In the simmering feud within the local Democratic Party, both sides are claiming victory this week as members of a faction loyal to the party’s former chair remain withdrawn from their positions in light of a judge’s ruling Monday.
Some, however, remain after being reinstated amid a lawsuit claiming party Chairwoman Monica Alcántara violated state law in removing them from their party seats.
At a press conference Wednesday, loyalists to former party chair Manuel Medina – dubbed the Manuelistas – accused Alcántara of sowing division. The chairwoman has charged that the Medina loyalists are mounting a mutinous campaign against her.
“We’re all Democrats,” said Robert “Woody” Wilson, who represented the plaintiffs. “We are not divided. We should be together.”
Party officers and precinct chairs claimed they were wrongfully removed from their positions. The 10 plaintiffs were part of a recent purge of dozens of precinct chairs. Four were found to not reside in the precinct they had chaired and have vacated their seats.
Three precinct chairs – Juan Raul Hernandez, Sergio Contreras, and Adrian Flores Jr. – will be reinstated. Allen Flores also has been reinstated but will chair a different precinct, as a clerical error during the previous administration placed him in the wrong precinct, said Alcántara, who was sued by the plaintiffs in her capacity as the Bexar County Democratic Party chairwoman.
District Court Judge Cathy Stryker “reversed” the purge of the four precinct chairs in her Monday decision, according to a press release prepared by Wilson. The release charges Alcántara violated state law, but the judge’s order was still being filed and had not been signed as of the publishing of this article. Alcántara said she disagreed with the plaintiffs’ representation of the judge’s decision.
“They are not looking into violations that occurred,” Alcántara said. “At this point, I’m looking to just move this party forward and not focusing on either of the claims.”
Since Alcántara’s election last March, the county party has been beset with infighting. She won more than two-thirds of the vote as she unseated Medina, who served as chair for six years but had just come off a failed mayoral campaign the previous spring. However, Medina maintained the support of a minority of the party’s leadership, who Alcántara has said undermine her administration because of their loyalty to her predecessor.
Most notably, the Manuelistas asserted their influence during an August executive committee meeting in which a majority of the committee’s 263 precinct chairs were absent. During the meeting, the committee endorsed a controversial set of municipal propositions – measures the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association petitioned to be placed on the November ballot.
The rogue faction also sent mailers to local residents touting the Democratic party’s endorsement of the charter amendments, two of which passed in November. The items capped the city manager’s salary and gave the firefighters, who have been seeking a new contract for years, unilateral authority to declare an impasse in negotiations.
In April, District Court Judge Sid Harle ruled in favor of the plaintiffs’ who sought a temporary restraining order to pause all business of the party’s County Executive Committee, which votes on matters such as confirming precinct chairs and officers.
Former Secretary Garrett Mormando and former Treasurer Stephanie Carrillo, who joined the lawsuit against Alcántara to seek reinstatement to their executive committee positions, were removed from their respective posts during a March executive committee meeting. In a March email to precinct chairs, Alcántara wrote that Mormando had been removed for “intercepting mail, abandoning his position during meetings, making a major expenditure without proper authorization, refusal to add standing committee meetings to the party calendar, failure to fulfil [sic] open records requests, and representing the [executive committee] to the press without authorization.” Carrillo, Alcántara claimed, left the party’s finances in “disarray” and forged checks, among other disciplinary issues, the email stated.
Mormando said he plans to attend the local party’s next executive committee meeting in June in hopes of recapturing his seat through a vote. Per Robert’s Rules of Order, a vote can be triggered if a motion is made and seconded by a member of the committee.
A pair of dueling Facebook pages – one featuring a photo of Alcántara and the other a Democrat donkey avatar – have been posting competing statements about the ongoing legal matters. The page featuring Alcántara’s portrait appears to be the account run by the incumbent administration while the other account has been posting affirmations about the insurgent faction’s claimed victories in the courts. Neither account is marked with Facebook’s blue checkmark for verified pages. The former page has about 700 likes while the latter page has more than 4,500 likes.
