Q&A WITH NEW STATE DEMOCRATIC CHAIRWOMAN
Her election as chairwoman of the Nevada Democratic Party this past weekend, Judith Whitmer insists, isn’t about state party progressives toppling the old guard machine run by former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid.
Whenever the state’s Democratic Party Central Committee elects a leader, the goal is to get more Democrats elected to office, and this year was no different, said Whitmer, who led a coalition of candidates backed by the Las Vegas chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America to sweep the top spots in the state party’s apparatus. Whitmer defeated Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom, the pick of the so-called establishment side of the party, as chair. Also elected were Jacob Allen, first vice chair; Zaffar Iqbal, second vice chair; Ahmed Ade, secretary; and Howard Beckerman, treasurer.
The new slate of officers, all supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Nevada caucuses, takes over without an executive director or staff. The former executive director, Alana Mounce, along with the entire staff resigned shortly after Saturday’s vote. The state party also has less than $100,000 on hand after a $450,000 transfer to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, likely to be used for Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s 2022 reelection bid, according to published reports. Whitmer said the narrative about a divided party wasn’t completely accurate. She pointed to a social media post from Segerblom congratulating Whitmer and saying he hoped to work with her in the future.
With Saturday’s vote now in the books, it’s time for party members to get working toward races in 2022 and 2024. Whitmer stressed that she had already reached out to Nevada’s elected Democratic officials for feedback and was starting to plan for the upcoming elections.
The Sun caught up with Whitmer to answer some questions about the Nevada Democratic Party’s short- and long-term future:
To what do you attribute progressive gains?
The main reason is that for a while now we’ve seen a shift in the Nevada electorate. Bernie won by a landslide in Nevada, and a lot of progressives have stayed energized and organized and involved. Coming out of the caucuses, even after Bernie suspended his campaign, we were able to keep all of those delegates energized through the convention process and encouraged them to join the Central Committee and get engaged and be involved. We were constantly encouraging people to get involved. If you want things to happen, you’ve got to do the work and you’ve got to be involved.
Were you surprised or concerned about staff resignations?
It was a little bit of a surprise in the fact that I was accused a couple of times of saying I was going to fire the staff, and I never said that. I was very surprised by that.
The executive director had made it clear that she was not going to continue, as she had been offered a position at the Democratic National Committee. That is the position that I was expecting to fill once I assumed office.
What’s the next move? Who’s your first hire?
The first move is to hire an executive director. We have people who have submitted their resumes and we’re going through that process now. For right now, I have the experience and the ability, and I have people who are
volunteers who stepped in and helped also, but I come from a 27-year career managing multibillion-dollar projects, which included moving around resources and personnel, working with contractors and consultants. I’ve also worked in procurements, so I know what the process is, I know how to get it done.
We are currently getting that process underway. I expect to have a shortlist of people for the executive director position. From there the executive director will be tasked with doing the interviewing and hiring of staff. I expect that process to go very smoothly.
Former Sen. Harry Reid has been instrumental in setting up the Nevada Democratic Party as we know it, and endorsed President Joe Biden before Super Tuesday last year. Are you concerned about any friction with Reid?
I have not had any negative interaction with Harry Reid or any other elected official. I’m hoping that I’ll have a good session with Sen. Reid. I’ve reached out to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s office. I’ve reached out to numerous other elected officials to set up meetings and phone calls.
I’ll be continuing to do that outreach as well to make sure that they understand that we are all members of the Democratic Party and to win in 2022, to elect Democrats, is our first priority.
Even though there’s talk about divisiveness or the Reid machine — I know there’s a lot of stuff going on on social media, a lot of rumors going around — I don’t want that to distract from the work at hand.
Let’s talk about some strategies for 2022. How do you feel about Democrats’ chances?
I’m very optimistic about 2022, and I’m not willing to concede one single thing. There’s going to be some really good opportunities to pick up additional seats and to start looking at where we can be competitive in some districts that were previously just sort of dismissed or ignored.
I’m looking forward to 2022 and I’m looking forward to the work that’s in front of us. We’ll be constantly on the ground, engaging people year-round, we’re not going to wait until the lead-up to the election.
We’re out now, getting the messages out, doing the work in the communities making sure that they know the Democratic Party is the party of the people and that we are representing their needs and listening to their voices, and making sure that we don’t give the Legislature back to Republicans.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s not an option.
What are some of the areas where you think Democrats can be competitive?
Areas around here would be like Boulder City and Mesquite, places like that that we typically don’t put resources in.
Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson, D-las Vegas, has introduced a bill that would make Nevada the first presidential nominating state and get rid of caucuses. Are you supportive? What are the strategies to get that through?
I’m extremely supportive of that and I’m excited by it. I’ve been saying for the past couple of years that we needed to start leveraging the (Democratic National Committee) to go first and to get to a primary so that we’re not disenfranchising voters.
While caucuses were good for some rural areas and bringing people together, the reality is that it’s hard on working people to spend hours trying to vote in a caucus.
How will you balance some of the competing interests between the party’s moderate and progressive wings?
We’re all parts of the same party and we’re all trying to achieve the same goal, which is to elect Democrats. A lot of the so-called division was based on campaign tactics, and some of those divisions will be immediately healed when people get to work electing Democrats.
We talked about unity because it’s important and we’re going to do the work to make sure we unify the party. That means a lot of outreach and a lot of conversation to address any concerns or issues that anyone has.
We have a tendency to divide ourselves, and that’s what I want to get past. We need to be doing everything we can to work together, and it’s OK that we have diverse opinions, diverse ideologies. That really doesn’t matter because at the end of the day we’ve got to hold our Democratic seats and we’ve got to elect Democrats.
No matter whether they’re progressive, conservative or moderate, every Democrat will agree that we cannot let Republicans take control.