MDP Attorney to Congresswoman Tlaib:
"MDP Never [Follows Our Own Rules] in General Election Nominations"
In my earlier article on the Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) Botching the only contested nominations at the 2024 State Convention, I said the MDP just “ran the nominating process the way they’ve always run it before” violating the new rules the Party adopted in 2018.
I was on the Rules Committee at the time, and on the sub-committee that re-wrote the rules for voting and elections in the MDP. I was confident that the Party had just ignored the rules and done what it has always done before, because that’s how the Party has frequently behaved in the past, typically claiming “customary practice”.
In a conversation with Congresswoman Tlaib earlier today, I got confirmation of this hypothesis. Rep. Tlaib asked Sheila Cummings, an attorney with the MDP, about the U of M Regents’ election tabulation using majority voting rules when Party rules require slate voting for multiple-position offices, like Regents - MDP Rules for Voting and Elections (RVE) 2.1, 6.0 - 6.4.
Ms. Cummings response to Congresswoman Tlaib was,
“MDP never votes via slates in general election nominations.”
Since MDP Rules explicitly require slate voting for multiple-position offices, and since these nominations are often for multiple-position offices, this is equivalent to saying “MDP never [follows our own rules] in general election nominations.” At best, she’s saying they never follow their own rules when nominating multiple-position offices.
Slate voting is designed to ensure minority coalitions can win political power in proportion to their numbers. Refusing to use slate voting is refusing to allow minority coalitions to win representation, using the election system to ensure only the majority is represented. In this case, refusing to allow minorities to win representation by directly violating our own rules as approved by the sub-committee on Voting and Elections, the State Party Rules Committee, the State Central Committee, and the State Party.
This raises the question: what rules does MDP follow when undertaking it’s constitutional duties under Michigan law? The Michigan Constitution places a great deal of trust in political parties to nominated candidates for positions like Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Supreme Court Justices, and University Boards, like the U of M Board of Regents. Michigan law gives political parties the duty and the power to nominate these powerful positions. No further details for conducting these nominations are given in Michigan law. Therefore, under Michigan law, the relevant rules are the party rules. Since the relevant rules are the Party rules, if MDP leadership isn’t following Party rules, what rules are they following? There aren’t any Michigan laws to follow other than our own Party rules.
If leadership doesn’t follow Party rules on these nominations, and there aren’t any other rules to follow, then Sheila Cummins is effectively admitting that the MDP doesn’t follow the rules when leadership doesn’t feel like following rules.
This admission should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Ms. Cummings history as an MDP Attorney. Here’s a paragraph from my May 25th 2021 article on a very similar issue, titled “MDP Leadership Sabotages Party Elections, State Primaries”:
Sheila Cummings, the MDP’s lawyer, claimed MISolidarity did have an opportunity to nominate, despite the clear and obvious steps Chair Barnes and her team took to ensure we could not. The first video clip above makes clear this is false and the second clip only emphasizes that Chair Barnes deliberately, intentionally, with knowledge and forethought broke the rules to prevent MISolidarity from nominating our slate. If Cummings is being paid by the MDP, her client is the State Central Committee, not Chair Barnes. Lying about our opportunity to nominate and the status of “customary practices” under the rules serves Chair Barnes’ interest in covering up her illegitimate acts – not the MDP’s or the State Central Committee’s interest in fairly adjudicating the appeal. It is my understanding that a lawyer is bound to serve their client, and knowingly acting against their client’s interests is a violation of their professional ethics. Here’s the audio of Cummings lying (there was no video of the Appeals Committee meeting).
The “customary practice” argument Ms. Cummings and MDP made back in 2021 is the same idea as the “MDP never votes via slates in general election nominations” argument they’re making through her again. Ms. Cummins is saying that the MDP’s “customary practice” is to not follow the Party rules: they ran it they way we’ve always run it before, according to their “customary practice,” even though the Party rules covering voting and elections changed six years ago.
The “customary practice” argument is obviously false. Under MDP Rules, written rules always take precedence over unwritten rules. This is both specifically written into our Parliamentary Authority (Robert’s Rules 46:30 12th ed), and a (small-d) democratic principles any Party calling itself “Democratic” ought to adhere to: you can’t have rule by the people (democracy) if the people don’t have access to the clearly written rules, or can’t rely on the written rules because leadership ignores them when they’re either to lazy or incompetent to update their processes, or find the written rules inconvenient. Additionally, MDP Rule 2.5 states explicitly that if a rule isn’t posted publicly on the MDP website, it is not an MDP rule. The Rules for Voting and Elections (RVE) as adopted in 2018 is posted in the MDP website. No other rules governing voting or elections in the MDP is posted on the website. Therefore, the RVE is the controlling authority over these elections.
No “customary practices” allowed.
//
For those interested: here’s the story of what happened when I first joined the MDP, and my 4 year progress report (2016 -2020), after which I was elected to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on the Solidarity Slate (also see the platform). Here’s my 2023 DNC report. I’ll write a final DNC report before the end of the year when my term ends. Some other good articles from this era include this piece on clearly distinguishing between capitalism and markets, this one on collective bargaining, and this piece on cargo cult democracy. For a summary of problems in the Democratic Party, see this press packet.