Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, got booed and heckled by protesters this weekend at one of the biggest state conventions for the party in California.
The protests weren’t coming from Trump supporters, but members of the Democratic Party that feel the state convention is being co-opted by establishment interest groups.
Chanting could be heard as Perez went into the California Democratic Convention this weekend. “Aye, oh, corporate greed has got to go,” was the way it went.
“We are booing because we feel Perez is part of the establishment that keeps co-opting the progressive movement,” Gilbert Feliciano, a protest participant who is also a state delegate, told local news affiliates. “The corporatists have an ally with Tom Perez. We felt like it was important to come and voice our discontent.”
One issue fueling the discontent with Perez is healthcare. Healthcare-worker groups want the Democrats to get behind a statewide healthcare-provider plan similar to what Massachusetts had adopted about a decade ago.
The convention had been under pressure to show a unified voice between the establishment party and those with the more progressive wing that sided with Democratic presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential campaign.
But it appears the establishment may have won out in the end. In a heavily contested fight that went late into the evening Saturday, the California Democratic Committee appointed a new chairman, Eric Bauman, who isn’t in the Sanders’ camp.
The progressive candidate for chairman was Kimberly Ellis, an activist from the San Francisco Bay Area. She refused to concede at first, saying she had to talk with a legal counsel even after it was clear Bauman had won. She eventually did bow out.
Ellis was supported by Our Revolution, which stems from the 2016 presidential campaign for Sanders. The same healthcare groups that supported the supporters in heckling Perez were also backing Ellis.
