That following Thursday, August 22, Worley found herself sitting before the credentials committee in San Francisco where they recommended that the national party revoke her credentials.
She responded to this ruling with a confusing rant where she claimed they were trying to remove her, a White woman, because they wanted to suppress Black Alabamians, and then went into long-winded detail about how they would all burn in Hell, per AL.com reporting on the hearing.
While the DNC’s move was a big step in the right direction, she still remains in power as the they technically can’t completely remove her as chair.
And democracy in Alabama suffers for it.
After her victory in last year’s chair election, Senator Doug Jones responded, “our candidates are going to have to go it alone, just like I did.”
“We need to have a party. We don’t have a party. There is no social media. There’s no outreach. There’s no get out the vote effort. There’s no organization,” he went on to say.
Then, in the midterms last year, Democrats won almost no races anywhere in the state. Their already small house minority shrunk by four more seats.
Former Miss America Mallory Hagan, who mounted an unsuccessful challenge against Rep. Mike Rodgers, lashed out at the state party in her concession speech.
“I don’t see another person who ran tonight running again as long as Nancy Worley and Joe Reed and Randy Kelley are in charge of our party anymore,” she said. “They s**t on Democratic candidates left and right.”
She’s right. And if they remain, this will happen again in 2020.
Sen. Jones will lose his seat.
Progressive voices in the state legislature will continue to disappear.
Alabama will remain subject to one-party rule, and we’ll never see another Democrat elected statewide for years to come.
