DSA activists once protested that ideological opponents were trying to purge them from the party. Now a viral text chain shows Omar’s DSA supporters organizing to remove challenger Latonya Reeves from her DNC position.
A text chain goes viral
On Friday morning, August 7, North Minneapolis Community Leader KB Brown posted to his Facebook page these screenshots from a text chain among leaders in the MN DFL. In his debut appearance in Minneapolis Times, Brown explains why he published the chain.
The text chain is headed by Josh Martin, Chair of DFL CD5. CD5 is the Congressional District currently represented by Ilhan Omar. The text chain is about organizing ahead of an August 24 meeting of the DFL State Central Committee (SCC). Text chain discussants are strategizing about how to get enough votes at the SCC meeting to remove Latonya Reeves from her role as one of Minnesota’s four representatives to the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Most discussants are adherents to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Reeves had been elected to that role at the 2024 DFL State Convention, after years of dedicated volunteer service to the DFL. She is a prominent leader among Minnesota’s community of Foundational African Americans.
This year, 2026, Reeves is challenging Representative Ilhan Omar in the DFL primary. The DSA strongly supports Ilhan Omar. Whoever wins the August 11 primary will be the DFL nominee on the November General Election ballot. As CD5 is DFL-dominated, the outcome of the August 11 DFL primary will probably determine who takes office in January 2027.
In her answer to the Ballotpedia Candidate survey, Reeves said, “I am stepping forward to serve our community with the leadership, accountability, and integrity we deserve. Whether it’s access to quality education, affordable healthcare, economic opportunities, or public safety, the community deserves a representative who listens, acts, and delivers real results to protect the Democratic platform—not personal agendas that do not serve our community.”
The text chain Brown published talks about whipping votes ahead of the SCC meeting and how the argument to remove Reeves should be made by “prominent Black community leaders”; otherwise, Reeves will “cry racism.”
Brown’s post went viral within hours (see here, here, here and here). Some selected comments:
- “The DFL Tent big enough for socialists. Not big enough for Latonya….. Got it.”
- “At this point I’m never surprised at the crap that comes out of the Ilhan Omar camp.”
- “If you care about fairness and democracy like you say you do, pay attention to what’s happening.”
- “if these screenshots came from a Republican strategy group, would Democrats be shrugging their shoulders? Or would we be talking nonstop about the racism, the optics, and the political games being played?”
- “It seems to me that white lynch mobs are acceptable in the DFL. High School bullying at its finest.”
- “This level of gatekeeping is grotesque and frankly all the more reason I want to pull my hair out at “vote Blue no matter who.”
- “… I continue to be disgusted with Minnesota’s Democratic party and I’ve been a lifelong liberal Democrat”
The Leave of Absence Rule
The CD5 Chair leading the text chain says, “By actively running against the DFL endorsed candidate in CD5, Reeves flagrantly violated the rules on honoring the endorsement, and therefore must be removed from her position.”
His argument relies on a late-night change to a rule the DFL had adopted in 2018 about leaves of absence. We go through the history of that rule and how it was changed. This context gives readers a greater ability to weigh the merits and demerits of Martin’s argument.
Until 2018, the DFL had a long-standing rule which required volunteers holding DFL positions to support DFL-endorsed candidates in their public statements. They were prohibited from publicly supporting competitors to DFL-endorsed candidates. Violation of this rule was considered malfeasance and could be grounds for dismissal from the position.
Why the DFL Created the Rule
The MN DFL changed the rule in 2018 because that year the chasm we now see in the DFL was first becoming visibly acute. At the DFL State Convention in June 2018, Erin Murphy secured DFL endorsement for Governor. Before the convention, Tim Walz had declared that he would continue his gubernatorial campaign even if delegates endorsed someone other than him. When Murphy won the endorsement, Walz and running mate Peggy Flanagan fulfilled their pledge and continued to run.
As we now know, the Walz-Flanagan ticket won the 2018 DFL August primary, despite Murphy’s DFL endorsement. They went on to win the 2018 GE. They ran for re-election in 2022 and won again. But in early June 2018, immediately after the endorsing convention, that future wasn’t known.
Walz enjoyed widespread support among DFL volunteers, especially rural ones. They believed that he, rather than urban Murphy, would be better positioned to defeat the GOP nominee in the November general election (GE). They said they would resign rather than be forced to support a candidate they did not want, and who they believed was not as strong as Walz.
The DFL could not afford to lose its experienced rural volunteers, so the party created a new rule that allowed volunteers to request a leave of absence (LOA) from their party roles until the endorsement expired. Then they could return to their roles.
