Mike Newett, the chairman of the East Hillsborough County Democratic Club, announced on Monday that he is running to lead the Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee when the party meets next month to choose their successor to Elizabeth Belcher, who announced her resignation last month.
Newett becomes the second candidate to announce his candidacy. Mark Hanisee, the former Pinellas County Democratic Executive Committee Chairman who has served as finance chairman of the Hillsborough Democrats in 2015, had previously announced his candidacy.
However, Hanisee is not an official member the party, and apparently will not be eligible to run when Hillsborough Democrats convene in January to vote on a new chairman.
“Our state party rules are very specific in that when you have a situation where the chair has announced he or she is stepping down, that basically freezes the membership of the body,” says Rick Boylan, co-chair of the Florida Democratic Party Rules Committee.
“It’s done because we want to make sure people don’t pack the membership at the last minute, so the rules say the membership is frozen until after the election happens, and then more members can be added.”
What that means is that Hanisee would not be able to become a member until after new officers are chosen.
“That’s the first I’ve heard of that,” Hanisee said when contacted. “I’ve got commitments from all across the board,” he said regarding his campaigning for the office. “I’m assuming everything’s going to go according to plan. They have a meeting first, and an election after the meeting.”
Back to Newell (shown in photo), a Seffner resident who relocated from Chicago six years ago. In addition to running the Eastern Hillsborough Democratic Club, he’s also serves as treasurer of the Tampa Bay Sierra Club, and treasurer of the Florida Democratic Environmental Caucus.
“Nobody’s getting the clubs organized, nobody’s working with the caucuses, and nobody’s listening to the people,” Newell said about why he wants to lead the party in 2016. He said he was disappointed that there wasn’t an event marking Hillary Clinton’s appearance in the Tampa Bay area last week, instead of just the private fundraiser held at Alex Sink’s residence in Thonotosassa.
Although he never mentioned Hanisee directly, Newett emphasized that he lives in the county and knows his way around Hillsborough County (Hanisee currently lives in Pinellas).
“Nobody wants a guy from outside the county with a lot of questionable remarks on his behalf coming in and taking over. Especially where he could be over the money and the system,” said Newett. “If he wants to be a fundraiser, that’s a great job for him. I personally think we need other fundraisers, too.”
Newett’s reference to “questionable remarks” is a reference to Hanisee’s handling of former St. Petersburg NAACP head Manuel Sykes in 2014. Hanisee told Sykes that he would be “persona non grata” if he followed through his plan to run in the Congressional District 13. Sykes opted not to do so, and later left the Democratic Party.
When contacted, Hanisee laughed, and said that Newett had been encouraging him to run of the party chair, before Elizabeth Belcher announced her resignation in November.
The Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee is scheduled to vote on new officers at their January 11, 2016 meeting.
