WASHINGTON—As if there wasn’t enough evidence of Democratic Party disarray in the wake of the 2024 elections, two top union leaders, Teachers/AFT President Randi Weingarten and AFSCME President Lee Saunders, both veterans, have left the party’s national committee for different reasons. And one of its top young rising stars, David Hogg, has been purged.
The developments bode ill for workers and their allies, who have a target on their backs from the right-wing anti-union Trump administration and its corporate allies.
Weingarten is leaving because she says the party, under new chair Ken Martin, is not committed to becoming a big tent. Saunders is walking because, he says, he must concentrate on protecting the labor movement in general and his union in particular from the rampage Trump is waging against public sector workers.
“While I am a proud Democrat, I appear to be out of step with the leadership you are forging, and I do not want to be the one who keeps questioning why we are not enlarging our tent and actively trying to engage more and more of our community,” Weingarten wrote Martin on June 5 about her departure.
A New York City civics teacher with a law degree, Weingarten had been a Democratic National Committee member for at least two decades, dating back to her days leading the United Federation of Teachers in New York, if not before.
Her enlarging the tent reference harkens to stark numbers from the last election. Working-class men, especially white men, defected to Trump in droves, and the fact that Trump picked up larger voting shares from people of color and white women than prior GOP presidential nominees garnered.
On May 27, Saunders wrote to Martin that “this moment demands unwavering focus, discipline, and clarity” for him and his members. AFSCME has 1.3 million members, trailing only the National Education Association (3.2 million), the Service Employees (more than two million) and Weingarten’s Teachers/AFT (1.8 million).
“It demands that we devote every ounce of our energy to defending our members, protecting our collective bargaining rights, and making sure that all workers know we are in their corner and we are fighting,” Saunders added.
His point is particularly relevant for workers, especially public workers, who comprise almost half of the AFL-CIO’s membership and most of its politically activist workers.
Both Teachers/AFT and AFSCME are public worker unions, along with National Nurses United, NEA, much of SEIU and all of the Government Employees, the Treasury Employees, and the postal unions: The Letter Carriers, the Postal Workers, the Mail Handlers/Laborers, and the Rural Letter Carriers.
Other unions also have some public worker sectors.
Saunders chairs the AFL-CIO Political Committee of union presidents, as did his AFSCME predecessors. That panel holds big sway in labor’s political spending plans.
As for 25-year-old Hogg, he was kicked out of the DNC after a public confrontation with Martin over a new campaign finance committee Hogg established to—in so many words—fund primary challengers to right-wing Democrats. Too many, he says, have been around too long, and lack the energy or will to confront Trump’s depredations. Hogg had been elected a party vice chair, but after some backroom dealing, the vote was annulled.
Hogg’s criticisms and his campaign finance committee didn’t sit well with Martin, who must work closely with campaign committees for House and Senate hopefuls to raise money to try to take back Congress in 2026. Those panels, in turn, listen closely to party big shots, campaign consultants, and K Street lobbyists who don’t want to rock the boat.
The latter two groups are no favorites of AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, who has previously said such interests wield undue influence in the party and called for curbing corporate clout.
Not all party elders are ready to be put out to pasture, Hogg emphasized in establishing his campaign finance committee, or PAC. Critics accused him of just targeting older Democratic officials. Pushing back on that claim, Hogg, who co-founded the March For Our Lives student political movement after he experienced the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school massacre in Florida in 2018, lauds Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt.
Sanders, one of the Senate’s oldest members, was born Sept. 8, 1941. He’s also one of its most-energetic, leading cross-country anti-oligarchy tours. Sanders blasts Trump, 79, his policies, and the capitalist class backing him for ripping off the rest of the country while dividing it by race and class.
Last year, Sanders coasted to another six-year term. He says it’ll be his last. His #2 on the tours is one of the youngest lawmakers, “Squad” member Rep. Alexandria Octavio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in her early 30s.
On the other hand, three elderly U.S. House Democrats have died since this Congress began, shrinking the party’s numbers against Trump. And Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., 74, has all his marbles but—says Hogg—not enough spine against Trump.
Former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who just turned 86, has already drawn a challenger. And the oldest House member, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who just turned 88, is visibly failing. Even ex-staffers want her to retire. Her influence comes solely from her voice, which is now almost stilled. As a delegate, she has no vote.
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