After the conclusion of a month-long debate period in DSA, the National Political Committee (NPC) broached the issue of whether to endorse United States Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). In response to AOC’s move towards the Democratic Party’s core and her growing disconnect with the general sentiment of DSA membership, the NPC voted to approve a conditional endorsement of AOC, specifically requiring that her continued endorsement would be dependent upon whether certain conditions were met. The conditions were that: 

• AOC would oppose all military funding to Israel,
• AOC would participate in DSA’s Federal Socialists in Office committee,
• AOC would oppose all criminalization of Anti-Zionism,
• AOC would give public support to the BDS movement.

A week after this endorsement was approved, a member of the NPC notified the DSA general membership that DSA’s New York City Chapter (NYC-DSA), who initially applied for AOC’s national endorsement, suddenly wanted the NPC to rescind AOC’s national endorsement, citing issue with the process by which the endorsement and the conditions were adopted. 

In a statement posted to the DSA forums, the NYC-DSA Steering Committee said, “We have a growing organizing relationship with AOC and hoped that national endorsement could be part of the strategy for building that relationship and bringing her closer to DSA. The relationship is an amalgamation of connections with different members of our chapter and individual members of her campaign and office side teams. This leads to disorganization, and we are committed to taking steps to formalize and make that relationship more democratic and transparent.” In defense of their request, NYC-DSA’s statement cited, among other things, the endorsement timeline, the communications between the chapter and the NPC, and NYC-DSA’s unique relationship with AOC’s office as reasons to rescind the national endorsement. Subsequently, the NPC voted to honor NYC-DSA steering’s request and withdraw AOC’s national endorsement.

On July 11, after the NPC’s vote to withdraw AOC’s national endorsement gained mainstream media attention, our comrades from Socialist Majority Caucus (SMC) posted their statement simultaneously supporting NYC-DSA’s request to withdraw the national endorsement and implicitly lamenting AOC’s non-endorsement at the national level. In an apparent attempt to rewrite history, the SMC statement opens by asserting that “no national endorsement has been revoked. Claims to the contrary are wrong.” This assertion is inaccurate.

So, how did DSA get in this position? What is the process by which a chapter can obtain a national endorsement? And is there a process by which a chapter can formally request the withdrawal of a national endorsement after it’s been approved by the NPC?

As the co-chair of DSA’s National Electoral Commission (NEC) Steering Committee and an active electoral organizer at DSA’s local and national levels, I am writing to address these questions.

The DSA National Endorsement Process

First, context is important. Here is a step-by-step breakdown of how DSA’s national endorsement process works:

Step 1

A local DSA chapter votes to endorse a local campaign. Campaigns must have the endorsement of a local chapter to be eligible for national endorsement.

Step 2

The local chapter applies for a national endorsement on behalf of their locally endorsed campaign. There is a link to submit applications for national endorsement on the NEC’s chapter resources page.

Step 3

The NEC’s endorsements subcommittee reviews the application and contacts the local chapter to gather more information about the campaign.

Step 4

The local chapter completes an endorsement questionnaire and an endorsement dossier for review by the NEC. The chapter also meets with the NEC’s endorsements subcommittee to discuss win numbers, electoral strategy, chapter development, and the state of their race. Candidates often meet and speak with the NEC’s endorsement subcommittee at this time, though it is not a requirement.

Step 5

The NEC Steering Committee reviews the local chapter’s endorsement questionnaire, notes from the endorsements subcommittee’s conversations with the campaign, and the endorsement dossier.

Step 6

The NEC Steering Committee votes on whether the campaign should be recommended to DSA’s NPC for endorsement. If a majority of Steering Committee members vote “yes”, the campaign is recommended to the NPC for endorsement. If a majority vote “no”, no recommendation is sent. The NEC does not make endorsements, only recommendations to the NPC.

Step 7

If the NEC recommends a campaign to the NPC for endorsement, the NEC’s chair coordinates with the NPC co-chairs to agendize a presentation of the campaign to the whole NPC for consideration. Under DSA’s bylaws, the NEC chair must be an NPC member.

Step 8

The NPC reviews the recommendation and votes to endorse the campaign or not. 

