Furious Democrats call for Tom Perez's resignation after Iowa fiasco

Jeva Lange, The Week•February 7, 2020


Apparent attempts by Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez to absolve himself of responsibility over the Iowa caucus fiasco have sparked many in the party to begin calling for his resignation. "It's a lack of leadership," Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) told The Hill in an interview Friday. "If you have the Iowa situation you don't throw them under the bus, you stand up and you support and you try to fix it. He doesn't lead on anything."

Party insiders have been particularly rankled by Perez's treatment of Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price, who has publicly taken heat over the scandal that resulted from a failed app on election night and a week's worth of confusion over the winner. Perez took three days after the Iowa debacle to speak publicly about the caucuses, Politico reports, after having failed to appear alongside Price during an initial public address. "Loads of state party chairs are pissed that [Perez] would treat one of their peers like this," one state party official told Politico.

Perez has repeatedly attempted to distance himself from the scandal. On Thursday, he demanded a recanvass — essentially, a recalculation — of the election results, while Iowa Democrats were still counting votes. On Friday, asked by CNN's John Berman "how much of this is on you?," Perez dodged. "Well, again, the Iowa Democratic Party runs the caucus," he said. "Okay? And they — what happened was unacceptable."

The American Prospect's David Dayen blasted Perez, writing that the chair was "seeking to be an independent actor trying to 'clean up' the Iowa mess, when he was fully implicated in making the mess in the first place." Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), speaking with Politico, called Perez's leadership "virtually nonexistent ... It's just a matter of time before he's going to go."