DEPARTMENT OF SALACIOUS: Kay Brown has retired after five years leading the Alaska Democratic Party as executive director. Before that she was the communication director, and she also served in the Alaska House of Representatives for several terms. Brown is leaving quite a legacy, including work on redistricting.
Democrats performed a national search for a replacement and came up with Jay Parmley, who will start on Feb. 1.
But Parmley has some accusers in his past.
Parmley was chair and executive director of the Oklahoma Democratic Party from 2001 to 2005, and executive director of the South Carolina and North Carolina Democratic Parties. That’s where things started going sideways.
The Daily Caller had a story about how his ex-girlfriend, who was perhaps one of his college students, said he infected her with HIV.
An ABC station in North Carolina ran a story about Parmley and sexual harassment at the North Carolina Democratic Party.
Here’s his alleged resignation letter. Some sort of settlement to an accuser is alluded to by this Huffington Post story.
The Atlantic Monthly described the problem as a male-and-male sexual harassment issue. The letter from the accuser is here.
And the Atlantic Monthly summary says:
North Carolina Democrats
Turmoil in North Carolina’s Democratic Party has been no secret, thanks to some salacious details leaked to the press from a staffer’s sexual harassment complaint in 2012. The party’s then-executive director, Jay Parmley, resigned after accusations from another male staffer but denied any wrongdoing. The party chairman eventually left as well.
In March, current chairman Randy Voller described the party as “broke” and said it was evaluating whether to shut the doors on its Raleigh headquarters.
On his own blog, Parmley writes: “Jay Parmley is an asset that any political party would be grateful to have on their side. Luckily for the Democratic Party he has been committed to their cause since he was a youth. Jay Parmley has been affiliated with a number of Democratic organizations over the years including Young Democrats of America, the Democratic National Committee, South Forward, and Democracy for America. He is a member of the State Democratic Chairs Alumni Association, American Society for Public Administration, University of Oklahoma Alumni Association, and Technology Student Alumni Association.”
Elsewhere on the web, it’s noted that Parmley has served as executive director of more state Democratic parties than anyone in party history—all in the South.
DEMOCRATS REDEFINING
Alaska Democrats have all but abandoned their brand in Alaska in favor of a one-size-fits-all “Independent Democrat” style candidate, having pushed for and won with a non-aligned Bill Walker as governor, as well as Rep. Dan Ortiz, Ketchikan, and Rep.-elect Jason Grenn, Anchorage.
The Alaska Democratic Party also pushed in support of the non-partisan candidacy of Margaret Stock for Senate over their own candidate Ray Metcalfe. An ADP mailer sent out after the August primary made no mention of Metcalfe’s landslide win of the Democratic nomination.
Meanwhile, Kay Brown came under fire earlier this year when WikiLeaks published internal memos that made it appear Brown was working hand in glove with the Democratic National Committee to sway the primary toward Hillary Clinton and away from Bernie Sanders.
Sanders ended up getting 82 percent of the Democrats’ vote during their caucus primary process. DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Brown lost her job over that scandal, and Alaska Democrats were none too pleased with Brown, either.
REPUBLICANS HAVE NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TOO: In the other camp, Josh Walton, well-known in Alaska political circles, received the approval of the State Central Committee to serve as the executive director of the Alaska Republican Party.
He was home schooled in Alaska, is a graduate of Hillsdale College, which is a private libertarian school, and he has a masters degree in quantitative research methods from Claremont Graduate University, School of Politics and Economics. Read the press release here.