Reply All - #153 The Real Enemy, Part 2

Episode Date: December 13, 2019

The second part of our story — the war rages on. A third faction emerges. Emmanuel Dzotsi reports. Additional reading:  Doug Jones’ memoir about his work prosecuting the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombings: Bending Toward Justice: The Birmingham Church Bombing that Changed the Course of Civil Rights Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Gimlet, this is Reply All. I'm PJ Vote. So this is episode two of our story, The Real Enemy. If you have not yet heard episode one, none of this is going to make sense to you. Please go back and listen. But just a quick refresher, when we left off, Emmanuel was telling the story of a fight between two factions of Democrats in Alabama. On one side, a group of Democrats led by Senator Doug Jones. On the other, a group led by Joe Reed.

When we left off, these two sides were headed towards a massive showdown. Joe Reed is trying to protect a Democratic Party in the South that is run by black people. Doug Jones believes that as long as that party is led by Joe's deputy Nancy Worley, they will never beat the Republicans. Emmanuel will take it from here. So in August of 2018, that committee of party leaders, the SDEC, holds an election for party chair, and Nancy Worley runs to keep her seat. Joe Reid has made it clear that no matter how much Democrats in Alabama may blame Nancy for the party's failings,

she is his choice, his trusted ally. And normally, that's all it would take. Joe Reid's allies would just re-elect her. But this time, it's different. Doug Jones, newly elected senator, announces that he has his own candidate that he'll be putting forward to run against Nancy. And whoever wins this fight, whether it's Joe Reid or Doug Jones, that person will effectively control the future of a Democratic Party in Alabama. But Doug Jones camp is worried for two reasons.

The first is that they need to break up Joe's majority to get enough votes. The second is that they're not. Okay, let's say they do get enough votes. The person in charge of a meeting where that election is going to happen is Nancy Worley. And they do not trust Nancy Worley. I've had Democrats whisper to me about sketchy things she's allegedly done in past elections, like announcing results without actually counting all the votes. Nancy disputes this, but in any case, when the day of the actual vote rolls around,

Doug Jones's people make sure to record the meeting. It takes place in this giant theater, and it's packed with Joe Reed supporters, Doug Jones supporters, and they're all sitting in darkness, looking up at the stage, where Joe Reed and the party's offices are seated at a long table. The vice chair, who happens to be a pastor, opens with a prayer. Eternal Lord God, our Father, we thank you for the many blessings that you've given us. We thank you for the Democratic Party. And then, the person who this fight is actually about, Nancy Worley, she steps up to the podium.

This time I will call the meeting to order and welcome all of you here today to our organizational meeting, which occurs every quadrenium. Nancy's a short white woman. She's got gray hair, dressed in a colorful floral pattern shirt, sort of a mix of like folksy and eccentric. Organizational meetings tend to be controversial. And right from the start of a meeting, you can tell that Nancy is just trying as best as she can to keep this from getting ugly. I would ask you today to be very, very respectful of your... your fellow Democrats. Then Nancy gives up the mic,

and it's time for the election for party chair. The floor is open for nominations for cheer. A couple of older black men get up, walk over to the mic, and they make their big pitch for why everyone should vote for Nancy. I'd like to nominate Nancy Worley. She's bona fide.

I second the motioned. That's it. That's their whole pitch. She's bona fide. But then... Ladies and gentlemen... It's time for the other side to make their pitch.

My name's Doug Jones. I'm the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama since 1992. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to nominate for change. Doug Jones, he starts his speech, and it's immediately clear how frustrated he is with the party. There's no money being funneled to communications. There's no money being funneled to social media. There's no money being funneled to get out the vote. He tells the crowd, now is our chance to change this.

We have an opportunity to seize the moment. that you guys individually, not as a party, but individually provided in December of 1997, I nominate my friend, former Hefflin staffer, former Folsom Staffer, a great lawyer, a great Democrat, Peck Fox from Montgomery, Alabama. Please. It's funny because even though this speech is longer than the Nancy's bona fide one, in a way, Doug Jones is saying exactly the same thing, which is just, trust me. Like, he only actually mentions Peck Fox, his party chair nominee, once.

