This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated November 17, 2023
Brooklyn has a Democratic Party problem. Not with respect to candidates on the Democratic line winning their races – they did great in this year’s election – but with the Kings County Democratic party apparatus that Democratic candidates are succeeding in spite of, particularly here in southern Brooklyn where our general elections are competitive.
Rewinding a bit to the final days leading up to this past Election Day, a story was published in the New York Post about a former council staffer of Justin Brannan’s predecessor. The autistic man alleges that he suffered abuse and harassment during his time in that office and references a lawsuit he had filed against the City of New York, which was settled out of court a few years ago.
To cover all the facets of the case would take much more space than is available in this column. Regardless, you do not have to have a personal family connection to someone on the spectrum or with an intellectual disability, as I do, to know that we must never dismiss someone’s accusations out of hand.
The Post has published stories about this in each of the years Brannan has run for office: 2017, 2021, and 2023. Brannan was not a party named when the suit was filed or in the May, 2021 settlement.
Five months after that well-publicized settlement, Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn tweeted smiling photos with Brannan from a poll site on Election Day, proudly proclaiming she was “with team @JustinBrannan.” Two weeks later, Bichotte Hermelyn tweeted congratulations to Brannan on his campaign win, saying, “we need more people like Justin!” Five days later, now Chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, she tweeted smiling photos with Brannan from an event, where she called him a “powerhouse friend.”
These past comments of support shortly after the city settled this case made a sudden statement from Democratic County Chair Bichotte Hermelyn days before Election Day 2023 puzzling. It was not surprising that Justin’s challenger was amplifying the Post article, but the chair of the political party representing Brannan issued a statement echoing the same talking points that had come from GOP supporters eager to see Brannan lose.
It was well-known for a while that the relationship between the Brooklyn Democratic Party leadership and other Democratic leaders and organizations in the borough had become extremely contentious, especially in Southern Brooklyn where Republicans made significant gains in 2022, while little to no support came from the county Democratic apparatus.
Many Democratic clubs across Brooklyn who worked hard on 2022 campaigns called out the county party last year for abandoning us. That included the Bay Ridge Democrats, of which I am vice-president and Brannan is a founder. Brannan made it clear at the time he was unhappy with the lack of support from county leadership.
“I was angered but not surprised byt the Brooklyn Democratic Party try to derail the reelection campaign of local, Democratic Council Member Justin Brannan.”
Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso
And so, following Bichotte Hermelyn’s statement against Brannan days before this year’s election, statements were issued condemning her dereliction of duty in not only ignoring our party’s candidates, as in recent years, but this time actively helping the GOP opponent. The Bay Ridge Democrats, joined by seven other Brooklyn Democratic clubs, issued such a statement, as did a coalition of 16 Democratic District Leaders from across Brooklyn.
Bichotte Hermelyn responded again, taking issue with any such criticism, in which she spent a large portion of her statement attacking District Leader Tori Kelly, minimizing her role as a survivor of harassment and abuse who advocates for others. Naturally, Kelly responded with a statement condemning that, and many others did so, as well, letting their support for Kelly and for Brannan be known.
It was quite evident all along that statements from the Democratic Party Chair throughout this entire sordid episode were not centered on supporting victims of harassment but instead on personal grudges and political retribution.
The absurdity of it all came on Election Day when it became public that GOP campaign literature simply featuring Bichotte Hermelyn’s statement was being distributed, using the Brooklyn Democratic Party’s own press release to attack the Democratic candidate, Brannan. Bichotte Hermelyn issued yet another statement, calling the card that consisted only of her own publicly released words, “false campaign literature” and “untrue GOP talking points.”
You can not make this stuff up. From ignoring her primary responsibility of supporting Democratic campaigns to actively sabotaging a Democratic candidate to the sheer incompetence of taking umbrage to her own press release being used and calling her own statement false and untrue, as Brannan said on Election Night, she has “got to go.”
