DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN \u2014 The court case challenging Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn\u2019s proposed bylaw changes is awaiting a ruling from Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Jill Epstein as of Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Bichotte Hermelyn\u2019s proposed package of 10 bylaw changes was a response to the June Democratic Primary, where the Brooklyn Can\u2019t Wait coalition won 22 of the 42 district-leader seats on the Kings County Democratic Party Executive Committee.<\/p>\n
Under the existing rules, that number gave the reform movement a majority, allowing them to elect Julio Pe\u00f1a III as the next county party chair in September. Bichotte Hermelyn\u2019s bylaw changes would substantially alter who gets to vote.<\/p>\n
Bichotte Hermelyn said she \u201copened the process and the executive committee to include more people, including county committee members, bringing more diversity in thinking and ideology in different corners of Brooklyn.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pe\u00f1a has called the move a power grab. Neither Bichotte Hermelyn nor Pe\u00f1a was present in court Sept. 8.<\/p>\n
Amy Marion, a partner at Abrams Fensterman LLP, represented Bichotte Hermelyn. One of Marion\u2019s arguments raised in court was that the lawsuit should have included anyone who could be affected by the proposed bylaw changes. Eleven people were cited as potentially affected, including seven district leaders who had lost their primary elections.<\/p>\n
Mark Hanna, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, told the Brooklyn Eagle that he thought his team made their argument effectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou simply should not be able to change the rules after you lose an election so that you can maintain power. It just doesn\u2019t make any sense,\u201d Hanna said. \u201cThe act of changing the rules to dilute voters\u2019 intent should not be allowed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanna said that he believes a decision will be made very soon, ideally as early as tomorrow, adding that it was essentially in the judge\u2019s hands at this point.<\/p>\n
District Leader Anthony Beckford, male state committee member for the 43rd New York State Assembly District, represented himself in court.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we saw today was the opposition demonstrating just how unhappy they were,\u201d Beckford said. \u201cWe can\u2019t have tantrums when it comes to law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beckford cited Election Law 2-114, which recognizes that political parties have the authority to adopt their own rules for governing the party. However, these rules cannot conflict with state election law. Whether the proposed Brooklyn Democratic Party bylaws violate that limitation is now for Epstein to determine and could ultimately be central to her ruling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN \u2014 The court case challenging Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn\u2019s proposed bylaw changes is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,18390,100,99,14768,12060,45250,113753,3100,13305,9,24,63,87,2579,17961],"class_list":["post-342625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-democratic-party","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-courts-and-law","tag-election-elections","tag-election-2026","tag-julio-pena","tag-lawsuit","tag-midterm-elections","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-premium-content","tag-rodneyse-bichotte-hermelyn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342625","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=342625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}