Brooklyn Democrats pick Nikki Lucas as chair in a vote reformers say defied the courts

The Brooklyn Democratic Party said Monday that Assemblymember Nikki Lucas is its new chair. She was chosen in a late-night Zoom vote on Sunday that party reformers say broke court orders barring the election.

Former chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn called the virtual executive committee meeting. Lucas received 34 votes, but only 13 came from the 42 district leaders elected in the June primary. Only four of those leaders were actually on the call, and the rest voted by proxy. Another 21 of her votes came from 26 members added to the executive committee through a rule change that a lower court and an appeals court have both found unlawful.

“I am deeply honored by the vote of confidence from my fellow District Leaders and our Executive Committee,” Lucas said in a statement the party released. The party, Bichotte Hermelyn and Lucas did not answer further questions about the court orders.

Court orders and the contempt motion

A pending lawsuit from reformers allied with New Kings Democrats led a state Supreme Court justice to step in last week. The judge’s temporary restraining order bars the party from choosing leaders until the case is decided, and because of it, an executive committee session set for Sept. 29 was pushed back. In a separate ruling, the court held that Bichotte Hermelyn’s time as chair ran out after the county committee’s Sept. 23 organizational meeting. That ruling made Rep. Nydia Velázquez, newly elected as county committee chair, the interim leader and the one with power to call an executive committee meeting. The reformers responded Monday with court papers seeking contempt findings against Bichotte Hermelyn and all participants in Sunday’s vote, a penalty that can mean fines or jail time. New Kings Democrats called the vote “illegal and undemocratic.”

How the Brooklyn Democratic Party fight started

Reformers won enough district leader seats in June to choose their own chair and planned to elect longtime district leader Julio Peña III. Bichotte Hermelyn then had outgoing district leaders vote on a rule change that added a group of appointed members to the executive committee. The courts ruled that leaders who had already lost their seats had no authority to make such changes, and the appeals court declared the changes null and void.

Velázquez is a longtime opponent of the party organization and an ally of the reformers. She ended up leading the county committee after the party’s own slate left out a name for chairperson at a heated meeting last month. The county party has more than a million registered members.