On Chair Branscomb and the Current Disunity of the ADP

It’s time to break my written silence on this matter. First, I am an elected Precint Committeeman in LD20 and a State Committee Member of the ADP. I hold no other office in the Arizona Democratic Party, currently.

I have had many conversations with all sides of this matter and look forward to having many more to ensure I have a complete and balanced view of this controversy. I intend to post a full, and hopefully balanced, account of this entire matter before State Committee Members are asked to make a choice to retain or remove Chair Branscomb pursuant to the Special Meeting petition that has been submitted for verification to the ADP leadership.

I recently read in one of my favorite online news publications, The Tucson Agenda, and its sister newsroom Arizona Agenda (I encourage our readers to support these working journalists/entreprenuers who are trying to keep our community informed and our elected officials on their toes, all while building in real time a financially viable new model of a modern online newsroom), this snippet about ADP Chair Branscomb’s current woes, “And he and some of his supporters have argued that the only reason he’s facing so much blowback for the letter and scrutiny of his job so far is because he’s the first Black leader the Arizona Democratic Party has ever had.” (emphasis added)

I want to address this particular accusation directly right now. This amounts to an accusation of structural and/or habitual and tolerated racism within the governing bodies of the Arizona Democatic Party and amongst our publicly elected officials.

While I can confirm this viewpoint is certainly widely held among the members of the Arizona African American Caucus (AAA Caucus) based upon what I saw and heard at their caucus meeting prior to the main meeting on the 8th, other forums, and upon my personal conversations with many who feel this way, I think there is a great deal of questioning – indeed. anger and hurt – as to whether that is the case among the rest of the State Committee Members (SCMs) and the general Democratic Party’s activist base.

I would point out that while it is true that Chair Branscombe is the first Black Chair of the Arizona Democratic Party (ADP), we have had Black Chairs of the Democratic National Committee (Donna Brazile, 2016-17, and Jaime Harrison, 2021 – 25) who had entirely successful terms, and these past Black DNC Chairs were also leaders for Arizona as part of their national role. Those prominent leaders were not attacked by Arizona’s State Committee nor the Party activists out of racial animus. Neither was our Party’s first Black President. Neither was our first Black female Vice-President, nor our first Black female Presidential nominee. Neither have I seen the many other fine elected public officers and leaders from our Party so attacked, nor the many, many other Party officials who happen to have been Black been unfairly attacked due to their race here in Arizona by our own Party. It seems extraordinary, therefore, to claim such heretofore undiscovered animus is behind opposition to Chair Branscomb’s continued leadership, and therefore in need of strong and well-founded evidence, not vaguely attributed statements that I have thus far heard asserted as proof.

To claim that racial animus solely or primarily animates the ADP membership in Chair Branscomb’s case borders on the absurd – insulting, even, to the many non-Black Democrats who have labored beside our Black brothers and sisters for decades here in Arizona in the cause of racial justice and equality. There is a damn fine and rational reason why African Americans have overwhelmingly chosen the Democratic Party as their home, and why they have become the very soul of our Party’s conscience – we truly care and view Black Americans as wholly and deservedly equal and beloved fellow citizens who deserve their strong and vital voice in America’s story of our past and our future, and in the leadership of our Party and our government. Unlike the opposition Party, whose main engagement with some outliers in the Black community I would not hesitate to call tokenism.

The overwhelming majority of those outside the AAA Caucus with whom I have spoken, including some on the Executive Committee and and staffs of the relevant electeds and ADP, are quite adamant that racism is absolutely NOT the issue; matters of the personality, competency, experience, actions, and judgment of Chair Branscomb lie at the bottom of his current embattlement. I find these detailed and first person accounts of interactions with Chair Branscomb a broadly credible basis on which to criticize the Chair and question his continued leadership. I don’t believe these many accounts from a broad swath of participants in our political life, many of whom I have known and worked with for years, to be merely smokescreens for racist intentions. I think the concerns I have heard raised are particularized, often relucantly and regretfully conveyed, and broadly credible. These allegations will require answers and a reasonable response, not a spurious and blanket charge of racial bias.

I fully expected and understand why the AAA Caucus are choosing thus far to stand by Chair Branscomb, regardless of the concerns of many others about his fitness for the office. But I think they are undermining their own credibility with many in the Party by their claim that racism is the ONLY, or even a primary reason why Chair Branscomb finds himself embattled. I agree that it is relevant and healthy for us to question ourselves and query whether racism and racial stereotypes may have played a role in the unfolding of this impasse. But I respectfully suggest our Black Members find some other bases on which to defend Chair Branscomb, because this one is simply not very credible, tends to further embattle and embarrass the Chairman, and delights the opponents of our Party. Understanding as I do, thus far, the origins of this rift stretching back to the very first days following Chair Branscomb’s election, the reasons for this whole matter lie far from any structural, or inherent racial bias within our Party. There may be individual persons whose statements or actions may have been tainted by racism, that is not for me to judge but for readers ultimately to judge for themselves, I intend to merely relate any such evidence when the case is fully laid out and interrogated.

Of course, I am not Black. I simply cannot have had the same experiences that have lead many of our Black brothers and sisters to their own conclusions. But I am not convinced by the case for racism within the Democratic Party being a main cause for this problem as it has thus far been put to me. I can sympathize and intellectually understand the perspectives that have thus far been related to me, but I do not find them well-supported, nor – thus far – at all convincing. I strive to remain open to persuasion and evidence on the matter, however.

In any case, as my picture of the controversy deepens over the coming weeks, I will be posting here at BlogForArizona.net what I aspire to make a balanced and nuanced account of the events leading to this crisis, and the strongest possible defense of Chair Branscomb, based on my hopefully direct interviews and quotes of him and his supporters. I think that our SCMs deserve to have the fullest possible picture before any possible vote on whether Chair Branscomb should retain his position, and, indeed, Chair Branscomb deserves every possible opportunity to address the issues personally and directly.

I can assure those who reach out, and those to whom I speak about this sensitive matter that I will be carefully evaluating and respecting my ethical obligations and sentiments as both a citizen journalist and an attorney regarding sourcing and identities, quotations, and objectivity. When I have an opinion on matters, as I surely will, I will clearly state what is my own opinion and what is that of others.

Personally, I hope this can all be settled without a bruising special session to hash out the matter in a divisive vote, but I am far from sanguine as to that possibility based on my investigations and conversations thus far. Stay tuned for more on this subject in coming days and weeks in advance of any such special meeting.

Please try to be kind to one another in this trying time, folks.