Montco Dems React To ‘Elephant’ In The Room – Reject Leadership’s Endorsement Choices
MCDC Votes To Have Open Primary For One Commissioner Race as well as for Register of Wills
The Elephant
The rank-and-file members of the Montgomery County Democratic Committee (MCDC) delivered a harsh rebuke to their leadership on Thursday night (February 16). More than 500 committee members assembled at the Colonial Middle School for their endorsement meeting, a huge turnout for such a meeting in an “odd year.”
Ordinarily, the endorsement meeting is nothing more than what critics describe as “a coronation” (especially in years like this, when only county judgeships, county commissioners and row office jobs are up for grabs).
But ordinarily, the endorsement meeting isn’t held the day after the Inquirer publishes a scathing article questioning what appears to be the non-transparent machinations of the MCDC Screening Committee.
The Inquirer reported that, MCDC Chair Jason Salus “formed and cochaired a seven-member screening committee to interview more than 20 candidates. The panel included cochair U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean; State Rep. Matt Bradford, a lawyer who’s in line to chair the Appropriations Committee in the newly Democratic House; Commissioner Lawrence; George Schools of Steamfitters Local 420 and the Philadelphia Building Trades; Sandra Jenkins of the MCDC’s diversity committee; and Beth Moy, chief of staff at Salus University.”
According to the Inquirer, the Screening Committee was initially prepared to recommend Danielle Ducket to replace Val Arkoosh, who resigned as commissioner in order to take the position of Pennsylvania Secretary of Human Services. But after telling Ducket that she had won the job, the Screening Committee reversed course. Instead they recommended Jamila Winder. Winder was officially appointed as a commissioner by the Court of Common Pleas on February 1.
Ken Lawrence is the other Montgomery County Commissioner. He was first elected along with Arkoosh in 2015. Lawrence has also announced that he is not running for re-election this year.
First Motion For Open Primary Fails
When Salus called for nominations from the floor, Winder was nominated, as was Neil Makhija. Makhija runs Impact an Indian American advocacy group. Before the vote for the endorsement, a motion was made to have an open primary (no endorsement). Had the motion passed, there would have been no endorsement vote, but by “show hands,” the motion for an open primary failed. Then Makhija withdrew, and Winder was declared to be endorsed.
No Such Luck for Tim Briggs
For the next commissioner endorsement, State Rep Tim Briggs (149th District) was nominated, and Makhija was also nominated, again. And as previously there was a motion for an Open Primary. However, this time there was a lively discussion with voices heard in favor of and opposed to the motion.
One member argued that if Briggs were endorsed and elected, the Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the Pennsylvania House would be jeopardized. But Lower Merion Democratic Party Chair, Jeff Scott, put that concern to rest, assuring the members that the 149th District was a “safe seat.”
And then former County Controller Diane Morgan (a member of the Lower Gwynedd Democratic Committee, where Duckett is Chair of the Board of Supervisors) got up to speak. Morgan directly addressed The Elephant In The Room. She forcefully and articulately recounted what the Inquirer had reported a day earlier –
And that was all the rank-and-file needed to hear. The motion for an Open Primary passed by a vote of 258-219.
Adding Insult to Injury, the Screening Committee’s recommended candidate for Register of Wills, Tina Lawson, also failed to win endorsement and will face opposition in an Open Primary from Hilary Fuelleborn.
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[…] an organization with the word democratic in its name would not prohibit the recording of a meeting that would likely determine who will govern a county of more than 860,000 citizens. If one thought that, one might be wrong about that […]