No Hearing In District 54 Contest

Here’s the news report:

A mix-up over who was supposed to serve on a committee caused the Alabama Democratic Party to delay a hearing Tuesday on the challenge of the apparent primary victory of an openly gay candidate for the Legislature. . . .

More than 100 supporters of Todd and Hendricks, mostly from Birmingham, were waiting in the auditorium of a Montgomery office building Tuesday for a Democratic Party subcommittee to hear the appeal when party vice chair Amy Burks announced the hearing was being postponed, probably until next week.

“We are unable to continue until a proper committee is formed and assembled,” Burks told the grumbling crowd.

An attorney for the party, James Anderson, said appeals are supposed to be heard by a committee made up of five members of the State Democratic Party Executive Committee and that due to a mix-up over who was supposed to serve there were not five members ready to hear the appeal Tuesday.

Kathy was there, and has more details, including this:

I talk to a source who does not wish to be named who says that Joe Reed, head of the legislative black caucus, was initially appointed to serve on the subcommittee. That sounds questionable, given that he strongly supported Ms. Hendricks in the runoff. It becomes even more questionable when I hear that Ms. Hendricks’ check for the contest filing fee bounced, and Mr. Reed covered it. This presented a conflict of interest (no sh*t), so he couldn’t serve on the committee, and supposedly there wasn’t enough time to replace him.

The delay is regrettable, but worth it if the alternative was having an interested party on the committee. What a sham that would have been! So the suspense continues.

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