May 05, 2006  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean fired the party’s gay outreach adviser Donald Hitchcock on May 2 less than a week after Hitchcock’s domestic partner, Paul Yandura, a longtime party activist, accused Dean of failing to take adequate steps to defend gay rights.

Dean immediately hired gay former Democratic Party operative Brian Bond to replace Hitchcock as executive director of the party’s Gay Lesbian Leadership Council, according to DNC spokesperson Karen Finney, who called Bond a "proven leader."

Bond served from 1997 to 2003 as executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a bipartisan national group that raises money and provides training to help elect openly gay candidates to public office.

"It was not retaliation," Finney said of Hitchcock’s dismissal. "It was decided we needed a change. We decided to hire a proven leader."

Hitchcock confirmed that Dean informed him May 2 through a surrogate that he had been terminated. He said he was considering consulting an attorney to decide whether to contest the firing.

"This is retaliation, plain and simple," said Yandura. "This shows what they think about domestic partners."

Yandura said Dean was using Hitchcock as a "scapegoat" for problems of Dean’s own making.

"All I did was ask questions about what the party and Dean are doing about its GLBT constituency," Yandura said. "I have yet to see any answers."

Hitchcock’s dismissal came after Yandura created a stir among party activists, both gay and straight, by sending an open letter on April 20 to gay Democrats criticizing Dean and the party for not getting involved in state ballot measures seeking to ban gay marriage.

Yandura charged that the DNC failed to counter efforts by Republicans to promote the anti-gay ballot measures as a wedge issue to win elections. He suggested that gays withhold donations to the Democrats until the party formally addresses issues he raised.

Finney said Dean and party leaders were developing plans to address efforts by Republicans to push for constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. She said Dean and DNC high-level staffers met last week with officials from national gay rights groups to discuss strategy for opposing the ballot measures.

Longtime party activists

Yandura and Hitchcock have been a well-known couple in Democratic Party circles for many years. Both were involved in the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Yandura served in the Clinton White House and held posts with the DNC. He currently operates a political consulting firm in partnership with former Clinton White House adviser Marsha Scott.

Hitchcock has worked at the Human Rights Campaign and, most recently before his DNC post, was executive director of the National Coalition of LGBT Health.

Bond worked on Bill Clinton’s 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns and headed the DNC’s gay outreach office before becoming executive director of the Victory Fund. He has been living in New York City since 2003.

"I look forward to returning to the Democratic National Committee at this time of such great challenge and opportunity for our community," Bond said in a DNC statement. "Chairman Dean continues to listen to the needs of the LGBT community and stands as a leader in our fight for equality."

Bond could not be reached for further comment by press time.

Bond ‘snatched away’

Dean’s decision to hire Bond startled some board members of the National Stonewall Democrats, which represents gay Democrats and gay Democratic clubs throughout the country.

According to two sources familiar with Stonewall, the group’s board had offered Bond the position of its executive director, and Bond was expected to accept the offer. The sources spoke on condition that their names be withheld because they want to remain on friendly terms with Dean and the DNC.

"In effect, he snatched Bond away from the NSD," said one of the sources.

The other source called Dean’s decision to fire Hitchcock an overreaction.

"They are using Donald as a scapegoat," said the source. "What Dean should have done is bring in someone to help Donald."

Both sources said Dean scrambled over the weekend to offer the DNC outreach post to Bond and then called prominent gay Democrats on May 2 to inform them of his decision to replace Hitchcock with Bond.

A third DNC insider, who also requested anonymity out of concern for sounding critical of Hitchcock, said Dean and other DNC officials decided several months before Yandura’s public criticism of the party that Hitchcock "was not the best fit" for his job.

"This was not necessarily Donald’s ...