"Technically, the DNC has many hundreds of members, but the actual nerve center of the party is this committee, small enough to fit into a single D.C. hotel room.
The roughly 30 members of the Rules and Bylaws Committee are far from famous. You’ve heard of Ilhan Omar, AOC, and Gretchen Whitmer, but have you heard of… Frank Leone? Ken Martin? David McDonald? But anonymous or not, this is the body with the power to change how the Democrats pick their nominee.
And this body, as it happens, is stacked in Biden’s favor. Membership in this critical committee is controlled by the chairman of the DNC, Jaime Harrison, formerly chair of the South Carolina Democrats. Harrison owes his position to being chosen by Joe Biden, and as expected of him, he’s filled Rules and Bylaws with reliable Biden backers. A year ago, over loud protests from some sections of the party, the Rules and Bylaws Committee executed Biden’s request to reshuffle the Democratic primary calendar to reduce the prominence of states that are “too white.” They demoted Iowa and New Hampshire (the states where Biden bombed) and elevated South Carolina (the state that rocketed him to the nomination in 2020).
The presence of so many Biden political allies implies, on the flip side, a lack of allies for anyone else. If there really were a viable plot to install Gavin Newsom specifically, it would help to have Newsom political allies somewhere high up in the Democrat Party apparatus. But instead, such allies are missing. That’s no surprise, because he’s not the one who controls the Rules Committee.
In short, the DNC is not some independent actor on the left. It is a body substantially controlled by Joe Biden. Expecting it to change course in order to save the Democrats is like expecting Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to be derailed by the membership of Mar-a-Lago."
