Martin Austermuhle
Tomorrow the members of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club will gather for a special meeting to discuss a contested leadership election in early December, where three incumbent members were defeated by a slate of newcomers and their supporters.
In the wake of that election, a lawyer and longtime members of the club questioned the validity of the election, saying that the three winners claimed victory due to an influx of 46 new members to the longstanding GLBT group, some of which may not have qualified for membership. Because of those concerns, they say, the entire election should be invalidated, a decision that could be made at a special meeting tomorrow.
Ahead of that meeting, though, legal and political wrangling continues. In a letter posted on the group’s website, defeated president Lateefah Williams announced that if a new election were called, she would not run again:
While I am deeply humbled and profoundly grateful for the support of these longtime members and I believe that it is important to investigate potential election irregularities, I am also very concerned about the future of the club. It is imperative that the Stein Club move forward into the future as a unified organization, so that we may continue to focus on effectively advocating for the District’s LGBT community. To that end, I am removing myself from consideration as the 2013 Stein Club President. While the decision to hold the Special Meeting and to possibly invalidate the election results is, and always has been, a different matter than my candidacy, I want to state my intentions unequivocally, so that it’s clear that any decision that is made by the membership at the Special Meeting should be made independent of me.
Regardless of Williams’ decision, a lawyer for the three winners of the election—Martin Garcia, Angela Peoples and Vincent Villano—submitted a memo in which he said that there’s no legal grounds to question the membership of 17 newcomers to the group. According to him, the group’s bylaws does not specify what the qualifications for membership are, therefore any process to check the status of any members would be inappropriate.
