{"id":329852,"date":"2026-08-26T03:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T03:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/329852\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T03:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T03:28:08","slug":"brooklyn-party-boss-wins-enough-votes-to-clinch-rule-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/329852\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn party boss wins enough votes to clinch rule changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Progressive challengers looking to take control of the Brooklyn Democratic Party suffered a setback on Tuesday night after the embattled party chair won enough votes to change the organization’s rules<\/a> that critics say will likely keep her in power \u2014 despite suffering losses in June.<\/p>\n

“Because this is being held behind closed doors, with security, without public presence, without actual public support,” said Luke Ohlson, a Democratic district leader.<\/p>\n

“That is why there is milk toast, light applause because this is a power grab,” he added.<\/p>\n

“People feel disenfranchised, they feel upset and they have a right to be upset,” said Ohlson.<\/p>\n

Allies of party chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn celebrated after winning a majority of votes on several proposals aimed at altering the Kings County Democratic Party rules, like increasing the number of executive committee members from 42 to 68.<\/p>\n

But critics say slammed the move.<\/p>\n

“[I’m] not really happy about having to come out here for a vote when Democrats should be coming together, not fighting amongst each other,” said Chris McCreight, a Democratic district leader and candidate for State Assembly.<\/p>\n

Before the vote, Bichotte Hermelyn’s changes were denounced by Democratic leadership, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Gov. Kathy Hochul and both minority leaders of Congress.<\/p>\n

The move also highlights tensions between the left and the moderate wing of the party.<\/p>\n

“My problem with the progressives and the socialists is: they don’t have that position of ‘Okay, it’s okay to agree to disagree, it’s: If I’m right, I’m right, how could you be wrong? How could you be right?’ We can’t have two rights,” said Frank Seddio, the former party chair and current state committee member.<\/p>\n

At times, the night turned contentious:<\/p>\n

“You’re standing in my district, and if you don’t live here, you’re an outsider!” Seddio shouted at one critic, Jorge Muniz.<\/p>\n

Now, progressives say they’re planning to sue again in hopes of stopping the changes before another vote in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Progressive challengers looking to take control of the Brooklyn Democratic Party suffered a setback on Tuesday night after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[109,25,8889,98,100,99,9,24,12,63,87,27,200],"class_list":["post-329852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-bernadette-hogan","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}