Former Obama official Tom Perez elected DNC chair
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ATLANTA â Tom Perez was elected the next chair of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday afternoon, putting an end to a contentious four-month election that divided the battered partyâs liberal and centrist wings along similar lines as last yearâs presidential primary race. Perez, seen as the more establishment choice, immediately tapped his chief rival, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., as his deputy.
After Perezâs win was announced, a handful of hardcore Ellison supporters chanted âParty to the peopleâ in protest, drowning out the party leaders. Perezâs first act as chair appeased them, as he motioned to make Ellison his deputy. Ellison then spoke, urging the party to stay unified.
âWe donât have the luxury, folks, to walk out of this room divided,â he said. âWe donât have that luxury.â
âWe are united by our love for the Democratic Party,â Perez said after Ellisonâs speech, saying that the partyâs diversity was its strength.
The election took two rounds of voting after Perez missed the threshold by just one vote in the first round, with Ellison trailing him by more than 13 votes. Several candidates then dropped out, propelling Perez to victory. Perez is the first Latino DNC chair in the organizationâs history.
At a press conference after the vote, Ellison wore a âTeam Tomâ button and Perez wore an Ellison button, to encourage their supporters to unify.
âFrom how the DNC treated Bernie, we were still healing. Keith was our hope, OK? And once again the DNC did not consider that,â said Wanda Cunningham, a volunteer for Ellisonâs campaign from Atlanta. She said the good news was that Ellison would be able to keep his House seat and had a âseat at the tableâ at the DNC as deputy.
âIt shows unity,â said Perez supporter Arthur Morrell, a Louisiana delegate, of making Ellison deputy. He said he was surprised but thought it was a âgood move.â
Perez, the labor secretary under former President Barack Obama, ran on a platform of taking the Democratic Party back to its roots of organized labor and a primarily economic message of opportunity for all. Ellison had a similar message, but he was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and was seen as a more grassroots, outsider choice who would break from the DNCâs past.
As the DNC members cast their first votes, there was late-breaking drama as Ellisonâs team texted delegates to say that he had earned South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigiegâs support. Buttigieg, who was believed to be running in third place, dropped out right before the first ballot but declined to endorse. The mayor tweeted that he had not endorsed anyone, and Ellisonâs staff texted a correction.
Here is the screenshot of the text dnc delegates got falsely claiming a Mayor Pete endorsement of Ellison pic.twitter.com/941524vWG7
â Liz Goodwin (@lizcgoodwin) February 25, 2017
Ellison was dogged by his past associations with the Nation of Islam and his past defense of its founder, Louis Farrakhan, who had made anti-Semitic comments. Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, disavowed his association with the group in 2006. His supporters pointed to his long history of winning elections in Minnesota and ability to bring together different coalitions of voters through grassroots organizing.
One of Perezâs campaign slogans was âa DNC for every Democrat,â and the former civil rights attorney aims to bring Sandersâ young supporters, many of whom were independents, into the fold, as well as establishment liberals. But Sandersâ former campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, told MSNBC this week that if Ellison were not elected, it would send a âhorribleâ message to millions of Democrats who wanted more direct control over their party. Sandersâ group, Our Revolution, sent a message to supporters after Ellisonâs loss saying that the party needed to focus on electing progressives even if some were âlocked in complacency.â
In his nominating speech, Perez said there was a âcrisis of confidence, a crisis of relevanceâ facing the party that he would reverse through a leadership style that would focus on listening. âYou will always have my ear and I always have your back. You will not be underutilized,â Perez said.
Ahead of the vote, Ellisonâs supporters, wearing green shirts, chanted âKeith!â and were more vocal than Perezâs subtler âTeam Tomâ supporters.
The candidates pleaded with the DNCâs nearly 450 voting delegates to be a unified party no matter what the outcome of the election.
âWeâve got to come out of here hand in hand, brothers and sisters, because Trump is right outside that door,â Ellison said during his nominating speech.
Perez told Yahoo News earlier this month that Democrats had trouble distilling a message in a âbumper-sticker world.â But the DNC chair has not historically been the partyâs chief messenger, instead focusing on fundraising and providing support and infrastructure to the local parties. This last point will be a formidable challenge, given the fact that Democrats have lost more than 1,000 state legislative seats to Republicans since 2008.
The DNCâs reputation also suffered during the presidential primary after its emails were hacked and published on WikiLeaks, showing some staffers appearing to push for Hillary Clintonâs victory over Sanders. The U.S. government later accused the Kremlin of spearheading the cyberattack against the DNC. Perez has said that he considers being chair âa turnaround jobâ and vowed to remain neutral in any Democratic primaries.
At a party for Perez on Friday night, South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Jaime Harrison, who had dropped out of the chair race a few days earlier, warned delegates that the media would portray the party as in disarray after Saturdayâs election. âWe need to step out of tomorrow as a unified party,â Harrison said. âWe know that some of the media is ready to write the article â they already have the headlines. âDemocrats still divided.â That is not going to be the case.â
It remains to be seen whether the party will come together as its leaders urge, though the appointment of Ellison as deputy may do much to quell the fight. Earlier Saturday, Ellisonâs supporters had shouted âShame!â after other DNC delegates voted down a resolution that would have reinstated an Obama-era ban on accepting donations from corporations and lobbyists that was quietly phased out a year ago. The resolutionâs failure appears to be a direct rebuke of Democrats who want to get corporate money out of politics, and it will likely remain a flashpoint between the partyâs liberal and centrist wings.