MEMORANDUM IN OPPOSITION

PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO THE RULES OF THE KINGS COUNTY DEMOCRATIC COUNTY COMMITTEE, AUGUST 2026

The Chairperson of the Kings County Democratic County Committee has advanced ten amendments to the party’s governing Rules, to be considered by the Executive Committee and County Committee membership. Their stated goal is to expand participation and representation within the party.

As organizations dedicated to strengthening democracy, transparency, and participation, we are eager to support thoughtful reform efforts that advance those goals. But the manner, substance, and timing of these proposals indicate that they are intended to circumvent, rather than promote, democratic processes.

Individually, the proposals touch on Executive Committee composition, officer titles, quorum requirements, proxy-voting, vacancy-filling procedure, and the organization of Assembly District Committees.

Read as a package, however, their principal effect is to rewrite the rules governing the election of a Chairperson in an apparent effort to reverse a result already reached at the ballot box, before that result can take effect. They also appear designed to prevent reformers from gaining power and make it more difficult for future reform efforts to succeed over the Chairperson’s objection.

This outcome is difficult to characterize as anything other than a subversion of the democratic process, reminiscent of mechanisms used in jurisdictions experiencing democratic backsliding.

The Brooklyn Democratic Party, a body with tremendous power over New York City’s judicial system, election administration, and political process, should not go down this path. A party which does not model inclusive democracy in its internal processes raises alarming prospects of authoritarian policies should its nominees be elected to government.

Concentrating discretion in a single officer — over proxies, vacancy-filling, and the convening of Assembly District Committees, as the proposals provide — cuts against basic checks-and-balances principles. Pushing structural changes of this consequence without adequate time or process for deliberation is inconsistent with the principles of good government.

Most importantly, altering a governing body’s composition or voting rules in the period between a publicly funded election and that body’s first meeting following the election runs counter to fundamental principles governing democratic transitions of power.

We urge the Executive Committee and the broader County Committee membership to decline to act on this package on the proposed timeline.

What the Proposals Would Do

Proposals 2 and 4 would immediately dilute the voting power of existing Executive Committee members. Proposal 2 creates roughly a dozen new County Committee officer positions, while Proposal 4 makes those officers, along with other officers, automatic voting members of the Executive Committee, with no effective-date delay. Among them, former County Chairs, even if they moved out of state, or in some case, convicted. Read together, the proposals would allow individuals elected to the new offices created by Proposal 2 to be seated on the Executive Committee the same day, before it ever convenes to organize. This would expand the 42-member body, in which reformers currently hold a narrow majority, to a body of 55 or more members, eliminating that majority.

Proposal 5 would allow district leaders who lost their races to serve in leadership positions. The current Rules limit the Chair and Vice-Chairs to sitting State Committee members, with a narrow carve-out for former Chairs. Proposal 5 extends eligibility to former State Committee members, potentially allowing a district leader defeated in the June election to be installed in a leadership role.

Proposal 6 could allow the Executive Committee to conduct business without the participation of the party’s opposition. It changes the quorum requirement from a “majority” — currently 22 members, and more than 30 under an expanded Committee — to a flat 25-member quorum. This raises the possibility that the enlarged Executive Committee could conduct business without any member of the reformer bloc participating, and potentially without any district leader present.

Proposals 3, 7, and 8 would create new seats on the Executive Committee while giving the Chair greater control over their selection. Proposal 3 creates a new Executive Committee Delegate for each Assembly District, elected by the Assembly District Committee (ADC). Proposals 7 and 8 would shift control over the selection of those delegates away from district leaders, including reformers who just won their seats. District leaders would no longer have the authority to convene the ADC; that authority would instead be vested in the Chair or the now-expanded Executive Committee.

Proposal 10 would shield the Chairperson’s control over the County Committee from ever being contested. It would require a supermajority to amend the party’s proxy-voting rules going forward. The default-proxy provision is the mechanism through which the County Chairperson can pass resolutions in County Committee Organizational Meetings, including making significant changes such as those contemplated here and electing the new Executive Committee members created by Proposals 2 and 4. Requiring a supermajority to amend those rules would foreclose any future majority, including one led by the reformers now taking office, from changing the proxy rules over the Chairperson’s objection.