Because the Alabama Democratic Party is “a disaster,” the leadership needs to be replaced

The man who engineered a leadership change in the Alabama Democratic Party in 2019 is again calling for the party’s executive committee to replace its leaders, saying the party is “a complete disaster” that cannot field candidates or raise significant money.

Former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, who led the Democratic National Committee’s effort to change the ADP’s charter and install new leadership in 2019, said in a recent interview on the “Alabama Politics This Week” podcast that the party was undergoing another leadership change Have in 2022 is in a hopeless situation because many Democrats and would-be Democrats don’t care about the current leadership.

“It’s just an absolute disaster with nowhere to go,” Jones said. “They can’t even get a quorum to hold a meeting, and the reason they can’t get a quorum to hold a meeting is because the leadership of the party wants to do all these weird shenanigans to change the constitution “To get rid of them.” of caucuses to deny people the opportunity to participate. They can’t raise any significant money. You won’t be able to recruit candidates.

“It’s time. I think it’s long past time for the state party, and that’s up to the Executive Committee, to demand new leadership. Not in two years, when we have primaries again and a new state party is elected. They must now demand new leadership.”

Jones’ comments are the latest in a long-running battle between two perpetually warring factions within the ADP – a faction led by longtime Alabama Democratic Conference Chairman Joe Reed and current ADP Chairman Randy Kelley, and another faction led by Jones and many younger members of the party. Since the change in 2019, both sides have often publicly criticized each other and blamed each other for various missteps and nefarious actions.

However, the Jones faction was always in the favor of the national party and also enjoyed broader public support, while Reed and Kelley were able to hold on to a core group of supporters – especially long-time members of the ADC, the party’s Black Caucus.

In 2019, the ADC’s power was at stake, leading the DNC to push for charter changes. Although the changes that were ultimately pushed through were sweeping and complex, they essentially amounted to this: The Alabama Democratic Party’s bylaws at the time gave Reed and ADC incredible power to control party leadership by defining “minority” as blacks only At the same time, other minority groups long recognized by the DNC were also excluded.

Reed and his supporters railed, claiming the effort was racist and only aimed at weakening the black voice within the party. Although this was clearly not the case and the proportion of black members on the party’s executive committee remained unchanged, Reed and Kelley continued to make this claim.

And in 2022, Kelley managed to regain control of the party for the ADC faction after rallying support within the ranks. Almost immediately, he and Reed set about undoing the new statutes and eliminating several committees that gave other minority groups strong voting rights. That drew the ire of the DNC and further divided the already struggling party.

In the months that followed, the ADP leadership was summoned to DC to be reprimanded by the national party. It has repeatedly failed to obtain a quorum for meetings at which it intended to further amend the statutes. She was widely criticized for failing to field candidates in the 2024 election cycle and was embarrassed by a strange situation in which Reed and Kelley were accused of not voting for Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee after Joe Biden had resigned (both Kelley and Reed). I vehemently dispute this claim, but the party was mysteriously missing two delegate votes at the convention.

“We had the lowest Democratic turnout we’ve ever had this time,” Jones said of the 2024 turnout in Alabama. “The votes went down. In Alabama we had the lowest voter turnout since 1988, okay? And that’s exactly because of what you said: people don’t believe their vote counts, and we can’t recruit candidates to put their name on the ballot if they will be embarrassed. And that is a real problem. (They) came back from Congress… and they want our statutes changed again right away. That’s all they want to do – they want to challenge the DNC, they want to challenge the charter. It’s time for them to just retire.

“You can make a difference, and everywhere I went in the state there were Democrats who wanted a home. There are Democrats out there, but they won’t support this Democratic Party because the leadership seems to only care about themselves and their little cabal, and that has nothing to do with race and everything to do with those who are trying to to seize and retain power.”

Jones, who is close to Biden and was once widely considered a top candidate for attorney general, also spoke about Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter and AG Merrick Garland’s painfully slow prosecution of Donald Trump. You can listen to the entire interview on the Alabama Politics This Week website or subscribe to the podcast on all major platforms including Spotify, Apple, Audible and more.