Brooklyn Democratic leaders voted behind closed doors Tuesday night to dramatically expand the party body that will choose its next chair — reshaping a leadership fight in which reformers say they had already secured a majority and setting up a renewed court battle over control of the county organization.
All 10 proposed amendments were approved, with the most consequential of them broadening voting membership on the party’s executive committee beyond the 42 district leaders who previously controlled the chair election, adding additional County Committee officers and, later, a delegate from each Assembly District.
New Kings Democrats, the reform group backing Assembly District 51 district leader Julio Peña III for chair, said the expansion passed 21-19, with one abstention and one absence. The group said all eight district leaders who lost elections in June voted in favor.
That point is also central to the reformers’ court challenge. Peña’s side argues that several members who lost races in June or did not seek reelection were no longer entitled to vote under the party’s existing rules, while Bichotte Hermelyn maintains that outgoing members remain in office until their successors formally take office following the party’s organizational meetings.
The party did not release an official roll call from Tuesday night. Chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who has held the position since 2020, later told amNewYork that individual votes could not be released because the meeting was held in executive session. She separately criticized members for leaking votes on social media, saying doing so was against party rules and could result in sanctions.
The vote capped a week of turmoil inside Brooklyn’s Democratic organization. Peña’s coalition says it holds 22 of the 42 district leader votes, enough under the previous structure to elect him chair if those commitments hold.
Bichotte Hermelyn unveiled the expansion as that challenge to her leadership intensified, drawing opposition from Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs and good-government groups also urged the party not to change the rules before its newly elected members organize.
The fight landed in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Monday, where Peña and several allies sought to stop Tuesday’s meeting from taking place. Justice Jill Epstein declined Monday to sign their request for a temporary restraining order as “premature” and allowed the application to be renewed after the meeting. The decision did not resolve their underlying claims over whether the current executive committee had authority to make the changes or whether all of the members expected to vote Tuesday were entitled to do so.
A long night behind closed doors
Reporters began gathering outside the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club in Mill Basin around 6 p.m., where proceedings were closed to reporters and the public.
Blinds were drawn behind windows plastered with election posters for Assembly Member Jaime Williams and Frank Seddio, the former Brooklyn Democratic Party chair who now serves as a district leader for Assembly District 59. As committee members arrived, paper was taped over a window without a blind and later over gaps in the blinds, while two security guards kept reporters behind an NYPD barricade and away from the few remaining sightlines into the room.
The scene outside occasionally turned theatrical. Assembly District 55 leader Anthony Jones stopped on his way in to sing the “Star-Spangled Banner” to reporters while holding a handwritten sign airing his grievances with the reform-aligned New Kings Democrats. “42 leaders not 27 should have decided the next county leader,” it read, along with: “Why was I not notified of this vote!” and “You started this mess NKD!”
Around 8 p.m., when the meeting paused for a bathroom break, Jones emerged again, this time celebrating the amendments that had passed by that point and giving those waiting outside one of their first indications of how the votes were breaking.
Not long afterward, Assembly District 50 leader Luke Ohlson came outside with a markedly different assessment.
“What is going on in there is a miscarriage of the will of the voters,” Ohlson said. “There’s a lot of talk in there about democracy. There’s a lot of talk out there about respect, and we are disenfranchising thousands of voters by putting these measures into place. Plain and simple.”
He described only a “pitter-patter of applause” as amendments passed and called the overhaul a “power grab.”
The fight is also becoming a debate over what Brooklyn Democrats should be focused on heading into November.
Bichotte Hermelyn argues that expanding the party’s leadership will bring more voices into decision-making and strengthen its ability to organize against President Trump and Republicans. Reformers counter that party leaders should be focused on competitive races rather than their internal leadership fight.
“We have three assembly seats that we need to be fighting for instead of being in this room,” Ohlson said, arguing Brooklyn Dems should be focused on the general election.
The changes approved Tuesday went beyond enlarging the executive committee. They included setting its quorum at 25 members and extending the time Assembly District committees have to organize from 30 to 60 days, while shifting responsibility for convening those meetings from district leaders to the executive committee or its chair.
