Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who has led the Brooklyn Democratic Party for the past six years, is stepping away from the helm amid a contentious battle for the party’s future, amNewYork and Brooklyn Paper have learned.
Bichotte Hermelyn stated the time had come “to pass the baton” and let a new leader continue to move the party forward.
“In the words of Barbara Jordan, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress from Texas and the South, Jordan said, ‘A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good.’ We must define the ‘common good’ and begin again to shape a common future,” she said in a statement sent to amNewYork and Brooklyn Paper.
Bichotte Hermelyn made history in 2020 as the first woman, and the first Black woman, to lead the Brooklyn Democratic Party. Her tenure was defined by battles fought in the courts, on the streets, and in the rulebooks, as she and other party establishment leaders clashed with reformers seeking change within the party.
She told amNewYork and Brooklyn Paper Monday evening that she does have a potential successor candidate whom she is supporting, but declined to state who that candidate might be. Bichotte Hermelyn also stated that she intends to remain a part of the party leadership in some capacity, regardless of the outcome of the chair election, slated to take place Tuesday night.
Her exit comes amid a protracted battle over party control after reformers with the New Kings Democrats won a majority of district leader seats in the June primaries. Not long after, when it appeared Bichotte Hermelyn’s days were numbered, she put forth rule changes that added dozens of voting members to the party’s executive committee.
The move was one which Bichotte Hermelyn proclaimed was an effort to bring new voices into the party leadership. The reformers, however, saw it as a gambit for the incumbent boss to retain her power even as the reformers held their new majority.
The reformers immediately filed suit, and a Brooklyn Supreme Court justice earlier this month tossed the new rules, declaring that the secretive meeting where they were passed was “improper,” and that the outgoing executive committee members “had no authority to vote … with respect to the rule amendments.”
Bichotte Hermelyn made history in 2020 as the first woman, and the first Black woman, to lead the Brooklyn Democratic Party. Her tenure was defined by battles fought in the courts, on the streets, and in the rulebooks, as she and other party establishment leaders clashed with reformers seeking change within the party.
The party appealed the decision, and a temporary stay issued by an appellate court allowed the county committee’s organizational meeting to go forward with the new rules in place last week. At the contentious, hourslong meeting, the committee moved to support the new rule changes and voted in dozens of new countywide officers — some of whom will be voting members of the newly expanded executive committee — but did not vote to elect a new chair, or any other members of the party’s executive committee.
That vote is scheduled for Sept. 29, and had been expected to be a showdown between Bichotte Hermelyn and longtime district leader Julio Peña III, whom reformers have backed for chair.
The party and reformers are still awaiting a decision by the appellate court, due to be released sometime before Tuesday’s meeting. If the decision upholds the findings of the lower court, the new rules will be axed, which may impact the results of the organizational meeting and the executive committee vote.
Away from party battles, Bichotte Hermelyn helped enact changes to the way the party nominated, endorsed and elected judges to the civil and state Supreme Courts. The changes aimed to diversify the courts and brought multiple Black, Brown and minority judges, including immigrant men and women, to the bench.
According to the party’s website, between 2024 and 2026, the Kings County Democratic Party nominated more than 40 diverse judges, including at least 11 Supreme Court justices and six Civil Court judges.
Moreover, the Brooklyn Democratic Party expanded the judicial screening panel to include permanent seats for The Jewish Guild, Muslim Bar Association, LeGal LGBT Bar Association, Caribbean American Lawyers Association, and Haitian American Lawyers Association of New York.