FROM TAMARA PETTIT

   The West Virginia Democratic Party has met it worst enemy….it is us!    We West Virginia Democrats have been searching for the dragon to slay since the last general election when the White House went blue and West Virginia remained red.    We believed the  Republicans Party was the enemy when  our labor base eroded and the working class skedaddled to the right.     Or, many of us believed we had failed to attract the rising number of young voters who refused to identify themselves as Democrat or Republican choosing the “no party affiliation” category.

     Nope, the leadership of the State Democratic Executive Committee just might have played a major role in why we  Democrats continue to lose ground in a state we once  rocked.   In a party which is identified as “the party of inclusion” the State Democratic Executive Committee used Roberts Rules of  Order to prevent an Affirmative Action Committee established  from having input or voting on the Affirmative Action Plan draft the Executive Committee was submitting to the National Democratic Party.

        It was all accomplished simply by placing the vote to approve the draft affirmative action plan on the agenda BEFORE the vote to seat the Affirmative Action Committee.  A sleight of hand that was perfectly legal and yet morally corrupt.   The very Committee which included people of color and other diversities were denied input into the very plan that affects them.   The meeting was conducted by Zoom and to say the agenda order was contentious is an understatement.  The Diversity Plan  vote included not one person of color.   Instead, long-time chair Belinda Biafore steamrolled over the objections saying the committee had a deadline to meet.

      I consider myself a fiscally conservative, socially liberal Democrat and I’ve stood by my party for many years.  Many say they didn’t leave the Democratic party….the party left them.  The recent move by the State Democratic Party reeks of backroom deals and does not bode well for a political comeback of the Democratic Party in West Virginia anytime soon.