David Hogg sparked friction in his party when he threatened to support a major challenge for his fellow Democrats.
The Democratic National Committee will vote in June to decide whether to override the vice-speaker elections for activist David Hogg and Pennsylvania Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta on February 1st.
Future votes are the result of the May 22 meeting of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee, which voted 25-0 to advance the procedural challenges to these elections.
Hogg sparked controversy by announcing in April that he would support a key challenge for incumbent Democrats, whom he felt leadership was “ineffective.”
DNC Chair Ken Martin opposed Hogg’s plan and said DNC officials should remain neutral in the election.
“Let me be clear: DNC officials should not try to influence the outcome of the primary on behalf of incumbents or challengers,” Martin appeared on Fox News.
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The February 28th challenge took place less than a month after Hogg’s election.
DNC members will vote electronically between June 9th and 11th to invalidate or maintain election results.
If they vote to negate, they will hold the election with the same five candidates.
The first election in which men must be appointed in accordance with DNC rules will take place from June 12th to 15th. The second could be of any gender and will take place from June 15th to 17th.
However, the election was contested because it violated the complex DNC laws that require gender equality in elections.
There were two empty vice-chair slots, and the decree had to fill the first slot by a man. The second could be any gender.
Instead of having two separate elections, the DNC placed all five candidates in one vote, and both slots in that vote, combining the results. Kenyatta received 289 votes and Hogg received 214 votes.
Kalyn Free, a Democrat and lawyer and representative of Oklahoma, also took part in the vote, saying the structure made it “mathematically impossible” for women to win.
The driving force of overturning the election led to allegations that the DNC was taking advantage of the free challenge of removing him as vice-chairman with a simple majority vote, rather than the two-thirds that is normally required.
Hogg admitted this is true, However, the “consensus” he spoke of among members was that the challenge was unlikely to advance.
That changed when he made the controversial policy decisions, he said in an interview with MSNBC.
At the committee hearing on May 22, he asked members to reconsider.
“I would like to say that if we neglect this election and start over, we risk sending a very underconfident message not only within our party but also among the public,” Hogg said ahead of the vote.
“The general signal that we’re sending them, and in this case, Democrats can’t hold elections.”
