The Petersburg Democratic Committee is moving forward with a vote to remove a member following controversy from a video posted on social media.
The committee plans to vote on removing Pat Hines, the Petersburg NAACP president because she created a video supporting Belinda Baugh, an independent candidate running for city council.
This is the first year that Petersburg will conduct partisan elections for city council races, while school board races will remain non-partisan.
Petersburg leans strongly Democratic. About 85% of the city voted for Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor, during the 2021 election, according to VPAP.
Hines calls herself a “lifelong proud card-carrying Democrat” who refused to bend the knee for a candidate she has never supported. She says Baugh is her longtime friend and a “lifetime voting Democrat” who failed to file in time for a primary, forcing her to run as an independent.
The video in question is a reel created by Hines on Facebook earlier this summer. The video encourages individuals to vote for Baugh, who is running for the Ward 2 seat against the incumbent, Darrin Hill.
Hill is the only candidate in Petersburg who declared to be a Democrat on the ballot this year across all wards.
“So my reel is apparently considered to be a ‘public endorsement against a Democrat per the rules as stated in the bylaws,’” Hines said in a written statement. “When asked if I would bend the knee (so to speak) and rendered support – I would not lie just to retain a position in the Democrats, as a ward chair.”
Hines says she did not intend to harm Hill’s candidacy by creating the video on Facebook.
“I did state that I didn’t consider making a reel for my friend – an endorsement nor was it intended for malice, political posturing, nor an attempt to harm the Democratic candidate.”
The committee planned to vote on removing Hines on Thursday, but due to a candidate forum taking place, the vote will take place at a different time that has yet to be announced.
Janell Sinclair, the chair of the Petersburg Democratic Committee, says she has been experiencing bullying over this situation and provided a lengthy written explanation for why the committee is taking this action.
“Anyone can be a Democrat. But there is a difference between being a Democrat and being an Officer or member of a Democratic Committee,” Sinclair said in a written statement. “As a member/officer, we voluntarily commit to adhering to the written rules.”
Sinclair cited the rules from the State Party Plan for the Virginia Democratic Party in her explanation.
“According to the Petersburg Democratic Committee’s ByLaws (Section 3.4 – Removal), we will uphold the State Party Plan of the Virginia Democratic Party (established 2015 and revised 2018) Section 10.8 – Party Support,” she wrote. “The first line of this section states – No Democratic committee member or officer of any Democratic committee shall publicly SUPPORT, ENDORSE OR ASSIST any candidate opposed to a Democratic nominee.”
The Democratic Party of Virginia did not provide a comment for this story.
Sinclair says that committee members were notified of this rule earlier this year when Petersburg switched to partisan elections and that no members were to be exempt from it.
Hines responded directly to Sinclair’s statement on social media.
“First, No one is bullying you or the two other members who elect to follow the rules (without reasonable consideration to the 2024 changes),” she wrote. “The concern here is choosing to join the committee by declaring support to Democratic candidates normally wouldn’t be problematic until this year – when only one council candidate certified. My reel violation was not in opposition of her opponent, the Democrat. Nor did I or many in the committee consider it a public endorsement. And I definitely didn’t know being in the committee it would bound me to someone that I have never supported!”
Barb Rudolph, a political watchdog in Petersburg who runs the Facebook group Clean Sweep Petersburg, says that candidates seem hesitant to agree to the new requirement of declaring their party affiliation, as only one candidate did so.
“Of the six candidates running for city council this year, at least five of them have known associations with the Democratic party,” Rudolph said. “The fact that only one obtained the party label suggests that our local candidates are generally resistant to this new requirement imposed from above.”
She also pointed out how this incident is causing divides between people who are typically aligned in their goals.
“The controversy is unfortunate in that it may pit people against one another when they have the same or similar goals,” she said. “And this incident has a bit of the ‘slam the barn door after the horse got out’ feel to it.”
In 2023, Petersburg’s Mayor Sam Parham, who was long believed to be a Democrat, was pictured in a campaign flyer for Republican Del. Kim Taylor in her race for reelection. He has also built a close relationship with Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican.
Parham was not forced out of the Democratic Committee at the time, but he resigned his membership last November after the committee pointed out he had violated their bylaws.
“You just get tired of having to explain yourself every time there’s a picture with someone. Just because I’m taking a picture next to a giraffe, does that make me a giraffe?” Parham said at the time in a statement to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“People – including those like myself who are independents – were surprised when Mayor Parham, thought to be a Democrat, declared his support last year for the incumbent Republican delegate, as evidenced by his appearance on her campaign mailer,” Rudolph said. “He survived that affront to the local party committee – and his ‘offense’ seemed more egregious than what Ms. Hines demonstrated in a campaign for elected positions that have for many years previous had no partisan labeling.”
Hines does not deny that she violated the rules, but she had hoped she would be granted some leniency, as she did not intend to do so.
“I had hoped that the infraction or violation would be considered as an unintentional mistake that I didn’t know or consider as support or public endorsement. I understand rules and compliance and do my best to obey them.”