The meeting to decide whether to retain or remove our current ADP Chairman Robert Branscomb is now scheduled, per petition, on July 16th, meeting virtually.
Following some seemingly not-entirely-in-good-faith preliminary plans for a special meeting by the Chair that failed to provide a virtual meeting as the petition required, and didn’t provide timely notice of even what city the in-person meeting was to be held in, nor what the motion to be considered actually was about, and a previous (unintentional?) date and time conflict with MCDP’s Summer Convention on July 28th, the meeting is now on the schedule and has been properly noticed per the ByLaws.
From the emailed notice to State Committee Members (SCMs):
| IMPORTANT UPDATE | VIRTUAL MEETING JULY 16th |
| Dear State Committee Members, First, thank you for your patience and continued engagement over the past several days as we’ve worked to schedule the special meeting. We apologize for the multiple date changes and for any disruption this may have caused—especially to the Maricopa County Democratic Party and anyone balancing both meetings. At its June 19 Executive Board meeting, the ADP Board approved a new date and time for our special State Committee session: Virtual Special Meeting Date: Wednesday, July 16, 2025Time: 6:00 PM Arizona Time Meeting Purpose: Presentation of the Motion to Discuss and Conduct a Vote for the Removal of Arizona Democratic Party Chairman Robert Branscomb Additional information and mobilize link will be provided ASAP. |
| Download Proxy Form |
| Agenda |
| 6:00 PM | Virtual Meeting Opens 6:05 PM | Meeting Called to Order 6:07 PM | Pledge of Allegiance 6:09 PM | Credentials Report Credential Report for Calling this Special Meeting, Credential Report for Quorum for this Special Meeting 6:20 PM | Rules of Discussion / Rules of Voting Review 6:40 PM | Parliamentarian Will Take Over to Conduct Vote 6:50 PM | Discussion and Vote 8:00 PM | Adjourn |
It currently seems like the meeting will acually occur. And I believe that it is vitally important for the future and function of the State Party that as many SCMs as possible actually attend. This matter is unlikely to be resolved unless there are sufficient Members present to potentially form a decisive quorum on the question to be resolved: whether to remove or retain the Chairman.
Per our ByLaws, “Any elected State Committee Officer shall be removed from office by a two-thirds (2/3) vote of the total.” (emphasis added) Therefore, unless AT LEAST 2/3rds of the TOTAL number of SCMs (currently about 700 – please leave a comment if you know the exact current number) are present at the meeting, the matter cannot be resolved definitively.
One might think that if there simply wasn’t a sufficient number of SCMs in attendance to actually effectuate removal by 2/3rds, or to deny removal by at least 1/3, that would end the matter. However, I suggest that it would not.
The discontent among the Executive Committee and Board, and the SCMs at large, is such that until and unless a dispositive vote with a sufficient quorum is taken to either remove or retain, there will certainly be further petitons to raise the matter again until a sufficient quorum is present.
Such a petition is not subject to any rule of preclusion in the ByLaws that I can see, i.e. Branscomb’s critics will try again until they are sure that SCMs have held a decisive vote one way or the other with a suffiencient quorum to be dispositive. Evading the question by a denial of quorum seems to me unlikely to succeed in the long term, even if it seems a viable strategy at first glance.
Here is the portion of the ByLaws providing for a meeting by petition:
“The Chair shall call a meeting within twenty (20) days of the date designated by any petition filed with the Secretary and signed by ten (10) percent of the total membership of the body whose meeting is sought, as long as such petition is signed by members of at least three (3) counties.”
There is no rule of limitation on the number of such petitions, nor any rule regarding a preclusiuon of multiple petitons on the same subject that I can see. The only limit appears to be the patience and appetite of the requisite 10%, among a diversity of three counties, for any such special meetings. If someone has a contrary reading, please let me know.
In short, it seems to me that a Chair cannot easily survive and insurrection against his/her leadership for very long by a determined and motivated faction of SCMs who are deeply enough discontent with that leadership.
And that may be a useful feature in the structure of our ByLaws, not a bug to be patched. A party divided against itself so significantly can hardly hope to be politically effective.
The role of the Chair is to unite and to compromise and to resolve differences, to lead collaboratively and to negotiate conflict. A Chair who has incurred the obdurate opposition of a substantial portion of the Party Membership, whatever the reasons for that rift, seems unlikely to be an effective leader, and might want to consider stepping aside for someone who can unite and lead the entire party forward.
Can an embattled Chair be a successful Chair? I don’t know. Proximately, only the SCMs collectively can answer that. Ultimately, only the subsequent electoral results can provide a definitive answer. Of course, if one waits for the electorate’s judgment, it is rather too late to do anything about it.
