“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” – Supreme Court Justice Louise Brandeis, 1913
This Web page gives a detailed description of the role of the Democratic Committee in Monroe County politics, with a particular focus on the Brighton Democratic Committee.
On June 25, 2024, there will be fourteen (14) Democratic primary elections in various neighborhoods across Brighton, and since there are no other primary elections for other jurisdictions, these are literally the only elections in Town that will be happening! So, candidates are out and about in the contested neighborhoods (“election districts”), making their case to be elected to the Democratic Committee. Contested primaries for this party position are a relatively new phenomenon in Brighton, and deserve a detailed explanation.
But.. what is the Democratic Committee? As one might expect, it may raise funds, donate to Democratic candidates, and organize events like phone banks and canvasses to help Democratic candidates get elected. But under Election Law, it serves two main functions:
- The Committee votes for leadership. For example, the State Committee selects the State Chair (currently Jay Jacobs), the County Committee selects the County Chair (currently Stephen DeVay), and the Town Committee selects the Town Leader (in Brighton, currently Barbara Moehle).
- The Committee decides which candidate(s) will receive formal support from the Democratic Party. This process is known as “designation.”
The Brighton Democratic Committee (BDC) is a subcommittee of the broader Monroe County Democratic Committee (MCDC), which has about 1,900 members; currently, BDC has about 170 members. You can think of the Democratic Committee as members of a 1% political elite.
County Committee members serve two-year terms, with elections occurring in even-numbered years and terms that begin and end in the Fall (September-October). For example, the 2024 edition of the Committee will be seated in the Fall 2024, and serve until the Fall 2026.
Every two years, County Committee members must circulate designating petitions to remain on the Committee. The form of these designating petitions, the signatures gathered on them, and the people who gather the signatures (“subscribing witnesses”) all must meet exacting requirements outlined in New York State Election Law. As a matter of course, the Committee designs the petitions to be compliant and organizes the signature gathering to ensure that members continue on the Committee from one term to the next. Since candidates for public office at almost every jurisdictional level also must gather such signatures (to run for Assembly, 500 signatures; to run for State Senate, 1000), one of the great benefits of a candidate being designated is that the Committee will gather these signatures for their campaign. It is not uncommon for candidates to abandon their campaigns if they fail to win the designation.
Candidates who are not designated, must organize their own signature-gathering campaigns. If they are successful, they can trigger a “primary election” that enables Democratic voters in the jurisdiction to decide which candidate will be on the Democratic ballot line in November for the “general election.” (In New York, primary elections are “closed,” meaning that only Democrats can vote in Democratic primaries.)
What does all this have to do with County Committee? Well, County Committee members each represent a single ED, usually a few hundred voters. You can think of an ED as a neighborhood. Only Democrats in that ED can sign the petition, and to remain on the Committee, the would-be County Committee member must gather signatures from 5% of those Democrats. Up to four (4) Democrats may represent a given ED; so the number of Democrats in the Committee is limited by the number of EDs.
Until recently, it was not widely known in Brighton that party positions can be contested by primary election, just as public offices such as State Assembly. If more than four (4) County Committee candidates petition themselves on in a given Election District, the Board of Elections will administer a primary election just in that ED, and the top four (4) vote-getters will be seated in the Fall.
The architects of New York State Election Law intended primary elections to be potential inflection points in power within political parties.
For decades, the Brighton Democratic Committee was a staid body, much smaller than allowable. Leadership positions were decided by unanimous consent, sometimes a task grudgingly taken on and passed around like a hot potato.
But in recent years, the Committee has grown significantly, especially during the Trump years, and leadership elections at the organizing meeting were sometimes contested. That prompted growth of the Committee from a few dozen to well over 100. In 2023, about 125 of the 160 members signed into the designating meeting.
This year, the maximum size of BDC decreased dramatically because during redistricting, the number of EDs in Brighton was reduced from 52 to 38, reducing its maximum size from 208 to 152. As a consequence, there simply was not “room” for every incumbent Committee member, let alone prospective new members who wished to join. The primary elections will determine who, among those who petitioned on in the contested EDs, will be seated for the Fall 2024 organizing meeting.
What will the 2024-2026 edition of the Committee decide?
The most important meetings across two years are 1) the organizing meeting, which will occur between September 17 and October 4, and 2) the two designating meetings, which will occur in early 2025 and 2026, respectively. If history is any guide, those three meetings will be the most important and best-attended across the two-year term. In fact, some Committee members only attend those meetings, or even a subset of them, to cast their votes for leadership and designation.
Among other things, the organizing meeting will determine whether Brighton Town Supervisor Bill Moehle’s spouse Barbara will continue as Town Leader. The Town Leader speaks for the Committee and serves as liaison between the Brighton Democratic Committee and the broader MCDC, with a seat on the MCDC Executive Committee. Other positions provided for in the Bylaws include Chair (who runs the meetings), Secretary (who takes minutes and administers votes), and Treasurer (who manages the bank account and does required filings with the New York State Board of Elections).
The 2025 designation will determine which candidates for Town office will receive formal support from the Party. Town Supervisor Bill Moehle, Town Clerk Dan Aman, and Town Councilmembers Robin Wilt and Christine Corrado will be up for reelection and, if they choose to run, likely will be considered for designation. For larger jurisdictions, like Monroe County Court Judge, the Committee’s votes are combined with those of other subcommittees according to a complicated weighting formula written into New York State Election Law.
The 2026 designation will have more such larger jurisdictions (House of Representatives, State Assembly, State Senate), and also designate local officials impacted by a recent change to New York State Election Law that moved local elections to even-numbered years.
To gain some insight into the motivations for the various candidates for Brighton Democratic Committee, see this post.