People wanting increased political influence for diverse populations in West Virginia are laying the groundwork.
Members of a newly-established affirmative action committee of the Democratic Party have continued to meet and organize, even after feeling cut out last month as the party’s executive committee passed a draft affirmative action plan without their participation.
The long-term goal, said Hollis Lewis, co-chairman of the affirmative action committee, is to support candidates and influence voters.
“What I would like to see is, once we get everybody together, I just want to see us develop plans and strategies to engage voters, to educate voters, to help candidates win seats,” said Lewis, a former Kanawha County magistrate.
“That’s what I ultimately want to see. I think having a variety of representation is going to be critical to ensure we reach and engage West Virginians.”
The state Democratic Party’s establishment of an affirmative action plan wound up being divisive last month when members of the executive committee pushed through a boilerplate draft plan. The affirmative action committee that had just been formed wasn’t even fully underway yet, and some caucuses within the larger group still hadn’t met.
“At this point, we all got into this with good intentions. We all want to help the party move forward. We’ve got internal issues and that cannot be denied. It can’t be glossed over, but I really want to focus on us and what we’re developing,” Lewis said last week.
So the affirmative action committee has continued building out its structure while looking ahead toward how it will influence politics.
Members of the committee met two days in a row last month, June 21 and 22. Meanwhile, some of the caucuses that make up the committee continued to take shape. Caucuses for Asian communities, Native Americans and people of Latino heritage formed and were establishing their co-chairs.
“Then we can start to actually work on the affirmative action plan,” Lewis said. “We’re just sort of in the infancy stage in trying to get the plan together. What held it up is not having these three caucuses seated yet.”
Other caucuses are for seniors, members of LGBTQ communities, Black people, women, youth and people with disabilities.
Soon, participants hope to sew together proposals that can help increase the political influence of the different groups. That plan would likely be presented to the Democratic Party’s executive committee, potentially replacing the plan that generated a firestorm last month.
“That’s the hope,” Lewis said. “But like I said we’re going to move forward with our own plan, and we’ll present it and hopefully it will be formally adopted soon.”
Aryanna Islam, a Fairmont native who is co-chair of the youth caucus, also said she hopes the party will eventually accept the group’s work.
“As far as the party goes the Affirmative Action Committee as a whole has not really interacted with it as much in the past few weeks,” Islam said last week.
“And I cannot say for sure whether the party and the state executive committee will accept our plan when it is up for their approval, but I have faith that they will accept it and I do not see any reason for them to reject our plan once it is written since it is our job according to the bylaws.”
The first step, Islam agreed, was getting the various caucuses set and simply talking to participants about their priorities.
“We do not want to rush into it,” she said, “and we want to make sure that everyone has an equal chance at their representation first.”
Related actions are taking place elsewhere in the party.
Last month, the West Virginia Democratic Party announced a competitive process to hire a new senior political and outreach advisor, characterized as the latest in a series of steps the party has taken to become even more inclusive.
The position will be responsible for overseeing and strengthening relationships between diverse communities, grassroots voters and the state party.
“On the heels of our new draft affirmative action plan, the creation of this new position is just the latest proof of our commitment to building a more inclusive party where every single West Virginians voice is heard,” stated Democratic Party Chairwoman Belinda Biafore.
But fallout has also continued from the caustic, livestreamed Democratic Party meeting to adopt the original affirmative action plan.
Mercer and Fayette counties joined three others that had already voted no confidence in Biafore, who led the contentious meeting to adopt the first affirmative action plan. Democratic Party officials in the counties called on her to resign.
Ben Salango, the Democratic Party nominee for governor in 2020, described recent conversations by political leaders about what changes are necessary to strengthen the party. He said those talks are occurring through a group led by Senate Minority Leader Stephen Baldwin and House Minority Leader Doug Skaff.
“We need to quit focusing on just one person,” Salango said. “The recent controversy with the affirmative action committees and the issues that have surrounded Belinda Biafore as the head of the party, we need to not focus on one person. We need to focus on what are the real issues in the party, what changes do we need to make.”
Salango envisioned a steering committee to examine those possible changes, “to actually give everyone a seat at the table. We need those who have historically been unrepresented or underrepresented, we need people from all areas of the state, to come together and look at what changes we need to make not just in personnel but also with regard to policy with regard to procedure.”