Dear Editor:
This letter was addressed to Chairman Robinson and Chairwoman Lynch
We are a group of paying members of the Morris County Democratic Women’s Caucus (MCDWC) who do not feel comfortable revealing our identities.
However, as members of the MCDWC, we feel it necessary to express the surprise and concern we felt upon learning through social media that our Caucus had made endorsements in a contested primary race.
The endorsement came as a shock to us, given that the MCDWC has not held a meeting since February of 2019 and has never made an endorsement in a primary election. It is worth noting that the Caucus has historically endorsed both women and men.
While we take no issue with the endorsement itself, we would like some clarity on the process by which the decision to make an endorsement was made. As far as we know, there is no stipulated procedure for making endorsements and any bylaws of the MCDWC that may exist have not been made publicly available.
Typically, when an organization chooses to make endorsements, all candidates are invited to either participate in an interview or fill out an application. Was a similar procedure followed here?
In many organizations, endorsement decisions are made by the Executive Board or the organization’s leadership. Is that the case here? It is our understanding that one member of the Executive Board has already personally endorsed the candidate in question and at least one Executive Board member is currently staffing the endorsed candidate’s campaign. This represents a clear conflict of interest and we would like to know if both of these individuals were required to recuse themselves from the decision-making process.
We joined the Morris County Democratic Women’s Caucus because we wanted a space where women in politics could come together and take collective political action. However, this process appears undemocratic and antithetical to the values that drew us to the organization in the first place. Because the Caucus has not met with its membership in over a year, we have grown concerned about the nature of this Caucus and its role within the Democratic party. We would simply like to see more transparency from the organization and to get a better understanding of how decisions are made.
Members of the Morris County Democratic Women’s Caucus