Campaigns that have received a national endorsement in previous election cycles may initially skip Steps 4 and 5. This exception to the process allows the campaign to move from the NEC review of the application to an NEC Steering Committee vote on recommendation without completing an endorsement questionnaire or meeting with the NEC’s endorsements subcommittee. 

If a vote to recommend a previously-endorsed campaign without completing Steps 4 and 5 does not receive majority support from the NEC Steering Committee, the result does not preclude that campaign from being recommended for endorsement. It only means that the campaign is then required to complete Steps 4 and 5 before returning to an NEC vote in the standard manner.

This year, NYC-DSA used this exception on behalf of AOC’s re-election campaign. AOC and her campaign did not meet with the NEC’s endorsements subcommittee or complete an endorsement questionnaire. However, because of AOC’s previous national DSA endorsements, the NEC voted to recommend endorsement without asking NYC-DSA or AOC’s campaign to complete Steps 4 and 5.

Withdrawing an Endorsement

After a local chapter submits their national endorsement application (Step 2), each subsequent step is taken with the understanding that the local chapter and the campaign want the endorsement of DSA’s national organization. This expectation of good faith exists to empower both local chapters and the national organization, as it makes democratic deliberation fairer and simpler at all levels of the organization.

In that context, national DSA endorsements that have been approved by the NPC are not offers that can be rejected or accepted by chapters. There is no secret Step 9 where chapters reconsider the prospect of a national endorsement after the NPC approves their application. There are no prohibitions against conditional or unconditional endorsements. After Step 6, all national endorsement decisions are completely at the NPC’s discretion.

There is only one noteworthy example of a campaign rescinding their request for national endorsement, and that example is readily distinguishable from the withdrawal of AOC’s national endorsement.

In October of 2023, as Israel was launching a genocide on Gaza, two locally-endorsed Philadelphia campaigns that had applied for national endorsements emailed the NEC to rescind their requests for national endorsement. These emails were sent directly to the NEC’s email, and they came directly from the campaign managers, not from the local Philadelphia chapter. Both campaigns had been recommended for endorsement by the NEC, but neither recommendation had been approved by the NPC, as voting on the recommendations was not complete. Because the emails came directly from the campaigns and because the NPC had not yet approved the NEC’s endorsement recommendations, the NPC agreed to honor the campaigns’ requests and end deliberations on whether to approve national endorsements.

That situation raises an important point: the local chapter’s role in DSA’s national endorsement process is procedurally limited to making a local endorsement, applying for national endorsement, and providing the national organization with information about the campaign. The NEC is similarly limited to researching and recommending campaigns for national endorsement. 

National endorsements can only be made by the NPC. National endorsements, once made, can only be withdrawn by the NPC. There are no channels through which a chapter may request the withdrawal of an NPC-approved national endorsement, and the NPC is under no obligation to honor a chapter’s request to withdraw an approved endorsement should such a request reach the NPC.

The only way that a local chapter, under their own authority, can stop the national endorsement process is by rescinding their local-level endorsement, which would make a campaign ineligible for national endorsement. If a campaign is not endorsed by their local chapter, then that campaign may not receive a national endorsement. 

NYC-DSA has elected to maintain their unconditional local endorsement of AOC rather than rescind their local endorsement to make AOC ineligible for national endorsement, as is their right. Until they privately expressed surprise over DSA’s conditional endorsement to contacts in NYC-DSA’s leadership, AOC’s campaign was not directly involved in the national endorsement process. NYC-DSA applied for national endorsement on the campaign’s behalf and requested the exception on the campaign’s behalf. After seeing the conditions that came with the national endorsement, NYC-DSA sent an immediate request for withdrawal of the endorsement to an NPC member through informal backchannels. When this did not immediately result in withdrawal, NYC-DSA directly connected with another NPC member to set up a meeting with the full NPC. At this meeting, which was attended by a significant number of NYC-DSA’s chapter administrators, NYC-DSA reiterated their request for the NPC to rescind the conditional endorsement of AOC.

The decision to honor this request or ignore it was fully at the NPC’s discretion. Ultimately, the NPC voted over Loomio to rescind the endorsement, as per NYC-DSA’s request. 

To be clear, the NPC voted at this point to withdraw the conditional endorsement which was initially passed. They did not vote to allow NYC-DSA to reverse the national endorsement process.

