2025 MDP Convention: Rules Issue#2
The Establishment Doesn't Know and Doesn't Care to Know MDP Rules
UPDATE
Curtis Hertel called and we talked for about 30 minutes. He doesn’t intend the executive board election to run on February 22nd, he intends those elections to be run at the next State Central Committee meeting, which should provide at least 30 to 60 additional days for candidates to file. He agreed to set up a meeting with me to discuss the rules issues. I hope to hear back from him soon to schedule it.
The Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) will hold its biannual leadership elections on February 22nd, 2025. The complete schedule and details are available in the Call to Convention.
As I wrote about last time, the establishment doesn’t bother enforcing our rules. Often, they don’t bother to know what the rules are. Unfortunately, there’s another example of this playing out in real time, with real consequences for the future of our Party.
Curtis Hertel, supported by Governor Whitmer, is undoubtedly the establishment candidate for MDP Chair. He’s already demonstrating he doesn’t know the rules, doesn’t care to learn them, and isn’t going to follow them.
A few days ago, Hertel published a “slate” of people he wants on his executive board. These are candidates for Vice-Chair (at least 6 of them), Treasurer, Recording and Corresponding Secretaries, “Legislative Chairs” (likely Vice-Chairs with a different title? These don’t exist in the rules), and the Parliamentarian. There are two big problems with this. First, there’s breaking Bylaw 2.15, which we’ll get to below. Second, his choice for Parliamentarian.
The Parliamentarian’s job is to ensure the Party follows our rules and procedures.
Hertel’s pick for Parliamentarian is the current and long-time Parliamentarian, Nathan Triplett. Nathan Triplett is a perfectly nice guy, but he’s also a guy who regularly, repeatedly, consistently, and egregiously ignores his duties as Parliamentarian to ensure the establishment can break the rules when it wants, how it wants. Some examples:
At the 2017 Convention, Triplett didn’t know (or pretended not to know) what proportional voting was, or how cumulative voting works. Proportional voting has been a key feature of Party rules since the early 1970s. Cumulative voting is detailed in Robert’s Rules of Order (RRoO, our parliamentary authority), was a named valid procedure in MDP rules at the time (we removed it in 2018), and is frequently used by the Federal Judiciary to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Triplett is a lawyer working in the Democratic Party and couldn’t be bothered to know - or look up on his phone once I informed him - how these key democratic processes work. He didn’t care to know, he cared about serving the establishment.
In 2019, Triplett allowed the State Central Committee (the legislative body elected at conventions to lead party decision making between conventions, abbreviated as the SCC) to vote on and adopt an establishment amendment to ban audio and video recording and still photography at Party meetings, even though the establishment authors - practicing lawyers among them - failed to publish the details of the amendment 2 weeks in advance, as required by Bylaw 14.2. This bylaw exists to ensure everyone has time to read and think through any amendment to the rules, but the establishment wanted that ban, so Triplett abdicated his duty and actively helped to illegitimately adopt it.
At the first 2021 SCC meeting, using zoom due to the pandemic, he allowed SCC meetings to carry on without the required “simultaneous aural communications among all participants” (RRoO Rule 1). The establishment used the webinar feature of zoom and controlled everyone’s microphones. Having “simultaneous aural communications” is literally the first rule in Robert’s Rules of Order, without which you can’t hold a meeting at all. The reason is clear: if the people in power control the microphones, coalitions in the minority are silenced - utterly dependent on whether the people in power allow them to speak or not. The establishment used its control of the microphones to prevent a coalition of SCC members from putting forward their slate of Officers-At-Large, ensuring only the establishment slate could be considered.
At the same 2021 SCC meeting, Triplett again demonstrated his subservience to the establishment, and his indifference to following our rules, when he allowed officers to be appointed rather than, as our rules require, elected (Bylaws 7.1.1). He’s consistently allowed that same rule to be broken every election cycle since I’ve been in the Party.
Every rule violation at the SCC or at MDP Conventions I’ve documented, here on substack or on my earlier blog over my 8+ years in the Party has been observed and approved by Nathan Triplett. Including the last Convention where the establishment broke the rules egregiously and still has a case pending in federal court.
Selecting Nathan Triplett is a loud and clear signal that Hertel doesn’t intend to make any changes to how the Party is run. Regardless of how nice he might sound or how sincere his promises come across, Hertel doesn’t have any plan to actually following the rules, his plan is just to do things the way the establishment has always done them. His selection of a candidate for Parliamentarian with the above record demonstrates his plan is to run the Party exactly as the establishment has always run it, rules be damned.
Hertel is gearing up to break the rules a lot literally his first few hours in office, should he be elected. The Executive Board positions on Hertel’s “slate” are typically elected at an SCC meeting the same day as the Convention, convened immediately after the Convention adjourns. The problem is, none of his 3rd through 6th Vice-Chairs, his two Secretaries, his Treasurer, or his “Legislative Chairs” (both sitting establishment State Legislators) have complied with MDP Bylaw 2.15:
All party members seeking election to high-level office within the MDP shall be required to file their candidacy with the MDP at least 30 days in advance of the election. Requirements for filing shall include: Name, address, phone number, email address, and other contact information. The MDP shall be required to promptly publish all information required for filing on its website. “High-level office” within the MDP shall be defined, for the purposes of this section, to include the following positions: DNC member, MDP Chair, MDP Vice-Chair, MDP Treasurer, MDP Secretary, and Chair and Vice-Chair for all congressional district organization.