I have promised that I will publish an attempt at a full account of the critics’ allegations and any response by Branscomb and his defenders here on the blog before any such vote. Look for that well in advance of the Special Meeting on July 16th. If you have a viewpoint on this matter (especially if you have first hand knowledge, or if you are an involved elected, or are a staffer with direct knowledge) and want a fair hearing, either on the record or on background, please contact me: I’m listening.
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Since June 9th there have been 4 news articles negative to Arizona Democratic Party Chairman Robert Branscomb. Two of the articles were in the Arizona Daily Star: Tim Steller on 6/13/25 and Mary Jo Pitzel on 6/15/25. Tucson Agenda published a lengthy article by Joe Ferguson and Hank Stephenson on June 9th. On the same day Michael Bryant printed “On Chair Branscomb and Disunity of the ADP” promising more to follow. I wonder how many of their sources trace back to Steven Jackson? Did anyone talk with the parliamentarian to see how many times he had to admonished Mr. Jackson appropriately during the meeting? Now we have the announcement on Blog for Arizona of the vote to consider retention Mr. Branscomb.
As a registered Democrat and someone on the periphery of the ADP I have a number of thoughts and opinions on these articles and the subsequent action to vote on Mr. Branscomb’s retention. In my view, many members of ADP leadership have failed us miserably for a long time. But now, when Republicans hand us daily ammunition to assure we win in 2026, it is critical that we have strong, intelligent and united leadership. Instead we are airing our dirty laundry in public.
As a member of the League of Women Voters, the Democrats of Oro Valley, an election volunteer for Kirsten Engel’s campaign and a consultant to the ADP Census and Redistricting Committee I have witnessed the ADP from a number of fronts. Here are points I want to make:
The ADP has had a number of poor chairs. The las one had a delayed start due to involvement on a Grand Jury. But Mr. Branscomb seems to have been given a shorter time line to succeed than previous chairs. Mr. Bruant says the cause is not racism, and may be correct, since Branscomb was elected by a healthy majority of state committee members (SCMs). Could an alternative cause be a much smaller group of Democrats, an old guard refusing to relinquish power or accept new ideas?
Coming from corporate America, government appointments and volunteering for a wide number of organizations such as the American Heart Association I am constantly appalled at the poor leadership skills of a number of members of the ADP. There is apparently no leadership and management training is available. And no one seems to have the talent for effective and timely meetings.
The ADP ignored the 2020 redistricting process ending up with a number of Republican gerrymandered districts most notably LD17, my district.
When those of us who followed the redistricting process from the beginning proposed the party form a stand-alone committee to follow the 2030 Census and the redistricting process, we were met with over a year of phone calls not returned, recommendations slow walked and outright sabotage by the Chair of the ADP Rules Committee. When approval was finally given, it was restricted to only State Committee Members. This eliminated those of us who followed the 2020 process for the League of Woman Voters, Indivisible and other advocacy groups concerned about the ways our Census number and our Independent Redistricting Commission could be sabotaged. Together we also investigated other state commissions and have gained deep knowledge about which strategies can best minimize corruption. The foot dragging gives us less than four years to pass solutions.
Working on the Engel campaign I became horrified by the inadequacy of the VAN and found its weaknesses have been known for years. We had volunteers from all over the country and Canada come to canvas for us only to waste their time by sending them to gated communities and secured apartment buildings. I found a number of volunteers working with me had been submitting this information for years to no avail. Further we repeatedly found volunteers being sent to locations already canvassed by other LDs; an embarrassing failure of coordination.
I question the validity and usability of the VAN as it has me listed as male which does not reflect what is on my driver license or voter registration. I have been here correctly gender identified for over 20 years.
As with the VAN, the electronic voting system has been faulty for years wasting tons of volunteer time as voting takes 30 minutes to an hour. I cannot believe a better system isn’t available. Why has this not been fixed?
Finally, I don’t understand the difference between the ADP and the ALDC so I don’t know who this complaint belongs to. Two female 2024 candidates I supported were asked, after they had gathered all the necessary signatures, to step down from the AZ Senate race to run instead for House. Neither of their male replacements won. How do we develop a strong bench and get people to run with this nonsensical manipulation? The one candidate who agreed to step down did not receive any funds for her House race from the party.
Finally watching the No Kings rallies come together I was amazed by the skills and excellent coordination of Indivisible and the other organizations that coordinated. I will follow these groups to the ends of the earth. They can assure we beat MAGA. WHERE WAS THE ADP?
Finally one of the criticisms of Mr. Branscomb is that in the 5 short months he has been in office he has not raised “enough” funds. I for one am not donating to either the ADP or the national committee because of the publicized dissensions. I donate directly to candidates.
Arizona Democrats until the 2024 election were on a constant losing streak. We now have two US Senators, 3 US House representatives, Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General. But do we have an old guard ADP so used to being in the minority they don’t have what it takes to win and lead us into a successful majority future?