So Doug Jones is asking for kind of a lot here. He's asking Black Democrats to ditch Joe Reed and go with his candidate, a white guy that they're not that familiar with. I spoke to one of those Black Democrats. Somebody I figured he'd have at least a shot of convincing. My name is Dr. Demetri Young Doty, J.D. Dr. Anna J.D? Just the J.D. is a doctor.

It's the airspire that you really want. Dmitria is brand new to that leadership committee, the SDC. She'd volunteered for Doug Jones, helped him win his election. She's exactly the type of Democrat Doug Jones is betting on winning over. But the thing was, the day before the vote, Dmitri had driven down to Montgomery early because Joe Reed had invited her to breakfast. Got a hotel because he didn't want to be late because I'm always late.

I want to be able to be there for the minority. caucus breakfast that morning. So I came down, I was at the breakfast. The breakfast, what is that? That was the minority caucus breakfast that Judge Joe Reid gives for us. This is a famous or maybe infamous breakfast. It's a Joe Reed tradition. It happens before every party election. But black members of the party leadership come together. New members are welcomed. They chat over coffee. There's orange juice. But really what it is, is an orientation to join Joe Reed and his allies. And that morning, Joe Reed had a heavy piece of news to deliver to the room. We are under attack from an enemy I know all too well.

He just said there's some people that are coming at us. And I do remember him calling them the Dixie Kratz of old, which I didn't remember because that's before my time. That's my granddaddy time. Demet's thinking, wait, who are we under attack from? Like, have our Republicans just gone undercover? And she's looking around that. other new members for direction here. They were looking at me and I was looking at him. And we were kind of like, what? And he was like, don't worry about, we're going to let you all know what's going on.

But be very careful. We've got to ban together. This is about an on-and-out attack to destroy the Democratic Party. Well, you know, those words right there just to me was like, okay, let me just pull my sleeves up because, you know, I didn't come down here for nothing because my constituents, I've got an answer to them. You're thinking, oh, okay, we're, I got to be ready to fight. Yeah, because he never said who it was.

After the breakfast, Dmitria and the others headed to the vote. And on the way into the theater, she ran into Doug Jones. He recognized her and was happy to see her. So he hugged and he kissed me and I didn't think anything. And he said, we're going to have a great day. And I said, great, great, you know. Oh, so you see Doug Jones and you're like, oh, we're on, okay, someone on my side. Because this is somebody I just helped got elected and I'm proud of it.

So I'm not thinking that Doug is coming there being adversarial, not on a million years. Which brings us back to this moment at the election, when Doug Jones nominates Peck Fox, a white attorney for party chair. A great lawyer, a great Democrat, Peck Fox from Montgomery, Alabama. Dmitri is watching from her seat, and she hears these murmurs of discontent from the other black people around her. They're not happy. Then it started to occur to me. Wait a minute. And I start going back over the breakfast.

I start putting them all together. The enemy that Joe Reid had warned her about was Doug Jones. And just as Dimitri realizes this, Joe Reid gets up to the mic and says, All right, let's do this thing. Yeah, let's vote. Let's vote. So the way this election works, there are no ballots. Everyone's just supposed to stand up when their candidate's name is called out.

Dmitri is sitting there, wearing her options. Because I didn't really want it, Nancy. I really didn't. I really didn't. But I didn't know this peg guy. Am I doing any better with staying where I am? Or coming over here, will you handpicked some person? All in favor of Pick Fox stand?

When the vote went down, it was clearly a down racial line. Now, all in favor of Nancy, where to please stand? Because all black stood up for Nancy, all whites stood up for Paxie. And it made me feel like I was back when I was a little girl in the 60s, late 60s here, where, you know, blacks, you had to go in that side of the room or whites had they go in that. I just didn't like it. It hurt my heart. Remember, Dmitri was a first-timer. She didn't know that this is what happens at SDEC meetings all the time.

