Thousands of dollars in unpaid mileage and expenses. Vendors who threatened legal action over late payments. And volunteers still waiting for the payouts they were promised for throwing a debate watch party.
Those were some of the accusations spelled out in a scathing email sent this week to Democratic Party of Georgia officials from a former staffer for the coordinated campaign that worked to boost Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats down the ballot.
The email was sent by Clare Schexnyder, a DeKalb County organizing director who said she spoke on behalf of a group of staffers who worked for the coordinated campaign, an initiative overseen by the state party that served as a central hub for Harris’ Georgia operation.
Schexnyder demanded an investigation into the party’s finances and called for the ouster of U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, the party’s chair, and other leaders in the complaint, which was sent to dozens of party officials Tuesday and obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“I didn’t take this lightly. We have been told time and again that we would get reimbursed. And we weren’t,” Schexnyder told the AJC. “It’s two months after the election. This is not what we are supposed to be standing for as Democrats.”
The accusations add to the challenges facing Williams, who is under pressure from U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff and other key Democrats to step aside. Williams is now competing for an influential Democratic National Committee vice-chair role.
The party’s executive director, Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye, didn’t dispute that some campaign staffers are still waiting for their checks. But he said “all of the outstanding reimbursements for last cycle will be paid and many of them have already been paid.”
Olasanoye added: “We’re aware of the limitations of the reimbursement process and are working to have a revamped system in place by the end of the month.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
In her email, Schexnyder painted a bleak picture of the party’s coordinated campaign in Georgia, which ended with former President Donald Trump recapturing the state four years after Joe Biden’s narrow victory upended state politics.
She wrote that “not being paid was a running theme” throughout the campaign, with some expenses filed in July not paid until October, and other expenses in October delayed so long that it caused a “work stoppage” weeks before the election.
Schexnyder ticked off a litany of other complaints. Some volunteers who were promised $150 to throw a debate watch party went unpaid, she said, and some big-name vendors stopped making deliveries to campaign offices because they weren’t paid on time. Others threatened legal action.
“We even had some regional directors who asked for security because vendors were angry and took that anger out on the Coordinated Campaign staff in the offices,” Schexnyder wrote.
She said the final straw was when she received a reimbursement check just before Christmas that shorted her $500 with no explanation. After a few calls, she discovered that other staffers also didn’t receive their full payouts.
“It’s unconscionable. It’s blatant mismanagement of funds and staff,” she wrote. “It’s a fireable offense and ruins the chance of anyone wanting to work with the Democratic Party of Georgia ever again.”
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