By Adam Pagnucco.
At tonight’s meeting of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee (MCDCC), oligarchy has triumphed and democracy has been cast into the pit. Democrats across the county, take note.
I am of course referring to the effort by MCDCC member Liza Smith to end the practice of central committee members appointing themselves to state legislative office. This has been going on for many years and Smith advanced a sensible – and rather limited – reform to require committee members to resign their party office before seeking appointment to the General Assembly. As of this writing, nearly 200 people signed a petition in favor of Smith’s proposal, more than 7 times the voting membership of the central committee. MCDCC convened to consider this proposal and other issues tonight.
The first matter before the committee was the selection of its new chair. District 15 member Saman Qadeer Ahmad defeated District 18 member Michael Tardif for the position by two votes. Tardif tried to appoint himself to fill a ballot slot in the primary, thereby muddying this issue in the leadership contest.
Under Ahmad’s leadership, MCDCC did not consider Smith’s proposal to ward off self-appointments to the General Assembly. This is the second time that MCDCC has dodged the issue, following a failed attempt to get the rules committee to vote on it. Bethesda Beat reporter Steve Bohnel confirmed MCDCC’s failure to call a vote on the proposal.
The issue is not over. More remains to be said. And so it shall, soon enough.