Let's Find Out Who Actually Runs the Democratic Party

Update, Oct. 4, 2019: thank you to everyone who donated to get us to halfway! 

We'll be posting more updates on Sludge's free email newsletter, and of course on Twitter and Facebook and the site itself on the open Internet.

You can still donate to Sludge, a 100% reader-supported independent newsroom, to help our team of three investigative journalists produce this DNC member project. Read more about our impacts and our progress towards small-donor sustainability, to continue our accountability reporting. Get in touch with questions, and thank you again to backers, more updates coming.

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Who controls the Democratic Party? Technically, 359 DNC members—mostly hand-picked by leadership—meet to determine the rules that govern the Democratic nominating process.

Almost no one knows who these DNC members actually are. Their names aren't even posted on the official Democratic Party website. The roll calls of their votes, detailed budget expenditures, and minutes of their committee meetings are not made public.

Sludge has obtained the current list of DNC members, but right now it's just a .pdf document.

With your help, Sludge can expose the conflicts of interest of every DNC member and release that information publicly to support public accountability and pressure the members to serve on behalf of all Democrats, not just the party elites and corporate donors.  

Sludge will produce the first-ever comprehensive report on DNC members from all 50 U.S. states and territories, with missing public info for nearly 50 million Democrats nationwide to know about the people who spend the party's money.

Our initial research has turned up a number of conflicts of interest among DNC members and the operations of its powerful standing committees, whose chairs and majorities are dominated by DNC Chair Tom Perez:

• Last month, Sludge reported the scoop that DNC has taken at least $60,750 from fossil fuel executives so far this year. 
• One DNC member who recently led opposition to a climate debate is a principal at a major lobbying firm for the fossil fuel industry.
• Looking at the related issue of superdelegates, at least eight DNC superdelegates work for the health-care industry, and three for major financial firms. 
• The DNC's primary legal counsel, Perkins Coie LLP (a firm with multiple roles in 2016 controversies), holds lobbying contracts with oil & gas companies.

About Sludge

Sludge is an independent newsroom that produces investigative journalism about lobbying and money in politics. We look beyond public records and disclosures to reveal the hidden networks and conflicts of interest that drive systemic corruption.

One of our primary beats is the fossil fuel industry's influence over climate policy in the Democratic Party and the U.S. Congress. Our previous reports on fossil fuel industry lobbying and donations have had real-world impacts:

• The head of the U.S. House climate crisis committee, Rep. Kathy Castor, divested from her personal fossil fuel industry investments after a Sludge report exposed them.
• Following a Sludge investigation, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke was removed by environmental groups from the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge he signed as a candidate for U.S. Senate. (Beto re-signed the pledge again in May, as a Presidential candidate.)
• Sludge investigations have led to state government ethics complaints and an official NYC Council resolution on #AbolishICE, and they've been directly cited by U.S. Senators around conflict-of-interest legislation in Congress.

What We Need & What You Get

Last month, DNC Members voted down a resolution to have a Presidential debate focused on climate change, even though 73% of Democrats say the issue is "very important," and the roll call vote still hasn't been officially released through DNC press channels.

Sludge's journalists have already broken big stories on lobbyists' influence in politics. Our previous climate reporting has publicized how the DNC, DSCC, DCCC, presidential candidates, and members of Congress rake in funding from the fossil fuel industry. 

We're a 100% reader-supported independent newsroom. We rely on small-dollar donations from readers to continue our hard-hitting investigative reporting.

• A project goal of $10,000 will enable our three-person team to devote our reporting time in October to producing these profiles, drawing the power maps, and conducting dozens of interviews with DNC Members of all allegiances.
• Special for this campaign, we'll print our first-ever t-shirts with the SLUDGE logo on the front.
• If we don't reach our full goal, we'll put out a partial report on some fossil fuel industry lobbyists, missing the wider pool of DNC vendors.

But with a full report, people in every U.S. state will have access to a new, comprehensive free info resource about their state's DNC Members. The full report will also link to the best-available online channels to have open dialogue with all of the DNC Members, and bring about stronger public accountability ahead of the 2020 Convention.

The Impact

News readers might recall that after the contested 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary, there was a series of DNC meetings around a "Unity Reform Commission" to revise the DNC nomination process, ethics rules, and budget transparency. 

The results of those DNC reform meetings are still in flux. On the one hand, superdelegates (including many lobbyists) can now only vote on a second ballot at the Convention (which might prove to be crucial—more explainers to come on this process). But reformers say strong ethics enforcement is still lacking, and on July 31 the DNC rejected democratically-elected, independent oversight of its budget expenditures (much more to come on these fronts as well).

If the 2020 Primary is contested at the August national convention, accountability for DNC Members will be a huge issue. This comprehensive report will start laying this public knowledge and build the expectation that superdelegates won't override the will of Democratic primary voters.

Almost 50 million people self-identify as Democrats, but how many of them are following the various committee processes in the closed-off, top-down DNC? As the Democratic Party won't publish the identities of its members or its budgets openly on its website, Sludge will help state Democratic parties focus greater public attention on these important oversight processes. 

Risks & Challenges

Sludge has the investigative experience and the editorial independence to publicize a full report on all the DNC members, but profiling all 359 people (and others) will take hundreds of hours of work, so we're looking to raise at least $10,000 to underwrite this report. The more support we receive, the more detailed our public reporting of the conflicts of interest between DNC Members, 2020 Convention delegates, DNC vendors, and corporate lobbyists will be.

• Over the past 18 months, Sludge has published hundreds of original investigative stories, with our relentless focus on money in politics. Our original reporting has been cited hundreds of times by major news outlets including CNN, MSNBC, and HuffPost.
• Our weekly newsletter reaches a national readership of leading investigative journalists and political reporters.
• Our previous Twitter posts on our investigative reports have gone viral and been shared by issue groups to their members.

Other Ways You Can Help

IndieGoGo allows backers to donate to this project with just a name, email address, and a credit/debit card. You do not need to first register a user account with IndieGoGo. After donating, the email address will immediately receive a receipt from IndieGoGo with more options.

Share this campaign over Twitter, Facebook, and email to help us find support to uncover industry influence and encourage public transparency the DNC!

• Join our free weekly newsletter to stay in touch with the project next month.
• Be in touch about a tax-exempt charitable grant to support this project and other work in transparency and accountability.