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jamie harrison
Progressive Magazine Publishes Previously Secret DNC Membership List
Corporate lobbyists and big-time fundraisers are among the Democratic National Committee members set to decide on the organization's leadership in the coming weeks.
Jan 10, 2025
With the Democratic National Committee set to vote on its next chair in just over three weeks, a progressive magazine on Friday published in full a previously secret list of the DNC members who will decide on the next leader of the party organization in the wake of the disastrous November election.
The American Prospect's Micah Sifry reported that he obtained the closely guarded list from a "trusted source with long experience with the national party."
"This person thinks it's absurd that the party's roster of voting members is secret," Sifry wrote. "Indeed, since there is no official public list, each of the candidates running for chair and other positions has undoubtedly had to create their own tallies from scratch—making it very likely our list comes from a candidate's whip operation."
Based on the DNC's public statements, it was known that the DNC has 448 active members who will decide on key leadership posts in the coming weeks. But the identities of the individuals were, until Friday, kept under wraps.
Michael Kapp, a DNC member from California, told the Prospect that the committee's leadership "holds tightly to the list to prevent any organizing beyond their control."
"Knowing who has actual voting power over the DNC's governance may give grassroots activists around the country who care about the party's future some greater capacity to focus their efforts on the people who actually pull the levers."
The newly revealed list includes more than 70 "at large" members who were all "whisked into their current positions on the DNC roster by [outgoing chair] Jaime Harrison in 2021," Sifry wrote.
"According to DNC bylaws, at-large members must be voted in by the rest of the membership, but the current class was put forward by Harrison as a single slate that was voted on up-or-down as a bloc," Sifry added. "The hacks definitely stand out among Harrison's handpicked cohort. Those include top fundraisers Kristin Bertolina Faust and Alicia Rockmore of California, Carol Pensky of Florida, and Deborah Simon of Indiana, as well as David Huynh of New York, whose main claim to fame appears to be his work as a consultant to now-jailed cryptocurrency hustler Sam Bankman-Fried when he appeared to be the Next Big Funder of the Democrats in 2021-2022."
The list also includes several lobbyists—such as Scott Brennan, a DNC member from Iowa who works for a lobbying firm with clients such as JPMorgan Chase and PhRMA—as well as union leaders, including American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten.
The DNC membership list was revealed as the organization prepares to vote on key leadership posts, including the committee's chair and vice chair positions.
Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler, Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party chair Ken Martin, and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley are among the contenders for the chairmanship.
James Zogby, a longtime DNC member and outspoken progressive, is running for a vice chair post with the goal of improving "accountability and transparency" at the committee and curbing the influence of dark money—something the DNC has repeatedly refused to address.
Sifry acknowledged Friday that "making the DNC's membership roster public may have little overall effect on the direction of the organization."
"It is, after all, highly dependent on big money and exquisitely attuned to the political needs of the party’s leading officials in Congress," he noted. "According to OpenSecrets, the top contributors to the DNC in the 2023-2024 cycle, after House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries' campaign organization, were Bain Capital ($2.9 million), Google parent company Alphabet ($2.6M), Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins ($2.5M), community media conglomerate Newsweb Corp. ($2.5M), Jeffrey Katzenberg’' holding company WndrCo ($2.5M), Microsoft ($2.4M), Reid Hoffman’s VC firm Greylock Partners ($2.4M), real estate developer McArthurGlen Group ($2.2M), and hedge fund Lone Pine Capital ($2.2M)."
However, Sifry added, "knowing who has actual voting power over the DNC's governance may give grassroots activists around the country who care about the party's future some greater capacity to focus their efforts on the people who actually pull the levers."
"What they do with that potential," he wrote, "is up to them."
'Shouldn't Be Controversial': Calls Grow for DNC to Ban Dark Money in Primaries
"Billionaires and their super PACs must not be able to buy Democratic Party primaries," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Sep 06, 2022
At the tail-end of a primary season that has seen torrents of dark money pour into districts across the U.S. to smear and defeat progressive candidates, the Democratic National Committee is facing mounting pressure to prohibit such spending in future elections, with supporters arguing such a ban would help jumpstart the process of cleaning up the nation's corrupt political process.
With the DNC scheduled to convene in Maryland later this week for its summer meeting, a group of more than 30 committee members spearheaded by Nevada Democratic Party Chair Judith Whitmer will demand approval of a resolution barring "the use of 'dark money' funding during any and all Democratic primary elections."
"If Democrats really believe in democracy and campaign finance reform, we must ban super PACs in primaries."
In an interview with The Nation last week, Whitmer warned that the "avalanche" of dark money is growing so large that voters are losing "their right to choose their own candidates."
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has called Whitmer's resolution "courageous" and declared that "any DNC member who truly believes in our slogan 'people over politics' should vote" in favor.
Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation's editor and publisher, argued in a column for the Washington Post on Tuesday that "passage of Whitmer's resolution shouldn't be controversial."
"No one can doubt that action is imperative," vanden Heuvel wrote. "According to the nonpartisan research group OpenSecrets, dark money topped $1 billion in the 2020 presidential race. This year, the Wesleyan Media Project reported, nearly 60% of all ads in Democratic House primaries have been purchased by sources that did not disclose, or only partially disclosed, their donors."
"Democrats in both the House and the Senate voted overwhelmingly for H.R. 1, the sweeping voting-rights bill introduced in 2021, which included strong campaign finance elements," vanden Heuvel added. "President Biden campaigned for its passage. That bill was ultimately defeated but, now, the Democratic National Committee can take action to clean its own house. It should not fail this test."
Several high-profile progressive lawmakers including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)--the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus--recently endorsed the idea of a dark money ban in Democratic primaries after watching progressive candidates lose congressional races that were inundated by super PAC cash, which is often difficult to trace due to the country's tattered campaign finance laws.
"It is now time to speak with one voice to end its influence in Democratic primaries--where record sums of money from millionaires and billionaires have infiltrated our primaries, and super PACs have drowned out the grassroots campaigns of working-class, progressive candidates," Jayapal, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) wrote in a June letter to the DNC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
"Instead of Democratic primaries being an honest and free exchange of ideas with individual and small-dollar donor contributors dominant, corporate super PACs have flooded these races with millions in misleading mailers, digital ads, and television commercials," the letter continued. "Candidates who have worked hard to build grassroots support in their communities are being overwhelmed by a torrent of outside spending."
In a number of races this primary cycle, a super PAC formed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and bankrolled by Republican billionaires intervened on the side of corporate Democrats running against progressives such as Pennsylvania's Summer Lee--who ultimately won her race despite the opposition spending--and Jessica Cisneros, who lost by the thinnest of margins to right-wing incumbent Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas).
Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), widely considered the most progressive Jewish member of the House, also lost his primary to fellow Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) in a newly drawn district after facing millions in opposition spending from the United Democracy Project, AIPAC's super PAC.
Sanders, who campaigned for Levin and vocally condemned super PAC influence on the race, tweeted Tuesday that "billionaires and their super PACs must not be able to buy Democratic Party primaries."
"If Democrats really believe in democracy and campaign finance reform, we must ban super PACs in primaries," the Vermont senator added. "I stand with progressive reformers advocating for this change."
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