The act of requesting the LOA immediately released them from all obligations, including the obligation to support the endorsed candidate. If their LOA request subsequently was denied, they could resign from their positions or could be removed from them for malfeasance. Because the LOA option was created specifically to retain party volunteers who disagreed with endorsement decisions, few LOA requests were denied. The DFL wanted to retain valuable volunteers.
The 2018 LOA rule was the party’s way of easing tension, of holding itself together, in times of internal dissent.
The Rule Changes in 2026
The internal dissent has intensified and calcified since 2018, so that now, in 2026, there really are two distinct political parties vying for control of the DFL. Many label the two parties as “Progressives” and “Moderates.” This author prefers to name the two parties as “Far-Left DSA” vs “Traditional Liberals,” because I believe those labels are more accurate and descriptive. In October 2025, I showed how distinct they are in Minneapolis, with the distinctions calcifying over the next month. Using endorsements and shared campaign events, I showed that candidates and their supporters completely coalesce within each camp, with no connections between them.
As one of the final orders of business at the 2026 DFL State Convention, DSA adherents pushed through a set of unvetted changes to the DFL Constitution. Normally, proposed Constitution changes are submitted to the DFL Constitution, Bylaws and Rules Committee (CBRC). CBRC members are elected from units across the state and take their work seriously, as the Constitution is like the legal framework governing the DFL. Normally, the CBRC carefully considers proposed Constitution changes, weighing likely impacts, eliciting feedback from DFL officers across the state. Based on that feedback, they may modify the proposed change.
If they decide the change is good for the DFL, the CBRC will disseminate information about it before the State Convention, where delegates have the authority to vote upon the change. In that advance information packet, the CBRC explains the proposed change, what it would do, and why they support it.
But at the 2026 State Convention, DSA adherents introduced a packet of Constitution changes that had not gone through CBRC review. Yet because they followed the rules for introducing them, they had to be considered and voted upon.
Nearly 60% of the delegates to the 2026 State Convention were first-time attendees. Many probably did not know that the DFL has a Constitution, or what it says, and why. Many, perhaps most, had been recruited by DSA adherents at ICE protests in January, just a few weeks before the February 3 precinct caucuses, the first step leading to the DFL State Convention. In August 2025, DSA adherents had publicly proclaimed their intention to take over the DFL in 2026, filling major committees, delegate positions, and roles with their followers. Trump helped them do this with Operation Metro Surge, which elicited intense opposition that took the form of large ICE protests in January. Those protests were a perfect recruitment pool, and DSA adherents used them effectively.
One of the final DSA-proposed Constitution changes involved the 2018 LOA rule. The change was that the only valid reason for requesting an LOA was illness. An LOA could no longer be used because the volunteer could not support the endorsed candidate. Debate was heated, outrage expressed: “People are using this rule to evade their responsibilities to support the endorsed candidate!”
Yet that is precisely why the DFL created the rule in 2018, so that the party could hold itself together at times of intense internal disagreement.
That change was debated late Saturday night, May 30. Many delegates had left the convention by then, as endorsements were done. For this and other proposed Constitution changes, DSA leaders held up placards at the convention and communicated in group texts, telling their recruits how to vote.
Like all other last-minute Constitution changes the DSA adherents had introduced, the change to the LOA rule was adopted.
The change in the LOA rule was not widely communicated after the late-night vote. Reeves did not know of the change, because she did not attend the convention. Carlbom had told her that because she had requested the LOA, she already was on leave, so she shouldn’t be at the convention. She assumed that if anything happened at the convention she needed to know about, someone would tell her.
Nobody told her about the late-night change to the LOA rule. Two days later, on June 2, she formally filed her candidacy with the Minnesota Secretary of State. Filing her candidacy technically violated the newly adopted change in the LOA rule. She had requested an LOA not because of illness, but because she opposed the endorsed candidate. As Brown articulates, her opposition to Ilhan Omar is shared by many Foundational Black Americans, who feel that Ilhan Omar does nothing for them, but uses them politically.
Late at night, on May 30, delegates to the State Convention, more than half there for the first time, removed the option for long-time volunteers to temporarily step away from the DFL, because they could not support the endorsed candidate. Because of that late-night change, there no longer is a mechanism to ease tension, to hold the party together at times of intense internal disagreement. There now is a mechanism to purge from the party anyone who disagrees with an endorsement decision.
