The Democratic Committee of Lower Merion Narberth (DCLMN) has barred Nahjee Grant, a Democratic candidate for the 149th District seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, from participating in all Committee pre-endorsement events this year.
When asked to explain the decision, DCLMN Chair Rob Paul said he was acting on instructions from the Montgomery County Democratic Committee (MCDC) and offered no further details. MCDC Chair Jason Salus has not responded to multiple requests to explain why Grant has been excluded from Committee activities.
MCDC’s bylaws contain eligibility provisions governing who may serve as a committee person. Those rules were adopted in May 2018 and were designed to address situations in which Committee members run as, or support, unendorsed candidates running against endorsed candidates, including in primary elections where all candidates are Democrats.
Grant is not running for a committee seat. The bylaws do not address eligibility for any position other than Democratic committee roles.
The current action against Grant comes in the context of several past situations in which the same eligibility rules were not enforced against DCLMN or MCDC members who either ran as unendorsed candidates or supported unendorsed candidates.
In 2017, Adrian Seltzer ran unendorsed for the Lower Merion School Board against a slate of endorsed candidates. The eligibility rule was adopted the following spring, but Seltzer remained active in the committee and is now an Area Representative to MCDC.
In 2018, Sara Atkins publicly supported Molly Sheehan’s congressional campaign even though DCLMN had endorsed Ashley Lunkenheimer. Atkins was not removed from the committee and currently serves as DCLMN’s Subcommittee Chair for Campaign Support and Coordination.
In 2021, John Munroe, then a DCLMN member, ran an unendorsed campaign for Narberth Borough Council against a slate of endorsed Democratic candidates. He was not required to resign from his committee position.
In 2021, Joyce Keller, then co-chair of the Wissahickon Democrats and a Whitpain Township Supervisor, became the subject of a county-level party investigation for promoting or supporting unendorsed candidates for Montgomery County Commissioner. Keller was not running for office at the time and continued to hold her within the party during and after the investigation.
In each of those cases, committee members or leaders either ran as unendorsed candidates or publicly supported unendorsed candidates without being barred from committee participation.
By contrast, Grant has been told he may not take part in DCLMN pre-endorsement activities while running for the 149th District seat, despite not being a committee person and despite the bylaws not addressing such a situation.