But Alcántara said Wednesday that feuding among party leadership has “dissipated over the last several months.”
“I feel that it has,” she said. “The pressure amongst us has dwindled a bit.”
Wilson, joined by 19 people holding up signs supporting Democrats, accused Alcántara of divisive behavior.
“Who actually won Monday are the precinct chairs that were reinstated,” he said to applause from the people gathered behind him on the steps of the Bexar County courthouse. “Not the party itself. The party is losing because of the division that she’s creating.”
As for the chairwoman, she said her focus has turned to the elections in 2020. While the party has struggled with internal discord, she said the executive committee has added 117 precinct chairs.
“There’s still many more we have to have sworn in at the next [meeting],” she said. “The party is growing.”
Odd that Alcantara received more than two thirds of the votes to unseat Medina, and yet the incumbent FB page receives 700 likes to the 4500 by the “insurgents”? I don’t trust this picture. Not saying this article is purposely skewing anything, but FB, and especially FB “likes” is a very misleading metric to cite. Easily manipulated by any group of people who like through fake FB accounts, or who are actually members of an opposing political party.
If Medina had the best interests of the Democratic Party, or the people who vote for the Democratic Party, at heart then he would step aside and let the democratically elected chair do her job. All that’s going to happen here is another series of farcical turnouts, even more farcical special elections, and yet another failed run at the 23rd district – with GOJ has a fantastic chance of taking next year.
Or better yet, Medina could publicly tell Mormando, Carillo, and others in party leadership who remain blindly loyal to him and obstinately opposed to Alcantara to back down and work with the duly elected party chairwoman. I sincerely hope that Medina and his supporters truly care about electing Democrats in Bexar County and not just about inflating their own egos.
It’s interesting that you refer to the majority of the BCPC as a
rogue faction.
The vote for the firefighters union was over 70%.
Using the term manualista shows your prejudice from the start.
Monica took an oath in court in front of the judge to obey the laws. She has not done that from day one. Her only constant purpose has been to remove the secretary, who won by a huge majority. And her other objective has been to treat everyone as an employee of hers.
She never had any intention to work together.
She takes money from Republicans and supports Republicans. She has done nothing but divide a once very unified party.
It sounds like Monica Alcantara has not been given a chance to implement her vision or agenda for the county party. She has been stymied and stalemated by self-serving officers who have more loyalty to Manuel Medina than to the BCDP as a whole. Why won’t they let her actually do her job and evaluate her on her performance? All the have done since the day she won is stand in her way. I don’t even know if I believe that she has done a good or bad job because she hasn’t been allowed to do the job she was elected to do. The behavior of these party officers and precinct chairs who have kept her tied up in litigation are making the Democratic Party in Bexar County look foolish and ineffective.
I’d rather have neither Alcantara nor Medina. Instead of focusing on policy needs, both are engaged in power for power’s sake. Just as importantly, neither one is progressive at a time when progressivism is taking over the party. It would simply be better to have a progressive in charge of the BCDP before 2020 rolls in.
A party’s County Chair must work with the body of Precinct Chairs known as the “County Executive Committee.” Therefore, it should be the Precinct Chairs in each party who elect their respective County Chairs, someone they know they can work with. The current system of electing County Chairs by popular vote in the Primary produced winners that were incompatible with the CEC majority in both the Bexar Democratic and Bexar Republican Parties.
Neither faction of the Bexar County Democratic Party displays even a fraction of competence. The state or national Democratic Party leaders should force both sides to back down and accept a new, nonpartisan leader for the local party. If they won’t, the state/national party should expel the troublemakers on either side. Getting their crap together to oppose the Trump/GOP agenda is more important than the petty egos on either side. But since the higher Democratic Party leadership is also no paragon of competence or control (witness the 800 or so people currently trying to win the Democratic presidential nomination), I won’t hold my breath waiting for them to fix the profoundly broken local Dems.