By Raquelle Kepple 
David Hogg, Democratic National Committee vice chair (Lynne Sladky/AP)
David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 Parkland school shooting and gun control activist, is at the center of a controversy within the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
The controversy surrounding Hogg challenges his new role as DNC vice chair at a time when internal party strife and ideological disagreements have plagued the party’s ranks. Hogg’s disputes have evolved into an internal struggle within the DNC with three key aspects: initial challenges to the election process for Hogg’s DNC position itself, allegations regarding the ethics of his fundraising, and his public support for progressive primary challengers against incumbent Democrats.
Procedural Complaint Over Election Process
A procedural complaint filed by Kalyn Free, a committee person representing Oklahoma in the DNC, alleges the election for vice chair was improper. Hogg and Pennsylvania State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta ran as a slate for the DNC vice chair elections, and rather than holding two votes (a separate one for each vice chair position), the DNC held only one vote for both candidates. The procedural process made that possible, meaning both men were elected simultaneously. Free argues that by combining the two vice chair elections into a single vote, the DNC disregarded its gender parity standards, which require equal numbers of men and women in leadership roles. Free and her supporters assert that Hogg and Kenyatta, along with their fellow candidates, used the ballot process to their advantage because it limited the possibility that a woman would fill either of the two vice chair positions. As Free put it, combining the two elections into one “broke the rules, but it set up a situation that gave a statistical advantage to the two men and made it mathematically impossible for the three women to be elected.”
Regarding this issue, the DNC’s Credentials Committee has sided with Free’s complaint and recommended a new vote on the vice chair positions, pending approval by the full DNC through a vote set to take place June 9-11. If the report is accepted, Hogg and Kenyatta will be removed from their positions, and a new vote will take place.
Hogg, however, has suggested that the challenge to his election to vice chair is part of a larger attempt by the party establishment to sabotage his reform agenda. Hogg framed the procedural complaint as a political move aimed at curtailing his ambitions to alter the status quo within the DNC. While Hogg acknowledged the controversies surrounding the election process, he stated that he did not dictate to anyone how the vote should take place, while also highlighting the politics behind the challenge: “While this vote was based on how the DNC conducted its officers’ elections, which I had nothing to do with, it is also impossible to ignore the broader context of my work to reform the party which loomed large over this vote,” he said.
Fundraising Practices Raise Ethical Questions
Hogg has also recently been criticized by his fellow Democrats over his use of DNC contact lists to raise money through his political action committee (PAC), Leaders We Deserve, which pays him $100,000 annually. Though legal, Hogg’s actions have sparked concerns among DNC leaders and party members about the ethics of a DNC officer using party resources to advance their own work.
Hogg Faces Criticism for Funding Challenges to Democratic Incumbents
In addition to these two controversies, Hogg has faced pushback from DNC leadership for his support of primary challengers to sitting members of Congress.
As part of his PAC, Leaders We Deserve, Hogg is targeting incumbents in safe blue districts who he believes to be “out of step” with the growing younger, progressive base of voters in the Democratic Party. Hogg and his PAC have amassed an estimated $20 million to fund these primary challenges. The party’s veterans are concerned that these primary challenges backed by Hogg will fracture the party and harm its chances in the general election, especially as Republican populism continues to gain momentum.
DNC Chair Ken Martin has publicly expressed concern about the ability of Hogg to operate both as a party officer (who in such a position is expected to support all Democratic candidates) and as an activist who may oppose incumbent candidates: “As I said to [Hogg], if you want to challenge incumbents, you are more than free to do that, but not as an officer of the DNC… Our job is to be neutral arbiters,” Martin explained during a media call. “This is not about shielding incumbents or boosting challengers; this is about voters trusting the party.” Martin’s remarks demonstrate his concern that Hogg’s dual roles could create divisions within the party.
Martin has encouraged Hogg to sign a neutrality pledge or resign from his position, claiming that Hogg’s actions could cause damage by dividing the party at a time when presenting a unified front is critical, given the Republican Party’s growing influence.
Party Identity and Generational Divide
Hogg has indicated that the fact that the challenge came from within the party establishment gives him reason to believe it was politically motivated, exacerbating internal tensions. Some progressive, younger members of the DNC sided with Hogg’s critique of the party and its establishment power structures, seeing his comments as a healthy challenge to facilitate transparency and change. Others within the party, including some senior officials and establishment-aligned members, charged him with taking advantage of the situation to increase his publicity.
The dispute surrounding Hogg’s challenge also involves Kenyatta. Both were unhappy with how the challenge was handled and supported the right to raise procedural complaints, but did not want to see party rules used in a partisan manner. Although Kenyatta chastised some of Hogg’s terminology, he stated that his grave concern was also how he had been treated, citing a growing sense of alienation among younger, “progressive” members of the Democratic Party.
NBC10 Boston political commentator Sue O’Connell described Hogg’s effort to primary long-serving incumbents as a direct challenge to power, noting that his “push for this generational change in the Democratic Party has caused such a rift because it directly challenges the established power structures,” threatening “senior Democrats who’ve built careers in what they would call safe seats.” She added that while the DNC frames the conflict as a procedural matter, “this is just a classic conflict of political tension between maintaining party stability [and] bringing in fresh perspectives.”