Politics

DNC chair doubles down on his ultimatum for Hogg

Published

1 year ago

May 10, 2025

Democratic National Convention Chair Ken Martin on Saturday doubled down on his ultimatum for rogue Vice Chair David Hogg: Take a neutrality pledge or step down.

“Party officers have one job: to be fair stewards of a process that invites every Democrat to the table — regardless of personal views or allegiances,” Martin said.

After weeks of infighting about how the hobbled party should move forward, Martin laid out his longstanding vision on Saturday in a post on X and called out Hogg, who caused an uproar last month after he told POLITICO that he would fund Democratic primaries for “ineffective, asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats.

Following Hogg’s comments, Martin made it clear that as a party officer, you must remain neutral in Democratic primaries — and suggested Hogg should step down from his role if he can’t get on board.

The statement comes hours after it was reported by POLITICO that Hogg privately pitched a compromise to his party in recent days. He proposed a so-called internal firewall in which he would stay on as vice chair but be barred from accessing internal committee information about races as long as he was supporting challengers.

“Some critics have wrongly framed this as an effort to shut people out of the party or to discourage contested primaries,” Martin wrote. “Let me be unequivocally clear: That’s not only false, it’s the opposite of what I stand for.”

Martin, as many party officers in the past have argued, said that the pledge allows for a fairer process without interference from party leadership.

In the lengthy thread, Martin mentioned Hogg by name, saying he respects the 25-year-old activist-turned DNC vice chair.

“When I ran for DNC Chair, I ran on a platform of democratizing the party,” he wrote. “Those reforms weren’t about any one person, and they certainly aren’t about me versus David Hogg. … Long before David was ever involved in politics, I was pushing reforms within our Democratic Party.”

Martin added that when you lead the institution that calls “balls and strikes, you don’t get to also swing the bat.”

“I am more committed than ever to introduce the slate of structural reforms that enshrine these values into the official rules of the Democratic Party,” Martin said. “These reforms will require all party officers — including myself — to remain neutral in primaries.”

Politics

World Cup fuels ticketing reform demands

Published

7 hours ago

June 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Demands are growing for a political reckoning over ticket scams at the World Cup — and beyond.

The National Independent Venue Association and Fan Alliance, organizations representing and advocating for entertainment venues and artists respectively, sent a joint letter to Congress on Thursday, calling on lawmakers to ban speculative and ghost tickets, cases where resellers flog tickets they don’t actually have.

The letter — addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer — includes nearly two dozen accounts of fans who say they were scammed out of thousands of dollars trying to get tickets to the World Cup, which began last week. The groups are also asking fans to share their own stories with elected officials via the Fix the Tix Fan Action Center that launched last week.

“Every one of these stories erodes the public’s faith that consumers should and will be protected from fraud,” NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker and Fan Alliance founder Donald Cohen wrote. “We urge Congress to work with us to prevent fraud like this in the future and finally enact ticket resale consumer protections that will protect Americans and ensure affordability.”

The letter flagged fans like Dacy Gillespie, who bought World Cup tickets for her sons on Christmas, only to learn on match day — months later — that the seller couldn’t deliver them. And Skylie Shore, who Parker and Cohen said spent well over $6,000 on tickets to the Scotland-Haiti match on June 13, but was forced to wait outside the stadium because she couldn’t access them as fans marched in on gameday.

“These examples reveal a consistent pattern: consumer deception, speculative ticket sales, and broken-hearted American families at the hands of resale ticketing companies like StubHub,” Parker and Cohen wrote.

In a statement, StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said that the platform does not allow speculative ticket sales, and blamed FIFA for users’ difficulty in accessing their tickets.

“We understand that attending the World Cup represents a significant investment in time and money, and we take our responsibility to every fan who books through our platform seriously,” Sterne said in a statement. “Many of the issues fans are facing trace back to the event organizer’s technology infrastructure, newly announced transfer restrictions, and a new app that was launched just a month ago.”

In response, FIFA said in a statement that the organization “can guarantee the validity and delivery of tickets purchased through its official platforms” and that FIFA.com/tickets “is the official ticket sales channel” for the tournament.

NIVA and Fan Alliance are urging congressional leadership to place universal price-gouging limits on ticket resale, enact stringent fines on perpetrators and a violation-reporting mechanism for ticket scams, and require secondary ticketing platforms to produce data on ticket fulfillment and consumer complaints.

The groups are not the only ones monitoring for evidence of shady ticket practices. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway issued a consumer guidance in advance of the tournament, urging match-goers to beware of fraud and promising to hold offenders accountable. And the FBI in May put out a public service announcement, warning fans against purchasing tickets on copycat websites modeled on FIFA’s.

“With the World Cup coming to Kansas City, excitement is high and, unfortunately, so is the potential for fraud,” Hanaway said in her statement. “Missourians should be able to enjoy this once-in-a-generation event without fear of being deceived. My office will hold accountable anyone who seeks to exploit our families, and we stand ready to assist anyone who encounters suspicious activity.”