There’s been some coverage on the Daily Kos in the last year documenting the Republican affiliations of the Chairwoman of the Virginia Beach Democratic Committee, Carla Hesseltine. Long story short, she supported Republicans as recently as 2016 and has lied repeatedly about it, including when she ran for Chairwoman of the Democratic Committee calling herself a “lifelong” Democrat.
Having a Republican or Republican sympathizer as Chairwoman of the Democratic Committee in the largest city in Virginia is problematic for a variety of reasons, but the most significant concern has to be when it comes to elections. That a Republican running the Democratic party will elevate Republicans and covertly undermine Democrats in elections when it really counts.
There were a variety of reasons to oppose Ms. Hesseltine remaining Chairwoman from the beginning, but it was only through seeing her behavior during an actual election that you could properly judge whether she was a Republican or an ex-Republican.
That election has come and gone, and her behavior was more egregious than even Ms. Hesseltine’s most passionate critics could’ve anticipated. A Medium blogger familiar with the situation, William M., documented her extensive misdeeds here, with ample quotes and screenshots to back up his claims. I don’t think I could do a better job fully covering this story than he did, so I’ll just give a quick summary for those of you who don’t have the time to read the full account:
-In Virginia, local races are technically non-partisan, in that you don’t see a D or R on the ballot when you vote, but all (or almost all) candidates have known political affiliations based on which parties they’ve joined and who they support in partisan races. The local parties create ballot guides to pass out on election day specifying which candidates are aligned with their party so voters will know who to support. All races are voted in at-large, so it’s a long list and many voters don’t know going in to the polling place who they’re supporting for each one. The local parties also advertise their affiliated candidates and elected officials on their website. The usual policy of the Virginia Beach Democratic Committee in recent years has been to only put people on their ballot guide who joined the party. For this election, Hesseltine changed this policy so that it was decided on a case-by-case basis by the steering committee. The general membership were given no input in the process at any stage, and the Chairwoman also repeatedly changed the process, which was originally supposed to be an objective scoring system, to get the results she wanted.
-She fought hard to get a Republican City Councilman, Jim Wood, on the ballot guide because he was a close personal friend of hers. The rest of the steering committee fought against this because Wood’s opponent, Mike Maskell, was the active Treasurer of the Virginia Beach Democratic Committee, and a lifelong Democrat. Again, she supported her Republican friend instead of a Democrat who was a member of her own steering committee. Knowing she didn’t have the votes to put Wood on the ballot guide, she asked that no one be endorsed for that race. Even though she had many allies on the steering committee (and some of her critics had already resigned in disgust), she lost that battle and Maskell was put on the ballot guide instead of Wood… at first.
-Jim Wood wasn’t the only Republican Hesseltine supported. Two others, Louis Jones and Ben Davenport, were added to the ballot guide, but only after Jones gave $1000 to the committee and Davenport’s mother did. Jones is a longtime Republican who has publicly identified himself as such and appeared on the website of the Virginia Beach Republican Party as one of their elected officials. He also has made racially insensitive remarks publicly during this election cycle. Davenport is slightly cagier about his affiliations, but had a history of publicly endorsing Republican candidates in partisan races and was helping the Republican Congressman, Scott Taylor, raise money the same week he was added to the ballot guide.
-Hesseltine purposefully dragged out the ballot guide process and refused to announce who was on the ballot guide until after the October meeting, so committee members would have no opportunity to voice their concerns about these choices or make any changes. She knew there would be a backlash, which to this day she hasn’t responded to, and didn’t want to deal with it.
-Members were outraged when the ballot guide was finally released, and the steering committee agreed to change the ballot guide to match the rules for previous elections and only put Democrats on it. Outraged at not getting her way, Hesseltine sent out an email saying there would be no ballot guide for down ballot candidates at all, saying that if she couldn’t include Republicans then the actual Democrats would get no support.
-As outrage mounted around her, she stalled once again, refusing to address the issue or say if there would be a ballot guide at all and, if so, who would be on it. She was waiting for a minor scandal to erupt around Mike Maskell, one that involved some dick jokes he’d made in an exchange with a friend on their private Facebook page. None of it involved bigotry or sexual assault, or anything disqualifying other than maybe the bad judgement of trusting the wrong people on social media. But Hesseltine seized upon it, claiming his jokes about consensual sex were as bad as Donald Trump’s sexual assault of women. Then she agreed that a ballot guide could be ordered last minute, provided Maskell was not on it. She got her way, at least partially, and a ballot guide was printed up with Democrats, minus Maskell (who, again, was running against her close friend). Maskell, it’s worth noting, was still her Treasurer and dutifully wrote the check for the ballot guide he wasn’t allowed to be on.
-Throughout this whole process, she’s fought to silence the voices of people, especially Black women, who questioned her leadership, including a Twitter tirade trying to get one local activist fired and trying to get an entire Indivisible chapter disbanded by national leadership. She also behaved immaturely on social media when dealing with critics on the Virginia Beach Democratic Committee website and started a lengthy comment war with a City Councilman who expressed support for Maskell instead of her friend Jim Wood.
For some reason, even though a grievance was filed over a month ago based on this evidence, she is still chairwoman and no vote has taken place. Hesseltine has refused to address any of these allegations or the evidence presented to back them up.