She had watched videos showing Joe Reid's allies rising as one to keep the people Joe didn't trust off the committee. This was her first time seeing the power of Joe's majority. Let me announce that Peg Fox has received 89 votes and Nancy Whirley has been elected, re-elected as the chairperson of the Alabama Democratic Party. Dmitria voted for Nancy, but she did not feel good about it. And when you left there that day, how were you feeling after her? I felt like I wanted to fight. I don't know physically fight.

because I felt like I had been let down by the people that I had trusted, be that Dr. Reed, be that Doug. And I was just angry. I was literally angry. And I did have a conversation with Dr. Reed that day. And I do have nothing but respect for him. I'll say that. But I told him, I said, this will be the last time.

From here on end, I will sit it all out before I'll stand up for something I don't know don't believe in. He said, you got a long way to go, and you'll find out. Joe Reid, for his part, denies that this conversation ever happened. I wanted to talk to Doug Jones and Joe Reid about how this had all gone down. I talked to Doug Jones first, told him how Dimitri had felt. He said she was, it upset her that it felt like that vote in that room that day. Whether you wanted it to be or not was divided among racial lines.

And how did that make you feel? How did that make you feel, sir? It made me feel terrible, but I didn't divide it along racial lines. Joe Reid divided it along racial lines. That's the problem. Joe and ADC is dividing this along racial lines. We're not. I didn't make it feel that way.

Joe Reed and ADC made it feel that way. And they continue to do that by calling people a Dixocrat, comparing folks to George Wallace. They're the ones that have made this a race issue. Doug Jones, unsurprisingly, thought it was all Joe's fault. But when I spoke to Joe, he said something really surprising. just kidding, you blame Doug Jones. There was this other bigger thing, though,

because by this point, Doug Jones' side was accusing Joe Reed of election tampering. Among other things, they claimed the vice chair had counted more votes than there were actual people in the room. So I asked Joe about it. And with the party chair election, people are saying that more people voted in that election,

that there are only 145 people signed up. That is not true. What's the truth? I'm not going to defend anything that we did because everything we did was right and proper. He didn't get enough votes. And she got more votes than he got.

If they had one hell, you'd think they would have been arguing? No, absolutely not. They're arguing because they lost. They're so losers. That's all. Doug Jones's people are 100% convinced this election has been stolen from them. As far as they're concerned, they're owed a new party chair.

So, as a last resort, they kick this all the way up to the one organization that has power over Nancy and Joe, the Democratic National Committee, the DNC. After the break, Joe Reid squares off against a new foe. Welcome back to the show. So, the Democratic National Committee investigates the election between Peck Fox and Nancy Worley and determines it is not up to their standards. They tell Nancy, you have to hold a new election for party chair. And this is the moment that months later I keep thinking about. Joe Reid's first big mistake. I don't know if he'd realised yet what he'd done,

but his brinkmanship had invited the DNC into his own backyard, which meant Joe had put himself in a very dangerous position. Because when the DNC started poking around, of course, like one of the things they noticed was this weird special rule that gave Joe Reid a ton of power in Alabama. Sure, it guaranteed black representation on the leadership committee, but what about Latinos or other minorities? The DNC tells Nancy that she needs to fix the bylaws, the rules of the party.

And as part of this fix, the DNC wants Nancy to change the Joe Reed rule. Hello? Hello. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Okay, great, great. How are you? Good.

I talked to a DNC official who was given the unenviable job of getting Nancy and Joe to agree to these changes. His name's Harold Ickis. He's an old hand, been in politics a long time, Bush, Gingrich. How old scrap with the best of him. But he's experienced with Nancy and Joe, that was something else. I guess in life there's nothing unique, but this comes pretty close to unique. Oh, really? It's that different? Yes.

The best way to describe the dynamic between Harold and Nancy is idealistic substitute teacher meets very difficult student. Howard asked Nancy to turn in some new bylaws, but on the day they were due, his email was empty. I drafted a set of new bylaws, sent them down to Worley. she did not respond. And wait, wait, so she was supposed to write these bylaws and she just did her? Yes, she didn't. And you, then you were like, oh, wait, I'll just do your homework for you, and you basically sent it to her to sign off on them?

