{"id":357526,"date":"2026-09-26T11:16:41","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T11:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/357526\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T11:16:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T11:16:41","slug":"brooklyn-democratic-organizational-meeting-descends-into-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/357526\/","title":{"rendered":"Brooklyn Democratic organizational meeting descends into chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN \u2014 The Brooklyn Democratic Party\u2019s organizational meeting was marked by hours of delays, disputed votes, and protests Wednesday at New York City College of Technology, as party members approved controversial rule changes, while leaving the larger battle over who will lead the county party unresolved.<\/p>\n

Expected to begin at 10 a.m., proceedings didn\u2019t get underway until around 1:30 p.m. and lasted around eight hours. Problems arose with proxy registrations, voter lists, and the electronic voting clickers. There were also major disputes over who could vote, and whether votes were being accurately counted.<\/p>\n

The biggest takeaways from the meeting, however, were the following:<\/p>\n

The controversial August rule changes expanding the group participating in party leadership decisions beyond the traditional 42 district leaders were put to a vote again \u2014 and passed. The changes had previously been struck down by Supreme Court Justice Jill Epstein, but the Appellate Division had stayed Epstein\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

In addition, Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn was not re-elected chair. Party leadership announced that a vote on whether Bichotte Hermelyn will remain chair will take place Tuesday. So the standoff between Bichotte Hermelyn and Julio Pe\u00f1a III remains unresolved.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"HowardHoward Graubard, representing the plaintiffs, speaks to reporters. Photo: Wayne Daren Schneiderman\/Brooklyn Eagle
\n2 parallel battles a few blocks apart<\/p>\n

While all of this was happening at City Tech, the Appellate Division in Brooklyn was hearing arguments on the underlying lawsuit challenging the August rule changes.<\/p>\n

No appellate ruling had been issued by the end of the meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Epstein previously ruled that outgoing members of the committee improperly voted on<\/p>\n

party-rule amendments at an Aug. 25 meeting, declaring the resulting rule changes null and void.<\/p>\n

The changes would have expanded the Executive Committee from 42 members to more than 68.<\/p>\n

When the Appellate Division ultimately issues its decision, that could change the legal status of the Aug. 25 amendments, and potentially affect the outcomes of Wednesday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

\"MarkMark Hanna, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, outside the Appellate Division courthouse. Photo: Wayne Daren Schneiderman\/Brooklyn Eagle<\/p>\n

Howard Graubard, representing the plaintiffs, was asked if a chair were elected under current rules, during the stay, and after the Appellate Division determined the rules are invalid, could the elected chair relinquish the position, to which he replied, \u201cIt may be possible.\u201d Graubard also said he believes a decision will be rendered \u201csooner rather than later.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mark Hanna, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, spoke to the Brooklyn Eagle outside the Appellate Division courthouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe finished the argument,\u201d Hanna said. \u201cThe judges asked a lot of interesting pertinent questions, mostly focusing on the issue of whether or not the bylaws prevent the executive committee members that lost their elections from voting. So it hinged on what it means for them to be an elected state committee member. And what does it mean for the bylaws to require elected status? The appellants are arguing that it doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hanna pointed out that the state election law provides that the term of a state committee member begins at the primary and ends at the next primary if they didn\u2019t get reelected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are patiently waiting for a decision \u2014 either on the motion for the stay to see what happens there, or for the ultimate appellate decision,\u201d Hanna said. \u201cIt\u2019s an election law case, so it should be expedited. Any other case might take a long time \u2014 but in these cases, it\u2019s generally fast.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN \u2014 The Brooklyn Democratic Party\u2019s organizational meeting was marked by hours of delays, disputed votes, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[17526,98,18390,100,99,126359,113753,9,24,5325,63,17961],"class_list":["post-357526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-appellate-division","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-democratic-party","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-jill-epstein","tag-julio-pena","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-no-paywall","tag-nyc","tag-rodneyse-bichotte-hermelyn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357526","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=357526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}