New PAC Takes Aim At The Queens Democratic Party Machine

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — A new political action committee is taking on the Queens Democratic party machine by setting its sights on a little-known bastion of party power: the borough's 72 elected district leaders.

The New Reformers will support Democratic candidates in hyperlocal Queens races by helping fund their campaigns, collect petitions to get them on the ballot and fight off the legal challenges the committee's five co-founders say are inevitable.

Central to the new organization's mission is mobilizing a slate of fresh faces to run in 2020 for district leader, essentially the middleman between party leadership and local residents.

District leaders elect the county party's leader, currently U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, and help pick judges, according to Gothamist. They serve two-year terms.

"This is the next step in ending the machine politics that's so endemic," district leader candidate Ethan Felder, a Forest Hills resident, said in an interview. "It's understated the amount of power the district leaders have as a cohort in this borough."

To gain the PAC's support, district leader candidates will have to sign a pledge to not endorse any local Democratic primary candidates or accept donations from the finance, insurance, and real estate industries, among other things.

"District Leaders are so important in shaping party politics that most of them are elected officials," the New Reformers' website says. "Now it's our turn to transform the Queens County Democratic Party to make sure it's of the people, for the people and by the people."

At a launch party Tuesday night at Cobblestones Pub and Biergarten in Forest Hills, which was live-streamed on Facebook, a diverse crowd of 60-some supporters heralded the vision of a more "small-d democratic" Democratic party in what co-founder Moumita Ahmed referred to as "the most corrupt county."

"Queens is the hub of the progressive movement," Ahmed said in her opening remarks. "There's something very special going on here."

The launch party raised about $3,500 from more than 100 donors, the PAC's leaders said Wednesday. (Co-founder Virginia "Vigie" Ramos Rios, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's former campaign manager, said during the party that she'd hoped to raise $10,000.)

But energy levels were high as candidates for Congress, the New York legislature, the City Council and district leader stood before the crowd and pledged to uphold the new political organization's pillars of transparency and inclusivity.

"Everybody run for something!" Arverne resident and district leader candidate Marva Kerwin shouted.