We wrote a complete set of bylaws, sent them to her, we sent them to her, complete radio silence. We were stunned by it. Harold was totally mystified by Nancy's behavior. But actually, to anybody who's living, in Alabama, this kind of response is not surprising. It's practically a local tradition. Tabitha Eisener had even told me about it.

I don't know if you know this about Alabama culture, but the says you culture here. Says you? Says you. Like, as soon as somebody else says that Alabama needs to do something? Oh, Alabama's not doing that. Again and again, the role that these two words played in Alabama was impressed upon me by the people I interviewed,

by the dryest of political history books. as if Says You was a founding principle of the state. Abortion is legal now? Says you? Schools have to be integrated? Says you? Our state Democratic Party has to follow a new set of rules. Says you.

The DNC, however, is not challenged by Nancy, says you. People were in power too long, and they get used to that, and they don't want to give up power, and they think they have a right to it. And they think that anybody else who voices any other opinion is, you know, comes close to being a terrorist.

Joe Reed has been the power in the Democratic Party for a long time. And did he do, has he done a lot and accomplished an enormous amount in his lifetime? The answer is a resounding yes. Joe Reed was on the forefront of the civil rights movement in the 50s and the 60s. He was there when, you know, you literally took your life in your hands if you went up against the white power structure. He deserves an enormous, enormous amount of credit. Times change. Younger people want to come into the party.

They're Hispanics now that should be representing the party. LGBTQ ought to be represented. And they were shut out. They were shut out. For six months, Harold and the DNC try an escalating series of punishments to make Nancy fall in line. They strip her of her credentials, kick her out of the National Party. But it doesn't change anything. The closest Nancy comes to cooperating,

is to send over one draft of the proposed new bylaws, a draft that doesn't touch the Joe Reid rule at all. So it's clear, Nancy and Joe Reid are not budging. Finally, the Dienc gives Nancy and Joe one last chance. They have one month to fix the bylaws and hold a new vote for party chair. The problem is, it's been more than a year since the Peck Fox election. A year-long power vacuum has made people restless and edgy. They're losing faith that the grown-ups are actually going to fix them.

So some Democrats, like Tabitha Eisner, decide it's time to take matters into their own hands. Okay, we've got to figure out a way to solve this. And the only other way to solve the problem is for the SDEC membership themselves to call for a meeting. Normally, it was Nancy's job to call meetings. But if Tabitha can get the majority of the SDEC on board, they can call their own meeting and use it to change the bylaws and kick Nancy out. Seems simple enough. But in the real world, what that looks like is...

figuring out a date, figuring out a location, reserving a ballroom on your own? Oh, like, they're actually just like, how do you plan a meeting? How do you actually plan a meeting when you're 250 people spread across the state who don't necessarily like each other, trust each other? You've not got to find a 50% plus one who we're going to work together enough in general to agree that we should have a meeting.

And then not just in general agree, but like get all of your signatures on a single document. You also need to find like where are you going to send them? And is everybody going to agree that that's the appropriate PO box? Who's going to monitor it? Who's going to certify that it was fair? See, you're like, you're like testing out. Yeah.

He's listening to me talk about this. So as I started thinking about this, I was like, this is never going to happen without help. Someone has to be the catalyst. Type of for the slides. she'll be that person. She'd run a campaign on her own. She knew how to organize. She'd already put herself forward

as a possible candidate to replace Nancy, but now Tabitha starts reaching out to Democrats across the state to get them on board with what is essentially a coup. I should say Tabitha objects to this word. And while I see it as a coup, in her defense, it is possibly the most polite

by the book's Sunday school takeover in political history. It starts with a video, conference call. Hey, y'all. I have to admit, I was skeptical. I thought that maybe, I don't know,

10 people would join this thing. But by the time I logged in, there were already a dozen people in the room. And within a couple minutes, maybe 40. Hello. Hey, welcome. I'm gladi. Maybe 50.

