Bitter in-fighting among Alabama Democrats threatens to scuttle an already tough re-election battle for Sen. Doug Jones in one of the nation’s reddest states, The Hill reported.
The yearlong power struggle between Jones and Nancy Worley, who heads the state’s Democratic Party organization, includes charges of discrimination and intimidation, the news outlet reported.
According to The Hill, though both Jones and Worley are white, their allies are black — and acrimony is sharp between the African American Democrats who were on the front lines of civil rights fights in the '50s and '60s and a group of young leaders who claim they’re being shut out of the party.
In a letter to Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee — who’s withheld money meant to build up the state party — two of Alabama’s representatives to the DNC called it “a urinating contest” between factions at war over the future of the state party.
The feud began in August 2018, when Jones made it known he wanted Worley to step aside. Instead, Worley ran for another term — beating back the entire slate Jones supported.
Two groups of Alabama Democrats then challenged the election results with the DNC.
In February, the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee vacated the August election results and ordered the state Democratic Party to come up with new bylaws meant to increase representation of minority and members of the LGBT community among party leadership.
When Worley ignored deadlines, the DNC revoked Worley and her vice chair’s credentials.
The battle is now centered on dueling meetings in November, when both factions intend to elect a new state party chair, The Hill reported.
And that ultimately could lead to two different party heads.
“What [Perez] is trying to do is turn the party over to Doug Jones and to strip black people of our traditional way of electing people to the” executive committee, charged Joe Reed, a civil rights veteran who heads the Alabama Democratic Conference, the state’s principal African American Democratic club, and Worley’s most powerful ally.
Yet a group of younger black political leaders are siding with Jones.
“We continue to be treated as second-class citizens by Ms. Worley and the [state Democratic elective committee], and it is time for that to stop,” the group, led by Young Democrats of America vice president Terri Chapman, said in an open letter.
“Unfortunately, Worley and Reed have made the situation quite racial,” said Harold Ickes, a member of the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee who has led the DNC's response to the situation in the Alabama party, The Hill reported.
Both sides worry the dysfunction will hinder the party’s ability to build a field operation in the months leading up to Jones' reelection bid.
“Instead of us spending a whole year arguing among each other, we should have spent a whole year getting folks organized for Doug Jones. If a house divided cannot stand, a party divided cannot win. This thing has gotten to be a racial war. That’s what it is,” Reed said.
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