Allison Jaslow, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), resigned on Monday amid complaints that the DCCC is too white. No, seriously, that’s the complaint. Black and Hispanic lawmakers say the DCCC, the Democrats’ major campaign arm, lacks racial diversity and is not doing enough to reach Latino voters and hire consultants of color.
On Sunday, Hispanic Reps. Vicente González (D-Texas) and Filemon Vela (D-Texas) called for Jaslow’s resignation in a statement to Politico. DCCC Chairwoman Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) flew back to Washington, D.C., for a meeting Monday, despite having left with the rest of Congress for the August recess. Jaslow resigned at that meeting, Politico reported.
“The DCCC is now in complete chaos,” Gonzalez and Vela said in their statement. “The single most immediate action that Cheri Bustos can take to restore confidence in the organization and to promote diversity is to appoint a qualified person of color, of which there are many, as executive director at once. We find the silence of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on this issue to be deafening.”
The DCCC claimed that 13 out of its 27 senior staffers are members of racial minorities, but Democratic lawmakers disputed that claim, saying only a few of those non-white staff are actually working in the campaign arm’s management.
So a staffer lost her job because someone counted the colors at the campaign arm and wasn’t happy. As a graduate of Hillsdale College, this reminds me of what Hillsdale President Dr. Larry Arnn always says about why Hillsdale doesn’t accept federal funding. The federal government wanted to count how many racial minority students go to Hillsdale, which boasts of being one of the first colleges in the U.S. to admit both women and racial minorities in 1844. In fact, when the Civil War started, every single male student went to fight for the Union, and the college took an early stand for abolition.
When the government wanted to count how many minorities were at Hillsdale, Arnn said no. Given the college’s history, he found this an insult. He denounced it as a form of “state-endorsed racism.”
Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a “nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Apparently Democrats don’t agree with Dr. King’s dream.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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