Judy Taylor. Hey, guys. It's Willie. Hello. I'm from Mobile. I'm actually in Africa right now. So many faces were crowded on the screen, that I could barely make them out.

But this I could tell. Real quick name, where you're calling in from. That almost everybody on these calls was white. Trisha McLean from Edwa, Corey Creel from Elmore County. And within a couple of minutes, Tabafo introduces herself. So if you don't know me already, I'm Tabith Eisner. Hello. And I want to give a little background on how we got to this point.

Tabitha starts to lay out her plan. Her coup will be shared, cooperative, and transparent. enough with powerful men telling everyone to just trust them. We need to make sure that Democratic voters across our state are having their voices heard. But as she starts describing her bold new vision, somebody interrupts as if to say, hey, not so fast. Hey, Tabitha.

Yeah. Cabitha, I don't mean to interrupt, but I really, this is Doug Jones. Hey, Senator Jones. Hey, I appreciate the opportunity to come. Can I give some folks an update on weird. things stand as of today because I think it's really important. Doug Jones explains that basically he and a small select group

have been already working on this problem themselves. They're actually really close to solving it. And then he heads off a call. Okay, I'm out. Okay, thank you so much. That's okay. I'm probably going to drop. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thanks for being here. To Tabitha, this moment was a little humiliating, but Doug Jones just felt like he was doing his job. You know, look, you can't please everybody all the time. What I was trying to do is to tell people a lot of work has been done on this for a long time. We've been trying to get these bylaws change for a year. Now all of a sudden, Ms. Eisner's coming in late to the party wanting to open source something that was just going to set us back, and we didn't have the time. Doug Jones came in and said it would be easier if we do it. We'll reserve a

space, we'll write the documents, we'll take care of it. He is right. It is easier. But I think the party would have grown more because the folks who prefer backroom deals are the folks who are most threatened by transparency and attempts to have grassroots power are terrifying to people who have authoritarian power. But all of this, like, it's still kind of Democratic, right? Yeah. Yeah, kind of. It's not that.

It's not that it's bad. We're all so damaged from having leaders that we don't trust. And there is so much distrust of everyone. And you can't get anything done when you don't know who to trust. The way Tabitha sees it, the people in her video conference want to trust one another. They want to build a party together. And to do that, they don't need Doug Jones' approval. So when he leaves the call, Tabitha, she just picks up right where she left off.

Okay, this is a big project. And over the next couple of weeks, Tabitha's band of grassroots Democrats plows forward. Hello, all. Good morning. Meeting up in their video calls. Let's go over what we did last meeting. Without any more interruptions from Doug Jones, they form different teams. One team to work on getting enough people to call for a meeting is getting the cover letter finalized.

Another team to try and invite new people to the party. Over 120 individuals who have expressed an interest in the various diversity caucuses. Night after night, I'd log on to watch their progress. We are already a little over a quarter of the way towards our fundraising goal. And I actually started to feel like I was watching something you don't get to see very often, at least not in public. Democrats getting along, forming coalitions, and making something happen. Finally, towards the end of September, Team 3 reports, OK, we've booked a ballroom at a Mario outside of Montgomery for October 12th.

I think what we're saying is yes for the Prattville location. I agree. This is where they're going to be able to hold that meeting and get one step closer to getting rid of Nancy Worley and starting a new party. But no sooner do they do this, then Doug Jones pops his head back up with his own announcement. He says he's calling an official meeting for the exact same purpose, but it's going to be a week earlier on October 5th. So Tabith's people are wondering, will their meeting be the official meeting, or will Doug Jones' meeting?

And while they're trying to figure that out, everybody gets an email from somebody else they'd basically forgotten about. October 5th. Okay, you know, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Okay. Nancy just called a meeting. On Facebook or by email? By email zero minutes ago on October 12th. We called for a meeting on the 12th.

