FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM OCTOBER 31, 2019 • THE QUEENS COURIER 11
Election
Meeks rebukes district leader challengers at Queens Democratic Party fundraiser
BY MAX PARROTT
mparrott@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
With early voting already underway for
the Nov. 5 Queens district attorney race,
the Queens County Democratic Party gathered
its ranks at a pre-election cocktail party
at Antun’s in Queens Village on Tuesday
night to broadcast the importance of getting
out to vote.
With a full dinner spread and open bar,
the event’s mood was more social outing
than policy exchange. Its speakers all
addressed the importance of party unity in
the face of Trump and the task of bringing
new voters into the fold.
Th en, in the fi nal moments of what
was otherwise a boilerplate party huddle,
Congressman and Party Chair Gregory
Meeks brought up a contentious point that
has been simmering among a left wing contingent
of the party’s base: his views on the
role of district leader.
Meeks took a hard stand against district
leader challengers, calling for the evening’s
attendees to help fund incumbents in the
volunteer party role to help them defeat any
primary challengers in 2020.
Th e timing was not incidental. Last week,
the New Reformers, a progressive PAC
aimed at running candidates to challenge
incumbents for the district leader position,
hosted a packed fundraiser in Kew Gardens.
Th e confl ict over the position refl ects a
Rep. Greg Meeks calls all the incumbent district leaders to the stage at the Queens Democrats’
pre-election party.
growing split within the Queens Democratic
Party about how to respond to members of
the party calling for reform.
Th e party’s speakers — Meeks, Mayor
Bill de Blasio, District Leader Anthony
Andrews, and DA candidate and Borough
President Melinda Katz — all mentioned the
importance of getting out to vote in Queens,
a sore point aft er a particularly low turnout
in the June primary for district attorney. Of
the 766,107 enrolled Democratic voters in
the borough, only 85,447 (11 percent) voted.
Intra-party tension has sprouted from
how to incorporate the borough’s recently
activated block of progressive voters– some
of whom would like to make the way the
party elects its offi cials more accessible. Th is
is compounded by the likelihood that the
Photo: Max Parrott/QNS
2020 elections will draw a greater group of
voters than the party’s reliable base.
“We’re going to see the largest election
turnout in our lifetime in 2020,” Mayor de
Blasio said in his speech.
Rockaway Councilman Donovan
Richards told QNS he agreed with this
opinion, saying that he thinks anti-Trump
sentiment will motivate a lot of people to
come out. But he added that the party needs
to confront the question of how to sustain
that energy.
“How do we hold on to that? How do we
engage the electorate?” Richards asked.
In his remarks at the end of the party,
Meeks made it clear that he does not
approve of district leader campaigns as a
way to harness this new energy.
In his closing speech, he called every district
leader at the party to the front of the
stage.
“We’ve got to make sure that we come
together in 2020 that they get re-elected,”
Meeks said. “I want to make sure we are
raising money for these leaders.”
He denounced the notion that the county
party is a machine — a label that many
of the New Reformers organizers use
to describe it. To illustrate his point, he
described the district leaders on the stage
as “people who have focused their lives to
the betterment of Queens County.”
As Meeks spoke, he became increasingly
excited, raising his voice louder and
louder.
“Th is organization takes a backseat to no
one. We’re not gonna to allow anyone to
bully us. We’re gonna show you, so come on
with it,” he said.
In response to QNS’s reporting on Meek’s
remarks, the New Reformers sent out a statement
saying that they are “happy to see the
leadership of the Democratic Organization
of Queens County notice our eff orts to support
new candidates for district leader.”
Th e New Reformers denied that their
goal was to attack party leadership, instead
claiming that they simply want to bolster
participatory democracy.
“Th is means standing up to the type
of antidemocratic practices in which party
leaders can sometimes engage,” their statement
read.
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