The Reeves Timeline
In leading the text chain, CD5 Chair Josh Martin cites two dates, May 9 and June 30. May 9 was the date of the CD5 convention, when Ilhan Omar received the endorsement for CD5 Representative. June 30 was the date when Reeves’ request for a LOA was denied.
Here we review what happened during those 7–8 weeks.
On May 11, two days after Ilhan Omar was endorsed, Reeves sent an email to Richard Carlbom, MN DFL Chair. She informed him that despite the endorsement of Ilhan Omar, she intended to continue her primary campaign, just as Walz-Flanagan continued their campaigns in 2018, and just as Angie Craig is continuing her campaign in 2026. The situations differ because those candidates do not also hold roles in the DFL. Reeves has a role on the DNC. Unsure of the correct protocol, Reeves asked Carlbom what she should do to adhere to DFL rules.
Carlbom told her to send him a formal request to take a Leave of Absence and to cc Party Affairs. She did that immediately, and he immediately acknowledged receipt. As noted above, the act of requesting a LOA immediately relieved her of all DFL obligations, including the obligation to support her opponent, Ilhan Omar.
She formally requested the LOA from May 11 through August 12, one day after the primary. After the primary, her status as a candidate would change. If she won the DFL primary, she would become the DFL nominee for the CD5 seat, and according to DFL rules, Omar’s endorsement would automatically terminate. If she did not win the DFL primary, her candidacy would end, so she would no longer need the LOA.
For seven more weeks, Reeves heard nothing about her LOA request, except for a brief phone call from Carlbom in mid-May, when Carlbom asked her permission to notify the State Central Committee (SCC) that she had requested a LOA. The DFL SCC has hundreds of members. It is the largest and most pre-eminent decision-making body in the DFL. Members are elected from units across the state. It meets approximately once a quarter and conducts business such as deciding in 2025 that Carlbom would become the next DFL Chair after the resignation of long-serving Chair Ken Martin.
Reeves agreed, and Carlbom posted a succinct notice in the SCC Listserv to that effect.
Reeves continued to campaign, as she had no reason not to. As described above, the change to the LOA rule was made on May 30. She learned of the change in mid-June, after she had filed her candidacy.
The next time she heard about her LOA request was on June 30, when Carlbom called her late in the afternoon to inform her that the State Executive Committee (SEC) would be meeting in an hour to discuss her request. The SEC is a much smaller body than the SCC, meets more frequently, and often recommends action to the SCC.
That evening, the SEC voted to deny Reeves’ LOA request. Their denial was based on the rule adopted late at night a month earlier, May 30, which they had not vetted before it was introduced. According to that recently adopted, unvetted rule, Reeves’ LOA request was illegitimate. She wasn’t requesting an LOA because she was ill. She was requesting it because she opposed the endorsed candidate and already had filed her candidacy to challenge the endorsed candidate.
The SEC also voted to recommend that the SCC remove her from her DNC position because, through her candidacy, she was publicly opposing a DFL-endorsed candidate.
Carlbom informed her of the SEC’s decisions on July 2.
The August 24 SCC Meeting
This article is being prepared on August 8, about two weeks before the August 24 SCC meeting where members will decide whether Reeves can continue to serve and participate in the DFL. We do not know what the SCC will decide. We do know, based on the text chain that KB Brown posted on the morning of August 7, that the DSA wants her gone.
Brown’s post has gone viral. SCC members are hearing about it. Not all are pleased.
Earlier DFL Disputes
Some note that in September 2024, a month after the DNC had nominated Biden-Harris, Sam Doten, who founded the DSA caucus within the DFL, and who was a leader in the Minnesota Uncommitted movement, and who held a seat on the DFL State Executive Committee, had told a national publication that the Harris-Walz ticket had not done enough to earn his support. Because of his role on the SEC, Doten was required to publicly support Harris-Walz. But Doten had a role conflict, because Minnesota Uncommitted opposed Harris-Walz.
Doten could have resolved his conflict by requesting an LOA from his SEC position. He didn’t try. Instead, he ignored the DFL rules.
He had been elected to the SEC by the CD5 Central Committee, and when that Committee met to discuss what to do about his rules violation, his Far-Left DSA friends packed the meeting, shouting, snapping fingers, interrupting. His defense was, “Everyone loves me! See? Let me read this letter of support from Ilhan Omar.”
His DSA supporters had enough votes to shield him from the consequences of his rules violation. Now, less than two years later, one of those supporters is leading a text chain claiming that Latonya Reeves “flagrantly violated” the same rules, except she was obeying the rules in effect at the time the supposed violation occurred.