National DSA Endorsements Belong to Everyone

The NYC-DSA Steering Committee’s statement makes repeated reference to their chapter’s “relationship” with AOC’s office and objects to the time frame of the conditional endorsement, which was passed two days before AOC’s primary election. Notably absent from the statement is any mention of NYC-DSA’s relationship with members of the social movement for Palestinian liberation, which has evidently become strained by AOC’s growing distance from the movement. On June 22, one day before the initial NPC endorsement vote, protesters from the pro-Palestine group Within Our Lifetimes (WOL) disrupted a campaign event featuring AOC, Bernie Sanders, and Jamaal Bowman. The proterstors condemned the trio’s endorsement of Joe Biden and called for them to repudiate their support for him, stand for an end to military aid to Israel, and issue much stronger condemnation of Israel and the genocide in Gaza. After the rally, DSA members, including our members in office, wasted no time smearing the anti-Zionist movement as being either covertly aligned with AIPAC or as far-right infiltrators. Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) subsequently released a statement calling out AOC, Jamaal Bowman, and Bernie Sanders for their complicity in the genocide in Gaza, which was supported by the Columbia University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). I understand that tensions can exist amongst allies and times like these can be challenging.

While all this was happening, the NPC passed the conditional endorsement of AOC, ending the formal debate and discussion period initiated by the NPC within the organization surrounding our support for AOC. At no point were the observations and criticisms from Palestinian movement leaders towards AOC addressed or even considered by the authors of the NYC-DSA steering statement. The authors appeared to be perplexed at the possibility of AOC’s endorsement garnering contention within DSA, saying, “The assumption made by our Steering Committee, based on precedent, was to approach national endorsement not as an involved political process but as a largely administrative procedure, required to get additional support for our chapter endorsements.” 

This assumption reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between DSA’s national infrastructure and DSA’s local chapters. Our national organization is not a mere administrator of safeguarded resources any more than our local chapters are mere extensions of national political efforts. Our local chapters should not be disparate entities with only nominal intersections any more than our national organization is the unquestioned arbiter of political action. Rather, we are all part of a single, nationwide, democratic movement for socialism, and as such, our national processes are inherently political – endorsements included.

As mentioned previously, there is no direct precedent for this situation. Consequently, DSA’s national membership began informal discussions around AOC’s endorsement several months before the issue reached the NPC for a vote. After the endorsement request was made, the NPC convened a month of discussions on the DSA forums concerning AOC’s endorsement, beginning in May. This discussion period was necessary in the case of AOC’s endorsement because national endorsement decisions belong to the entirety of our national organization, in which many members had, even before the start of the official discussion period registered their opposition to AOC’s continued endorement. Endorsements are not made at the pleasure of the chapter that requests a national endorsement. 

AOC’s statements and actions, by virtue of her status as the United States’ de facto celebrity socialist, reflect on our entire national organization, not just the chapter that maintains an informal relationship with her office. If DSA is to participate in the movement for Palestinian liberation, then the national figures who we endorse and support must understand and affirm the goals and requirements of the existing movement for a free Palestine without hesitation or exception. Unfortunately, in recent years, AOC has failed to consistently and emphatically exhibit such an active understanding of the fight for a free Palestine. 

Meaningful participation in the Palestinian liberation movement requires a thorough commitment to meeting the needs of the movement as it actually exists. For many chapters this means building and maintaining relationships with groups like WOL, PYM, and SJP. In practice, the prioritization of tenuous relationships with politicians who consistently fail to uphold our values and pursue our principles limits our capacity to engage with the social movement for Palestinian liberation.

DSA’s national endorsement process is national by design. It is not a mere administrative instrument for local chapters to activate and abandon at will. Our national endorsement process should and does reflect the priorities, views, and experiences of our entire organization. In keeping with our democratic values, no individual chapter, regardless of size, may unilaterally dictate who the national organization chooses as public representatives or upon what terms such selections are made.

DSA is a collective project that has committed itself to fighting for socialism and working class liberation. If we wish to achieve our goals without compromising our democratically-decided values, then decisions that affect our nationwide organizing must be reached through good-faith engagement with our democratically-designed national structures, adhering to processes that are consistent for all. We hope that going forward, all chapters and caucuses learn from this and continue the discussion of how we truly build power with our electeds all the while maintaining a principled stance for issues as important as Palestinian liberation.