Another amendment concerning future changes to proxy rules was altered during the meeting. The proposal circulated beforehand would have required an 85% vote for future amendments involving proxies; Bichotte Hermelyn later told amNewYork that threshold was lowered to 75% before it was adopted.
The changes also rewrite who gets a vote on the executive committee. Under the previous rules, voting rights were largely limited to district leaders. The new rules extend voting rights to all executive committee members, including additional County Committee and executive committee officers, while each Assembly District Committee will also elect a delegate to the body.
Seddio defends the changes
The meeting stretched for roughly three hours before members began emerging shortly after 10 p.m. Frank Seddio stopped to speak with reporters and offered a full-throated defense of the night’s proceedings.
Asked about reformers’ plans to return to court, Seddio replied: “That’s what we have a good set of courts for.”
He said he believed the amendments complied with the Brooklyn party’s rules and would ultimately survive the challenge, arguing that the party had acted within a framework used for decades.
Pressed on why such consequential changes had not been made in previous years, Seddio suggested the moment presented an opportunity to “make the party more democratic,” while saying he had no role in engineering the proposals.
When a reporter noted that a string of prominent Democrats had spoken out against the changes, Seddio shot back: “I’m a prominent Democrat.”
He also said he would support Bichotte Hermelyn if she decides to seek another term as chair.
“If she ran, I would support her,” Seddio said. “Yes, absolutely support her.”
Bichotte Hermelyn says committee ‘expanded’ democracy in Brooklyn
Bichotte Hermelyn did not follow Seddio out to the reporters who had spent the evening waiting at the front of the club. Instead, she left through a rear exit and was quickly ushered into a waiting car without stopping to answer questions.
Reached later by phone, Bichotte Hermelyn called the result a “win for all of us, for all of Brooklyn” and described the changes as a historic expansion of representation inside the county party.
“Democracy is what we did. We expanded,” she said, arguing that reform groups themselves had long called for broader participation in party decision-making.
In a statement after the vote, the Brooklyn Democratic Party said district leaders had voted “to expand representation on the Executive Committee” by adding leaders from every Assembly District.
“This strengthens our fight for working families, affordability, and against the Trump agenda,” the party said. “The vote was open, fair, and democratic. No kings in Brooklyn — we move forward together.”
Bichotte Hermelyn also brushed off the pushback from prominent Democrats who had urged the party not to proceed, saying they “don’t know the party rules.” She maintained that the executive committee had authority under both its bylaws and election law to amend them.
She pointed to the court’s refusal to stop Tuesday’s meeting as support for her position. Justice Epstein, however, did not rule on the legality of the amendments. Her handwritten notation said the emergency request was premature and could be renewed after the meeting.
Bichotte Hermelyn said the vote did not change her own plans and that she remains undecided about whether to seek another term as chair. She also continued to question whether Peña’s claimed 22-vote coalition would remain intact when the leadership vote is held.
Asked why she did not stop to speak with reporters after leaving the club, Bichotte Hermelyn said she simply wanted to go home after the lengthy meeting.
“It was just my right, and I’m tired,” she said. “I’m gonna go home.”
Peña: ‘We still have 22 votes’
Peña emerged after the meeting and described the night as “difficult,” saying he was disappointed to watch members support changes that he believes weakened the party’s democratic process.
But he insisted the expansion had not broken apart the coalition supporting his bid for chair.
“We still have 22 votes in our coalition,” Peña told amNewYork.
Standing outside the closed clubhouse, he also took aim at the secrecy surrounding the proceedings.
“People voting in secret shouldn’t be how we operate our democracy,” Peña said.
The dispute now shifts back to Brooklyn Supreme Court.
“Our legal challenge will continue,” said Mark Hanna, an election lawyer representing Peña and the other petitioners who is also a district leader for Assembly District 64.
“It is crystal clear that the law (and even the bylaws of the party itself, prior to these ridiculous despotic amendments) does not allow the outgoing party leadership to act in secret session to overturn the intent of the democratic voters of Brooklyn,” Hanna said after the meeting.
The renewed challenge is expected to focus on whether the outgoing executive committee had authority to adopt Tuesday’s changes and whether members whom the petitioners say no longer qualified to vote under the old rules were entitled to participate.