Others recall a 2025 controversy, when a group of Traditional Liberals tried to place an amendment to the Minneapolis DFL Constitution up for a vote. The amendment would prohibit the Minneapolis DFL from endorsing candidates who had sought and received DSA endorsement. Proponents argued that as the DSA and DFL platforms were vastly different, joint endorsement confused voters.
Far-Left DSA adherents strenuously objected, claiming that Traditional Liberals were trying to purge them from the party. But as we examined the proposal closely and the arguments for and against it, we could not detect any overt or covert effort to purge.
Far-Left DSA adherents were so vociferous in their opposition, insisting that the DFL must be a “Big Tent,” that eventually the Traditional Liberals withdrew their proposal to subdue the controversy. Now, a little more than a year later, the same people who insisted “Big Tent” and complained they were being purged are actively scheming to purge one of their most visible ideological opponents, someone who dared to challenge Ilhan Omar.
Read the text chain
Not everyone on the SCC knows this history; not everyone is fully aware of the issues at play, so we cannot predict how the debate or vote at the August 24 SCC meeting will go. Here we simply raise public awareness and invite readers who aren’t already connected to the network where the text chain is circulating to read it for themselves.
Just came here to give a huge congratulations to Latonya on her third place finish. That 6% of the vote is very impressive!
Latonya received 6% of the vote today. That tells you everything you need to know about whether she represents Twin Cities DFL’ers to the DNC or if she is hopelessly out of step.
YISCAH, Thanks for all this background. The DSA is just not a serious organization when it comes to actually achieving anything worthwhile on behalf of people, and is humorously mis-named. They’re certainly not “democratic” and they’re not very good “socialists”, either – two things I have always considered myself to be. Since achieving even a toe-hold in the DFL (roughly, 2016-18), they have been on a mission to turn the DFL into a useless organization as well. I’m not really sure what they intend to DO with it if/when whey achieve the goal of complete take-over, but they are so close now that we’re seeing the “previews of coming attractions”. I was really active in DFL for a long time (1984 to… hmm… somewhere in the mid- to late- 2010’s), but have been pulling back bit-by-bit over recent years, until, now, I’m pretty much all the way out.
While the “old” pre-2018 rule had existed for a long time, it was rarely if ever enforced, especially lower-down the political food chain. I can’t remember anyone ever being challenged as a Precinct Chair or Vice Chair, for example, over violating it back then. And I should know, because I was one or more of Precinct Chair or Vice-Chair or SD Vice-Chair or SD “Director” almost continuously from 1992 to this year, and I broke that unenforced “rule” repeatedly prior to ’18, sometimes to support a Primary challenger from the left, sometimes to support a challenger from the ranks of the more moderate, and sometimes to support a challenger who cannot even be characterized in those terms. Because, believe it or not, we DFLers once did not obsess about those labels…! Even after ’18, I never applied for “LoA” – just politely stepped back from whatever activities I had been volunteering for at the time that might be seen as creating conflict(s). And no one “came for me” then either.
Under this new ’26 rule, it’s really just not worth volunteering time and effort to the DFL as a party. Or giving it money. Better to just support individual candidates – at any stage of the process. Many of the activists driving this evolution in how the party operates do not understand how much the roles of party positions entail thankless, nearly anonymous, unpaid “grunt-work”, and mistake the jobs as positions of great power. Which I suppose some of the higher-up-the-chain roles can be MADE to be, and are BEING made into – but seemingly only by individuals who want to use that power to make the “tent”, once “big”, ever-smaller. For a short while, say 2012-2018, I observed a number of party roles – especially, again, the down-the-org-chart ones – being sought after and awarded to individuals who very much wanted them, and were willing to fight to get them, and, then, after discovering that they involved “grunt-work” with little power other than the power to be thanked by one’s DFLer neighbors, they stopped doing the work, and entire precincts went unserved and projects at the SD level got abandoned. It’s been sad to watch.
It will eventually cost us something. Our fellow Minnesotans on the GOP side of things can’t possible remain as clueless as they’ve been for about the last 16 years, forever… We really need to wake up before they do.
In terms of abiding by the RULES…
This is a state issue, but we KEEP seeing the DFL, particularly in the Twin Cities, which has really been taken over by the DSA, aggressively working to help candidates, even those like a Robin Wonsley for the Mpls City Council, who was NOT a DFL candidate. They do not care; they worked on Wonsley’s behalf, this DSA candidate, to give her the advantage. The Twin Cities DFL does what they want, IGNORING one rule after another, as we saw with the endorsement process re Omar Fatah.
