The DNC's Dark Money Hypocrisy Was On Full Display In Minneapolis

Party leaders decried secret political influence while lobbyists worked the room to kill a Gaza resolution

By Nadia B. Ahmad

There’s nothing quite like watching Democrats condemn dark money in politics while lobbyists are literally handing out talking points in the same room where they’re voting.

That’s exactly what happened at the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting in Minneapolis, where party officials simultaneously passed resolutions condemning secret political influence and allowed pro-Israel lobbying groups to orchestrate the defeat of a Gaza resolution through classic dark money tactics.

The irony was lost on no one really paying attention.

Democracy Theater Meets Real Power

While DNC members were busy congratulating themselves for supporting campaign finance reform and transparency in politics, Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) was running a textbook influence operation inside the Resolutions Committee room itself.

DMFI operatives distributed identical talking points directly to committee members during deliberations over Resolution 18, which called for a Gaza ceasefire, suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel, and recognition of Palestinian statehood. The organization flew surrogates from around the country to pack meetings and manufacture opposition, then took credit for crushing the resolution after it was defeated.

This is the same DMFI that has dumped millions into Democratic primaries to ensure pro-Israel orthodoxy among the party’s nominees, exactly the kind of special interest manipulation that Democrats claim to oppose when it comes from corporate or conservative sources. DMFI was also reportedly involved in drafting the alternative Resolution 3 that party leaders offered as a “compromise.” So while DNC members were voting on resolutions about transparency and democratic accountability, a major lobbying group was literally crafting the alternative behind the scenes.

The Midnight Call Strategy

The coordination was incredible in its audacity. Two days before the Resolutions Committee vote, Lisa Jewel, president of the North Carolina Democratic Jewish Caucus, received a phone call instructing her to catch an early morning flight from Raleigh to Minneapolis. By the time the Resolutions Committee convened, she was the first signatory on a letter opposing the Gaza resolution that had been placed at members’ desks in the voting room.

This move was not grassroots democracy. It was astroturfing at its finest. The same kind of manufactured pressure campaigns that Democrats routinely denounce when deployed by oil companies or pharmaceutical lobbies were being used to shape party policy on Palestine.

Meanwhile, 26-year-old DNC member Allison Minnerly, who introduced Resolution 18, was representing the grassroots sentiment that leadership worked so hard to silence. Polling consistently shows that most Democrats support a ceasefire and oppose sending more military aid to Israel. A Quinnipiac poll released just before the meeting found that only 35% of Democrats back additional military aid to Israel, the lowest level on record. In the weeks leading up to Minneapolis, Minnerly led a coalition of activists and DNC members, propelled by the tailwinds of an online campaign orchestrated by the Young Democrats of Florida that gathered more than 260,000 signatures in a matter of days. That campaign flooded the inboxes of Ken Martin, DNC staff, and committee members with demands for a ceasefire and a halt to weapons transfers. Minnerly juggled texts, phone calls, emails, and late-night Zooms, flying across the country to meet the momentum of a tireless solidarity movement.

Every day brought new pressure, not just from lobbyists, but even from supposed allies, to water down her language, drop the aid suspension, formally condemn Hamas, merge her resolution into Ken Martin’s weaker two-state substitute, or withdraw it altogether. Party insiders warned her not to push too far, even within her own state’s DNC delegation.

Her relentlessness was breathtaking. DMFI and allied groups poured enormous resources into smothering her resolution, distributing talking points, flooding committee members with phone calls, parachuting surrogates into Minneapolis, yet she refused to bend. The very fact that Resolution 18 made it onto the agenda at all, forcing party leadership into procedural contortions to bury it, was proof of the grassroots power she carried into the room. Ultimately, it took abstentions, backroom maneuvers, and Martin’s procedural manipulation to ensure her resolution never made it out of committee.

The Abstention Racket

What made the Minneapolis meeting particularly revealing was how even career-minded Democrats could not bring themselves to vote against an arms embargo outright. Instead, five Resolutions Committee members chose strategic abstention: a calculated form of political cowardice that allows politicians to avoid taking positions on controversial issues while maintaining plausible deniability with all sides.

The abstainers were a telling mix of party insiders protecting various interests: Deborah Cunningham Skurnik (California), a longtime fundraiser with ties to pro-Israel donors; Samuel Vilchez Santiago (Florida), a young politician protecting his career prospects; Harini Krishnan (California), who brands herself as progressive while avoiding difficult votes; Ada Briceño (California), a prominent labor leader; and Otto Lee (California), a Silicon Valley official.

Their non-votes revealed something important: even Democratic insiders recognize that the party base has shifted dramatically on Palestine. They could not vote yes because of lobbyist pressure and donor concerns. They could not vote no because it would put them on record against the majority of Democratic voters who support a ceasefire. So they chose to punt, the political equivalent of “present” votes that allow politicians to avoid accountability while claiming they were being thoughtful and deliberative.

When Compromise Becomes Cover-Up

Sensing the political danger, DNC Chair Ken Martin introduced his own watered-down resolution calling for a ceasefire while carefully avoiding any mention of weapons transfers. After it passed, Martin withdrew his own resolution, promising instead a vague “task force” with no membership list, no scope, and no deadline. The next day, he abruptly ended the entire meeting using procedural maneuvers (citing the shooting of students at a school in Minneapolis that morning) to avoid floor debate altogether.

The message was unmistakable: when lobbyist interests conflict with voter preferences, lobbyist interests win even in a party that claims to champion campaign finance reform and democratic accountability.

The Real Dark Money Problem

Democrats love to talk about getting special interests out of politics, but Minneapolis proved that the people running the party are selective about which special interests they actually oppose. Corporate lobbying is ostensibly bad (while often embraced in practice), but AIPAC-affiliated groups operating inside party meetings? That’s just politics as usual.

This selective outrage reveals the fundamental dishonesty at the heart of contemporary Democratic rhetoric about money in politics. The problem isn’t dark money per se, but the wrong kind of dark money. Supportive billionaires and pro-Israel lobbying groups get a pass, while corporate interests face a facade of scrutiny. The result is a party that campaigns on transparency while conducting business through backroom deals and influence operations that would make K Street proud.

Beyond Palestine

The Minneapolis debacle matters beyond the specific issue of Gaza because it exposes how hollow Democratic commitments to political reform really are. Party leaders will rail against Citizens United and super PACs while allowing their own version of influence peddling to shape internal decisions. This hypocrisy has real political consequences. Young voters, Arab and Muslim Americans, and anti-war activists who form critical parts of the Democratic coalition are watching party elites choose donor comfort over democratic values. They’re learning that all the rhetoric about grassroots democracy and fighting special interests is just that, rhetoric.

The DNC leadership thought that procedural maneuvers and lobbyist pressure could make the Gaza issue disappear. Instead, they have created a perfect case study in their own political hypocrisy. While condemning dark money in public, they are practicing dark money politics in private.

State parties continue filing Gaza resolutions, like ones brought in Arizona, Texas, and recently in North Carolina, and grassroots pressure is building toward the December meeting set for the DNC in Los Angeles. The key question is whether Democratic leadership will finally practice the transparency and democratic accountability they preach, or whether Minneapolis was just a preview of more dark money democracy to come.

The base is watching. And they’re taking notes on who stands with lobbyists and who stands with voters when the chips are down.

Nadia Ahmad is a law professor based in Orlando, Florida, and Fellow at the Rutgers Center for Security, Race, and Rights, and PhD Candidate at Yale University in Environmental Studies and affiliated faculty at the Harvard Institute of Global Law & Policy.