Senator Jones called for a meeting on the 5th, and Nancy Worley called for a meeting on the 12th. All three had locations booked. You guys can't be... For 13 months, we couldn't get a single meeting, and now in 24 hours we have three meetings. Tabitha doesn't want to burn bridges. So she scraps her meeting and tells people,

okay, go to Doug Joneses instead. But that means there's still two competing meetings, one that Doug Jones and his people have put together, and another that Joe Reed and Nancy Worley have put together. So which meaning is the real meeting? Remember, this is happening in October of this year, like 2019. Somewhere out there, the Republicans, presumably, are like, I don't know, drawing each other elaborate new gerrymandering maps

or dreaming up new push-poles for next year's elections. Meanwhile, for Democrats, the war of the meetings rages on. And Demetria, like, poor Demetria, she just wants to know which meaning to go to. But of course, whichever meaning she goes to, that declares whose side she's on. In fact, she receives a letter from Joe Reed making that very clear. I said about upcoming meeting October 12. Yeah. Please be reminded that our chair, Nancy Worley, has set a special meeting of the SEC for Saturday, October 12th at 11.

am to consider some new bylaws. This is a very important meeting. It is imperative for you to be present. Clear that day because this meeting may be long. Second paragraph. I am told that someone is calling you in the name of Doug Jones. This is not possible. Nancy Whirla has already reserved the facility and nobody can call a meeting if the chair has already called one. Keep in mind that in the past, The only people who have sent you letters regarding SDEC meetings have been Nancy Worley and me. Therefore, if you receive mail from anyone other than Nancy Worley or me, it is fake. This letter goes on like this for a while. Senator Doug Jones is abusing his authority and betraying our trust.

We work like hell to get him elected, U.S. Senator. He is using every opportunity to weaken and undermine the black votes on the SDEC, off all crimes, the worst crime is in gratitude. Okay. So when you saw this, what did you think? What the hell is going on? I mean, I'm confused. Does that mean we'll have two meetings and which meeting is going to be legitimate?

I hear what he's saying in here. I hear Lose to Doug. So I'm trying to put all this together. And what I said to myself was Demetria. and I do love my Saturdays and sunnies to sleep and regenerate myself so I don't look like my age.

I'm getting up and I'm going to both. So at the end of September, I decide I'm also going to go to both meetings. I'm going to go to Alabama and watch this fight up close, a fight between the mostly white Democrats and the mostly black Democrats. I wanted to see what the Alabama Democratic Party

would end up looking like, and if in the end, it'd even be a party. If half of the SDEC shows up on the fifth and pass... Like this Saturday. Yeah, two days from now. And passes a set of bylaws. And then one week later, a different subset of the SDEC shows up. And they vote into effect a different set of bylaws.

Which bylaws are the real Alabama Democratic Party bylaws? That is the moment when we have two parties. Two Alabama Democratic parties governed by two different sets of bylaws. You think that Republican domination is severe right now in Alabama. If we split into the white Democrats and the black Democrats, we are done. But the problem I think you have is that it hasn't happened, but it's basically already happened. So that's what you have. Hope.

What could possibly be your hope at this point? Well, I'm telling people this is a test of whether we can stay together. This is a family argument or an argument between spouses where you have to be more committed to their relationship than you are to the fight. The fight is worth having. Don't get me wrong. But how you fight matters and you need to fight in a way that makes it clear that I still want to be in relationship with you no matter how this fight ends. Next time on Reply All, the conclusion of her story. Only one set of Democrats will be left standing in the end.

Reply All is hosted by me, PJ Vote, and Alex Goldman. We're produced by Shruthi Piminani, Fia Bannon, Damiano Marquetti, Anna Foley, Jessica Young, and Emmanuel Jochi. Our executive producer is Tim Howard. We're mixed by Rick Kwan and Catherine Anderson. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our intern is Rachel Cohn. Our theme music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder,

music in this episode from Breakmaster Cylinder and Luke Williams. Special thanks this week to Lane Clemens, Josh Rabi and Will Boyd. Matt Leaver is heated seats. You can find our show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. The next episode of this story is in your feed right now.