Jesse Marx

Palm Springs Desert Sun

Howard Katz, a former Riverside County Democratic Party chairman who was voted out of the top leadership spot by Bernie Sanders supporters on Monday night, is asking state party officials to intervene in the local process and nullify the election.

Several of the Riverside County Democrats who cast votes against Katz say they’re not interested in rehashing last year’s primaries, but they view the change in leadership this week as a victory for the Sanders wing of the party as it continues to strengthen its footing following the 2016 presidential election.

By a vote of 30 to 21, Steve Ruth, a Corona Symphony Orchestra treasurer, was elected following a meeting in Moreno Valley that several participants have described as tense. The person in charge of credentialing voting committee members, a supporter of Katz’s, resigned in protest shortly thereafter.

Katz told The Desert Sun on Wednesday, the night after he filed a request for the California Democratic Party to intervene, that he’s challenging three votes cast in Ruth’s favor, arguing those people should not have been eligible. He's also arguing that two of his supporters, who were denied the ability to vote because they showed up late, should have been counted in his favor.

READ MORE: Democrats planned to protest Democrats in Riverside County

That alone would not have been enough to put Katz over the top, but he believes others would have voted differently had they seen how he was being treated.

“This whole thing is a real set up and that’s why I'm taking it to be adjudicated by the California Democratic party,” Katz said.

Katz's term wasn't supposed to end until November 2018, but he recently moved across Assembly districts within Riverside County. Katz is alleging that he was falsely assured by another Democrat that his new address wouldn't trigger a new contest.

He specifically blamed Skylar Tempel, a 19-year-old college student from Temecula who was in charge of interpreting the rules at the time. Tempel said he was new to the role, but quickly caught his mistake and made it known.

"The state party called the new election," Tempel said, and now Katz is trying to “slander and defame me" by suggesting that he and others were plotting behind the former chairman's back.

A representative for Assembly member Eduardo Garcia of Coachella sided with Katz during the Monday vote. In a subsequent statement said he "was instrumental in merging western and eastern Riverside together and worked to stabilize the Riverside County Democratic Central Committee." He noted that the majority of the votes from the Coachella Valley-based activists were in Katz's favor.

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Assembly member Sabrina Cervantes of Riverside, however, sided with Ruth. “I know Steve has the passion, organizational skills, and work ethic that is needed to continue to grow the Democratic Party in America’s 10th most populous county,” she wrote on Facebook the day after the vote.

A campaign spokesman for Raul Ruiz said the congressman was not present at Monday's meeting. Instead, he allowed a proxy, Marie McDonald, to vote as she pleased.

McDonald said she voted for Katz because he ruled with "a firm hand and brought order out of the chaos." She added, "Howard is not a warm-loving type person, and so sometimes his demeanor and his decisions put people off. But he’s a really hard worker, and he's done the best he could for the central committee."

It’s unclear how Congressman Mark Takano of Riverside, or his proxy, voted, because a spokesman didn't return a message seeking comment.

In an interview with The Desert Sun, Ruth credited his predecessor with helping to turn Riverside County blue — there are now more registered Democrats than Republicans — but described the last presidential election as a wake-up call. He urged his fellow activists, “We can’t have business as usual,” and vowed to do more to elect Democrats to nonpartisan offices, like water boards and city councils, which Republicans tend to dominate.

“I think there’s room for everyone — for the people who’ve been around a long time and the Democratic structure,” he said. “But we also need to open our arms to the new people, many of whom are ‘Berniecrats.’”

READ MORE: Sanders supporters win bigger voice in local politics

Ruth will fill the remaining 13 months of Katz's term.

Greg Rodriguez, an activist from Palm Springs, said he voted for Katz because the chairman had done a "remarkable job" turning around a "dysfunctional" party — boosting voter rolls and the number of candidates and the amount of money in the coffers. He also disagreed with the portrayal of Katz and his supporters as being not progressive enough for the party as it presses ahead in the age of Trump.

“The people who’ve sat on the committee and been there for 10-to-20 years and worked their asses off when this place was completely red, they deserve a little respect,” Rodriguez said.

Katz said he was personally supportive of Clinton during the primaries, but as chairman he did not endorse one candidate over the other.

In January, a slate of Sanders supporters who were upset for being mocked and dismissed at the Democratic National Convention the previous summer won seats on the 42nd Assembly District delegation.

The political tug-of-war first exploded into the public in March when some of the same people made plans to disrupt a forum featuring Eric Bauman — now the state party chairman — over his role in defeating Proposition 61, which would have restricted the price of pharmaceuticals purchased by the state. Katz responded by cancelling the forum and criticizing the activists for their behavior.

Jesse Marx covers politics. Reach him at jesse.marx@desertsun.com or @marxjesse on Twitter.