The Orange County Democratic Executive Committee has new leadership after party elections took place at the downtown Orlando library. Wes Hodge, a local campaign operative and active Democrat, was elected the new Chair of the Orange County DEC.
“Thank you to my fellow Democrats for the vote of confidence, and I look forward to working to grow our party,” Hodge posted on social media after Saturday’s election.
Longtime labor activist and Democratic champion Lorraine Tuliano was elected as State Committeewoman, a more than welcome breath of fresh air from the outgoing Nancy Robinson. Former DEC Chair and longtime Democratic leader Doug Head was elected as State Committeeman, ousting Jimmy Auffant in another welcome change of leadership. Tuliano and Head will now also play a role in reshaping the Florida Democratic Party at the state level in their new roles, in addition to providing leadership at the local level.
There was some drama ahead of the election when Landra Robeson, an employee of Tax Collector Scott Randolph, entered the race for state committeewoman at the last minute. Members of the Democratic Party spread word that it was part of another Randolph scheme to promote Susannah Randolph for state party chair. Susannah Randolph was present for the DEC vote on Saturday. But this path for her is now closed after Tuliano’s victoy.
Nuren Haider, who recently ran for Orange County Commissioner, was elected as Vice Chair of the local party. Debbe Ryan, Dawn Curtis, Tiffany Namey and Timothy Ayers will also join the newly elected board.
The new Orange County Democratic leadership all promise to reinvigorate the local party and should be able to work together well to generate results. They are all focused on making positive change. The new leadership signaled that transparency, openness and inclusion will be the focus of the party moving forward — and that would be a much-needed change from the way things have been locally. Expect a much stronger Democratic Party in Central Florida.
[…] UPDATE: Orange County Democrats Elect New Leadership […]
The Randolph’s built the Democratic Party up in Central Florida, are some of the strongest progressive voices in the state of Florida, and continue to give of themselves to make sure progressive issues are moving forward in our state. I don’t know if Susannah would have been the best person to be the next chair of the FDP… but having her in the conversation would have been good for sure. We need the Randolph’s to help move the party left, and fight against the ongoing effort to make the FDP Republican light.
While the Randolphs have been good for themselves and a few close cronies; the Party is Better Off with open and new leadership that is NOT in bed with Special Interest Groups; Former MAYOR TIM AYERS has worked nearly exclusively to elect Democrats since he moved to Central Florida.