Several NY Democratic county committees are demanding "loyalty oaths" from their members. The worst is a proposal by the Chemung County Dem chair demanding all committee members sign on to a "code of ethics" not to oppose "the activities and candidate endorsements made by CCDC, State or National Democratic Committees." This did not come out of the blue (pun intended), but from supporters of Gov. Cuomo.

From The Intercept:

The controversy started last week when Jim Carr, the party chair, sent an email to the executive committee announcing that they’d convene on Tuesday, an hour before their already-scheduled Chemung County Democrats meeting. [...]

The code of ethics document, which seemed to come out of the blue, proposed that all committee members “promise to be loyal” to the Chemung County Democratic Committee “by supporting the activities and candidate endorsements made by CCDC, State or National Democratic Committees. Such examples of disloyalty include, but are not limited to, activities such as displaying political signs or other activities for candidates opposing Democratic candidates. This also includes any form of social media.”

Cindy Emmer, another Chemung County Democratic Committee member, sent the language at Carr’s request. Both Emmer and Carr sit on the New York State Democratic Committee, a body that is closely aligned with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is now facing a primary challenge from the left.

This is obviously a heavy handed attempt to force Dem committee members in that county not to support Cynthis Nixon, as the NY State party is unlikely to endorse her over Cuomo before the primary. Progressive committee members in Chemung county saw this as an attempt to silence them and squash dissent.

“It’s totally undemocratic and unconstitutional to tell me I would need to support a Democrat even if they don’t display Democratic values,” Lynch said. “This has nothing to do with party loyalty — it has to do with the establishment wing of the party not understanding why some of us are still so upset about the 2016 primary.”

Another county party in New York, Washington county, also includes a loyalty oath, though not quite as stringent as the one proposed by the Chemung County Dem. Comm. Chair, and a third county, Tioga, has a vague statement about not being disloyal to Democrats without specifying what that means. Progressive Democrats see the hand of Governor Cuomo behind all this:

Some New York progressive activists suspect the new Chemung County loyalty oath can be traced back to the governor. Bellanca, of the Washington County Democrats, noted that the timing of the ethics directive came down in the middle of a big gubernatorial primary contest and just weeks before the state’s Democratic convention. “They’re basically trying to close the primary,” he said. “It looks like they’re trying to say, ‘You can’t support anyone but who the group supports, even if they’re a Democrat.'”

“I’m very familiar with the New York state Democratic Party, and everything is structured in a way to benefit Andrew Cuomo and his agenda,” said Nomiki Konst, a Bernie Sanders-appointee to the Democratic National Committee’s Unity Reform Commission. “He uses fear tactics and deal-making, and the New York state committee is made up entirely of Cuomo loyalists.”

I know you're all shocked to see Establishment Dems trying to rig a primary election against a progressive candidate by a conservative neoliberal candidate. Not. As we all know, Democrats purged hundreds of thousands of registered Democratic voters from the New York voting rolls before the 2016 NY Presidential primary, a fact they admitted in 2017 to settle a court case.

New York City voters who were purged from voter rolls ahead of the 2016 presidential primary won a court victory on Tuesday as the city Board of Elections agreed to federal oversight following the lawsuit over a mass purge of voter rolls that resulted in over 200,000 voters stripped of the right to vote before that year's primary.

Anyone who believes the establishment Democrats will play fair when it comes to primaries at the local, state and federal level are deluding themselves. We've also seen this play out in Florida with a Debbie Wasserman Schultz supporter and Broward County board of elections supervisor illegally destroying paper ballots that were part of Tim Canova's court case regarding voting irregularities in his 2016 primary challenge to Wasserman Schultz. And we've seen the DCCC go after progressive challengers hard this primary season.

If NY Dems screw over Cynthia Nixon, as I expect them to do, I hope she runs third party as the Working Families Party candidate. Enough of this anti-Democratic horse manure from the oxymoronic "Democratic Party."