The latest round of election results continues yesterday’s pattern: It now appears that the progressive Reform Slate is guaranteed at least 15 seats on the Democratic County Central Committee.
Leah LaCroix is now in ninth place, with ten seats available, and the trends have her moving up. That gives the progressives a solid 15 seats.
And it leaves open the possibility that the incumbents may try any number of dirty tricks to hold onto power. This isn’t just academic – the DCCC will have a significant influence on the fall elections for supervisors, which is why Big Tech and the real-estate industry poured so much money into these down-ticket races.
Here’s the deal: When all the votes are finally counted, the odds are pretty good that one of the progressives will be the next chair of the DCCC. That’s a powerful position, since over a four-year term, a few of the members inevitable resign for whatever reason, and the chair has the unilateral authority to appoint replacements.
That’s how Mary Jung, the current chair, has cemented her power (and put people like Joel Engardio and Josh Arce, who are now running for supervisor, on the panel).
There’s already an item on the agenda for the DCCC June 15 meeting that would allow the lame-duck panel – the groups that the voters have rejected – to make early endorsements for supervisor. That’s just disgraceful.
It’s almost as if the DCCC is some old-school dictatorship where the corrupt incumbents who get ousted at the ballot refuse to leave office. Message to Mary Jung: To quote President Obama, elections matter. You lost.
