Nearly 800 people signed onto an open letter supporting Kendall Scudder\u2019s leadership of the Texas Democratic Party this weekend after three dozen Texas Democrats urged the chair to forgo reelection over alleged operational failures and a \u201chostile work environment\u201d fostered during his tenure.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a time when Texas Democrats must expand the map, rebuild trust and invest in long-term infrastructure, continuity of leadership and vision matters. Abruptly reversing course risks undermining the progress that has been made,\u201d reads the response letter<\/a>, which was addressed to Scudder. \u201cWith only one year \u2014 and just a primary cycle completed \u2014 we believe more time is needed to make a fair assessment of your chairmanship.\u201d<\/p>\n The dueling letters mark a bitter public dispute between Texas Democrats over their party\u2019s leadership during a midterm election many see as their best shot in years to make significant gains up and down the ballot. Texas Democrats are set to elect a chair to a full four-year term at their party convention in June.<\/p>\n The original letter<\/a> from last week, which was signed by<\/a> former party staffers, a congressional candidate and a former Texas House member, reflected ongoing discontent among some within the party over changes Scudder made<\/a> including moving the party\u2019s base away from Austin and overhauling staff positions. The letter charged Scudder with shortcomings including the party\u2019s out-of-date voter file, chaos at the polls<\/a> in two counties during primary election day, \u201cracism and a hostile work environment.\u201d<\/p>\n The response letter, meanwhile, praised Scudder\u2019s leadership since he was elected interim chair in March 2025. It pointed to the party\u2019s success recruiting a candidate<\/a> to run in every state and federal race on the ballot, expanding its presence with new offices across the state, paying off $500,000 in debt Scudder inherited and launching a $30 million coordinated campaign<\/a> to boost candidates along the ballot.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reality is that the Texas Democratic Party is stronger today than it was one year ago: financially stable, more competitive and more structurally aligned with the future we must build to win,\u201d the response letter reads.<\/p>\n Among those who signed the letter supporting Scudder were Texas House Reps. Ana-Mar\u00eda Rodriguez Ramos, John Bryant, Venton Jones and Mihaela Plesa, all of whom represent North Texas. Numerous county chairs, precinct chairs, Texas House candidates and party activists also added their names to the effort.<\/p>\n Monique Alcala, the former executive director of the party, pushed back on the pro-Scudder letter on social media, arguing that<\/a> Scudder\u2019s decision in the fall to insist certain staffers move to Dallas or else be fired or demoted was \u201cdefinitional union busting.\u201d She also called<\/a> the portion of the letter crediting Scudder for paying off the party\u2019s debt and helping launch the $30 million coordinated campaign \u201cwholly inaccurate.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI completely understand there are ex employees that are upset with how things happened, but this is not going forward with what we\u2019re all wanting: Get Democrats elected,\u201d said Macey Burns, a co-author of the pro-Scudder letter and vice chair of the Texas Progressive Caucus.<\/p>\n \u201cThe vast majority of Democrats are excited to be on this team and we\u2019re ready to get Democrats elected,\u201d Burns added, arguing that many of the concerns raised in the original letter were outside Scudder\u2019s control. \u201cThis is drama, and this is doing nothing but handing things over to the Republicans. They want to see this infighting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 800 people signed onto an open letter supporting Kendall Scudder\u2019s leadership of the Texas Democratic Party this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2133,27,2963,29,28],"class_list":["post-259249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-democrats","tag-texas","tag-texas-democratic-party","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}