The deadline for filing was January 23rd, as clearly stated in the Call to Convention. The MDP has only posted candidate information for people running for MDP Chair and 1st and 2nd Vice-Chair. It’s now 5 days past the deadline. The published list has already been revised at least three times (removing two Vice-Chair candidates who decided not to run, and adding one they missed who did file), so there’s no reason to think they’re holding anything back. Here’s a screenshot of the webpage today:
Since the only names published in compliance with MDP Bylaw 2.15 are for MDP Chair and MDP 1st and 2nd Vice-Chairs, those are the only positions on his “slate” eligible to be elected on February 22nd, by the Convention or the SCC. Again, let's be very clear. These are simple rules about transparency intended and adopted to make sure people know who’s running for high level office in the Party, and that we as party members have at least 30 days to assess them to decide who to vote for.
It should be noted that no candidates for Congressional District Chair or Vice-Chair have been posted either, which means no CD can elect Chairs or Vice-Chairs at the February 22nd Convention, even in the just 4 of 13 CDs that actually have rules under MDP Bylaws.
Nathan Triplett was the Chair of the MDP Rules and Bylaws Committee when we drafted and adopted 2.15 (I was also on that committee). Certainly Hertel and Triplett talked about rules and how Triplett thinks about them before Hertel selected Triplett for Parliamentarian, right? That’s what a responsible person does before selecting someone for an Executive Board position, right? I assume Triplett told Hertel about these requirements Triplett helped draft and adopt, right? Certainly Hertel must have read the Party rules carefully, right? It’s only a 16 page document. Bylaw 2.15 is on page three. It’s pretty straightforward, and he wants to be Chair of the Party - he ought to know the rules. Or at least read what they require to run for Chair, including Bylaw 2.15.
The establishment candidate doesn’t bother learning the rules, because the establishment never bothers following the rules anyway, aided by parliamentarians like Triplett.
Several people told me they asked Hertel to talk to me about rules issues. One of them sent me his email, and I wrote him - no reply. When I met Hertel at the forum organized by the Washtenaw County Democratic Party, I asked if he’d meet with me to discuss the rules issues. He said he would, and asked me to call him, but didn’t give me his number. I tracked down his number and called him. He promised to set up a meeting. That was weeks ago. I’ve texted reminders, but received no reply. The message to anyone who cares about fair, inclusive, transparent, and democratic rules is crystal clear: Hertel doesn’t care to even hear the concerns of the grassroots, progressives, or leftists in the Party.
If he had met with me, I’d have informed him of 2.15, among other key rules, same as I’m happy to talk to anyone who’s interested in understanding what’s happening in the Party. For example, a few days ago, I received a call from the Secretary for one of the 9 of 13 CDs without rules posted to the MDP website, and thus without any rules at all, under MDP Bylaw 2.5. They said they couldn’t get hold of their rules, even after requesting it from their CD Chair several times. This is typical of how the establishment operates. I’ve talked to many officers of Party units over the years that had never looked at the MDP rules or their unit’s rules, often never even had a copy and didn’t know where to find one. This is one of the reasons I wrote and pushed for adopting what has now been, for six years, MDP Bylaw 2.5 - requiring all Party units to publish their rules on the MDP website. For six years, the establishment leadership of the Party hasn’t bothered to enforce this rule.
Leadership not knowing or caring to know the rules is a big problem in the Democratic Party. Hertel is either deliberately planning to break the rules on his first day if he gets elected, or he’s just going to break them because he doesn’t know them and “the way we’ve always done it” is more convenient for the establishment, rules be damned. It wouldn’t even be hard to do it correctly according to the rules, but why bother when you can just not even know the rules, while people like Nathan Triplett ensure you can do what you want regardless of the rules?
Selecting an egregious, consistent, and persistent rule-breaker like Triplett for Parliamentarian entirely undermines Hertel’s campaign pitch - that he’ll be different than every other establishment Chair we’ve ever elected and actually care about the grassroots and the rules. Selecting Triplett either demonstrates a total ignorance of how the Party actually operates, which is obviously disqualifying, or it demonstrates an utter contempt for the rules designed and intended to protect minorities against abuses by the majority, and the people as a whole from abuses by the tiny minority of people in power - also totally disqualifying. Hertel is going around making promises about being fair, inclusive, transparent, and democratic. Supporting Triplett for Parliamentarian demonstrates Hertel doesn’t actually mean a word of it - or at best he’s so deeply ignorant of how the Party actually works he obviously doesn’t understand it enough to run it effectively. Either way, his first decision out of the gate is totally disqualifying.
Like Triplett, Hertel is a perfectly nice guy. He’s also spent his entire life being a good and loyal soldier for the establishment. Selecting Triplett and not bothering to know his Executive Board needed to file to run on February 22nd is just doing things the way the establishment has always done them - controlling the Party from the top down to ensure it only pushes the big donors’ priorities, or priorities that don’t interfere with the big donors’ profits.
Allowing the big donors to constrain our policy choices is exactly why Harris lost in 2024. Unfortunately, electing Hertel sets up the MDP to continue being dominated by the big donors, restricting our policy choices to serve their priorities, and losing - again.
To break this cycle of losing, we need a Chair who isn’t a loyal establishment soldier.
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