They are dirty, and take multiple pages from the MAGA play book. I have no respect for them. The product of all of this…more and more, within MN, identifying themselves as ” Independents” pushing the state to a fuschia hue of purple.
Judge rules Minneapolis Ward 2 DFL convention can take place on Saturday
https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-ward-2-convention-lawsuit/601342449?utm_source=gift_email
Excerpt…
“But last week, the Minneapolis DFL’s executive committee voted to move the convention back to May 3 “in response to Wonsley’s demands,” and in violation of its rules, the suit contends.
The DSA is worse than the far right. Lie cheat and do anything they want if it fits their agenda.
As a dedicated and active Democrat, I appreciate the detailed following of every step.
How do we engage the population and community about the dirty sausage making issues the Democratic Socialists are doing without the detailed history?
I often find myself watching eyes glaze over while listening to me in my attempts.
Today I was musing over what I call “ the bottom line”. If we really cut to the chase, I am disturbed my the lack of understanding that most DSA have about reality with budgets. The government is not Santa Claus. In order to have programs paid for by other Americans, you have to have a healthy Capitalist economy. Then you can use the taxes to pay for the list of community needs.
Trump and company are not cooperating on this nationally, and clearly have an agenda that has nothing to do with basically all Americans. We need governance to propel basic needs over the finish line. We need reasonable Democratic representation, and not those who care more about the Gaza Strip than their own community.
Bernie Sanders is a fabulous Senator, but only 19% of Democrats wanted him as President in the Democratic Party. That is why Hillary won the endorsement. Too bad that Sanders votes could not back her. We had two choices. DSA shoot themselves in the foot and throw the country under the bus.
Elizabeth Warren was a great candidate in that, she helped Americans with math, and explained HOW health care (especially the public option) could be affordable. Most DSA haven’t a clue how to pay for everything they “offer”.
Reality check. And yes, if we tax the wealthy it would help, but m”moderate “ Democrats also propose that.
Thanks for the big helping of context!
https://minneapolistimes.com/opinion-the-politics-of-division-is-costing-us-our-community/
This excerpt from this Mpls Times piece pretty covers it. For me, watching and being involved in these last Mpls local elections, I learned one thing…that they are unprincipled and DIRTY….way.
Excerpt…
“This is why, in my opinion, the DSA is more dangerous than MAGA. They are driven by ideological conformity and power. Rather than creating space for honest dialogue, in their quest for political power, they amplify tensions and create distrust among communities that have each experienced discrimination and which each have contributed to Minneapolis.”
This is an excellent article for those of us who are SCC members who had never heard the back story. I 100% support Ilhan Omar, but I will not be voting to remove Latonya Reeves. I’m not a fan of selective enforcement of the rules.
Can I ask why you 100% support Omar?
“ The act of requesting the LOA immediately released them from all obligations, including the obligation to support the endorsed candidate. If their LOA request subsequently was denied, they could resign from their positions or could be removed from them for malfeasance.”
That is just factually incorrect. *Requesting* a LOA means nothing. The LOA doesn’t go into effect until it is *approved* by either the SCC or SEC. In the May Listserv email, Carlbom said that the SEC would vote on the LOA request at their mid-June meeting. Until the LOA gets approved, you don’t get the benefits/protections of the LOA. You can’t just assume it will be approved, you have to wait for it to actually be approved.
Regardless of that, is it fair for the DSA crowd to change the LOA to only be allowed for illness, when they themselves took advantage of it to avoid openly supporting people who they didn’t like?
The SEC or SCC always always has the ability to consider the reason for the LOA request when considering whether or not to approve it. That’s why you need to wait for it to be approved, since it isn’t automatic. I served on the DFL SCC and lower-level executive committees from 2022-2026. Throughout those 4 years, anytime a LOA request came before my committee for a vote, I always consistently voted NO if the reason for the request was to campaign against DFL candidates.
Left, center, moderate, DSA, etc. didn’t matter to me, I always voted against people taking LOAs if they were doing so to harm DFL-Endorsed candidates. I don’t believe someone should be a Party Leader (regardless of if they are on “leave”) if their goal is to harm DFL-Endorsed candidates.
Not sure if this piece is about you, below. If not, my apologies. Lots has been written about the very unhealthy level of interest in Reeves, and how much online bullying there has been directed at her, by the DSA adherents. Hopefully YOU are not that Nick.
https://alphanews.org/progressive-dfl-delegate-turns-to-alpha-news-after-suspension-says-party-silenced-him/