Proxy Scandal Echoes Past Procedural Abuses in West Virginia Democratic Party

How Tactics First Used to Silence Minority Voices Were Deployed Against the Entire State Party.

To understand how the current crisis in the West Virginia Democratic Party evolved, one should examine the events surrounding the West Virginia State Democratic Executive Committee (WVSDEC) meeting in September 2023. On that day, with internal party elections on the line, a series of coordinated actions resulted in the subversion of the party's rules and the silencing of duly elected members of the committee.

It was also the first time the procedural misconduct and exclusionary tactics first used against BIPOC members in the Affirmative Action Committee in 2021 impacted the entire state party.

Step 1: Create the Problem

The stage was set in the days before the meeting. For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, party leadership denied a virtual attendance option for a WVSDEC meeting. Emails show County Chairs Association Chair Leigh Koonce pleading with leadership for a virtual option, citing members with "young children... health concerns... and members on fixed incomes, for whom travel isn't always possible". Black Caucus Chair Mary Ann Claytor argued that as Democrats who advocate for voting accessibility, "We must be willing to hold ourselves to those same high standards—no matter the inconvenience—or risk hypocrisy."

The leadership dismissed these pleas as "too hard to coordinate." Instead, the party's Recording Secretary, Jenny Craig, explicitly channeled everyone toward a single, less secure alternative: "use of a proxy is a great way to still be involved in the meeting and decision making and voting processes." The leadership created a problem and offered a seemingly innocuous if imperfect solution.

Step 2: Execute the Takeover

On the morning of the WVSDEC meeting, "A New Day PAC," a private political action committee run by key party official and WVSDEC member Selina Vickers, held an event for other committee members.

At the meeting that followed, a number of individuals began presenting written proxies for multiple members each, with some holding four or more simultaneously. A point of order was raised from the floor challenging this. A member pointed directly to the recent, established precedent set by the party's own parliamentarian just one year prior:

“This issue came up at the June 2022 organizational meeting and it was ruled by the parliamentarian that they only have one proxy”.

Instead of upholding the parliamentarian's recent ruling, the Chair, Mike Pushkin, unilaterally overturned it. His on-the-record justification was:

“There's no prohibition, nothing in our bylaws, that limit a proxy to only one person… Ruling of the chair is we're going to err on the side of the inclusion and allow people to carry proxies”.

Step 3: The Aftermath

With virtual participation denied and the one-member-one-proxy precedent overturned, the elections for key party positions proceeded. The results were conspicuously one-sided.

In the months following the meeting, the WVDP's own Rules and Bylaws Committee moved to create a new rule that explicitly limits proxies to one per person. It’s worth noting that this is a rule that was already established in Robert's Rules of Order.

Using Tactics Perfected in 2021

This was not a new tactic; it was the escalation of a pattern of abuse first tested on BIPOC members in 2021. The 2021 Grievance against the Affirmative Action Committee detailed seven specific counts of procedural misconduct. The Board of Appeals found in 2021 that misconduct

did occur in the AAC but offered no meaningful corrective action, which allowed the pattern to continue. The 2023 proxy scandal was the direct result of that failure. It was the moment the tactics used to silence a few members in a small committee were successfully deployed to hijack the entire state party.

NOTE: You can read the entire unedited and unverified automatic transcription of this meeting by following this [Google Drive Link].