The Alabama Democratic Party’s executive committee meeting began Saturday with a call for unity, but was quickly marred by in-fighting over conflicting bylaws.
“We cannot and we will not succeed unless we move together, unified as a party,” Tyna Davis, Montgomery County chair who presided over the meeting, said at its start.
Ahead of the meeting, there was concern that a vote would be taken to change party bylaws to combine diversity caucuses into a single Ethnic Minority Committee without prior notice for many members. A vote to do so, however, never came up.
The diversity causes, which gave representation to Native Americans, Asian American Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, Young Adults and LGBTQ Alabamians, were established after intervention from the Democratic National Committee in 2019.
“The called meeting Saturday is not in compliance with the bylaws. The proposed bylaws appear to eliminate or reduce most diversity caucuses, disenfranchising important groups as required by the DNC,” said Josh Coleman, representative to the Democratic National Committee and President of Alabama Young Democrats, in a press release ahead of the meeting. “This would be a sad step backward for our party. I support your leadership but want to build an inclusive Party for all Alabamians.”
But there was no vote taken to change those laws. Instead, the proposed bylaws at times seemed to be confused with the bylaws established in 2019, with members unable to agree on who could nominate members for caucuses and who had the right to preside over the meeting.
“It seems we have conflicting rules in our own bylaws,” said Davis.
The disagreements led Davis to call for a postponement of the meeting, which failed by a vote of 63-60.
“Y’all have lost your freaking minds,” interjected Uche Afrika Bean, member from Jefferson County, who stood in frustration over the disunity.
“We have a governor who…is incompetent and it is leading our state back to where we have people in the streets fighting for freedom and you all cannot conduct a meeting…We should be able to, as grown adults, sit here and say yay or nay and move forward. I don’t care if you don’t like the chair, if you don’t like the vice chair. You all are ridiculous. And this is very unsettling. And it’s frustrating. I shouldn’t have to drive 100 miles to sit here for hours to waste time over small bickering.”
In the nearly four hours that the meeting lasted, the group only voted to fill a handful of vacancies within caucuses and on the State Democratic Executive Committee.
A lack of consensus on the bylaws also surfaced the last time the State Democratic Executive Committee met, in October.
Related: Debate surrounding bylaws at Alabama Democrats’ convention ends in walkout
Vice Chair Tabitha Isner said moving forward, she’d like to see the party adopt additional committees for communications, legislation, and hospitality and accommodations, including getting interpreters for members who are deaf, a point that was raised multiple times.
She also said she wants to see members build relationships with each other.
“Last and most importantly, we have got to get to know each other,” said Isner, who recommended members form small groups in order to do so. “If we don’t value each other as individual people, we can’t get work done.”
The meeting adjourned with the chair Randy Kelley pleading with members to recognize their commonalities to help build the party from the ground up, noting at times the success the party had in Georgia.
He ended with a quote from President Abraham Lincoln, reminding the party that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”
