Tonight’s tussle for control of the Kings County Democratic Party, scheduled to be held at the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club, is the latest battle in a long-running war between the party’s chair, Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, and a group of insurgents that currently includes roughly half of the 42 district leaders who serve as the all-important executive committee. The showdown will not feature high-flown debates over progressive versus moderate policies, or whether socialists belong under the same big tent as pro-business Democrats. The conflict boils down to who will control the selection of polling locations and the many patronage jobs and judicial elections that constitute the main business of every one of the city’s county-level party organizations.

The reformers, who hail largely from the progressive wing of the party, claim to have a majority and have vowed to oust Bichotte Hermelyn when the party holds its next organizing meeting in September. But on August 19, the party chair unveiled a plan to change the rules in advance of the September meeting in a way that adds 26 seats to the executive committee, ostensibly in the name of inclusion but with the convenient side effect of creating a batch of new votes in support of Bichotte Hermelyn. She has vetted some potential new committee members, which sources tell me might include a number of longtime allies like retired Assemblywoman Annette Robinson and former congressman Ed Towns.

Bichotte Hermelyn has framed the changes as providing increased........

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