NEW HANOVER COUNTY — The New Hanover County Democratic Party plans to impose a higher level of scrutiny on its candidates, plus their family and close associates. A new vetting process will start with the candidates that want to run to replace Rick Southerland on this year’s New Hanover County school board ballot.
Jill Hopman, chair of the New Hanover County Democratic Party, confirmed with Port City Daily Monday her leadership team is implementing several steps to further assess candidates, including mandatory national background checks and signed affidavits accompanying their candidate questionnaires.
READ MORE: Democratic candidate withdraws from school board race, party to choose replacement
The party had been using a questionnaire, coupled with internet searches and public records, to learn about candidates.
“Our candidates are very honest and forthcoming; running for office is a huge task, and they don’t want to later have their candidacies implode or to get publicly humiliated,” she said. “Last week was a master class in how you should not launch a campaign or run for office if you’re going to withhold something from the public that way.”
The morning after last week’s primary election, WHQR broke the news that Southerland’s roommate, who also worked on his school board campaign, is a registered sex offender. Jaymes Osborne pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography to receive a less severe sentence five years ago in Virginia, and was sentenced to 36 months in prison and 15 years of probation.
Southerland called it a wrongful conviction for Osborne obtaining images of child pornography when looking for video footage of his own abuse in 2020. Osborne responded to the incident and unfolding events, in a letter to the Democratic Party and media here.
Though he won the last of four spots on this year’s general election ballot, Southerland announced his decision to end his campaign on Thursday, March 5, after initially resisting calls from the party, elected officials, co-candidates and members of the public.
Southerland never told the party of Osborne’s past, and responded “no” on a questionnaire asking if candidates had anything in their “personal, public or professional life that can be used against you or the NHCDP to harm your candidacy or the party?”
“This was not about the sexual abuse or even a sex offender partner — this was about a candidate ballot who purposely and intentionally withheld critical information that I believe would have disqualified him from the very start, had he told us, and then his reaction to the public finding out about that,” Hopman said.
Southerland defended his association with Osborne, though apologized for not disclosing the matter to the public.
Moving forward, the Democratic Party will seek more info, not just on its potential candidates, but also their campaign team, partners, adult children and housemates.
Hopman said she previously didn’t want to do this because it could deter potential candidates from running, though she said Tuesday this is the price to pay for becoming a public figure.
The party will expand its questionnaire to now ask candidates to name their campaign team and who they live with, along with the criminal backgrounds of both groups. Another question will ask for candidates’ addresses used in the last five years.
Then a candidate recruitment committee with Democratic Party volunteers will be tasked with searching public records and databases, including the sex offender registry, for candidates and their associates. Hopman said the party’s strategic plan update had already decided to implement the new committee before the scandal broke last week.
The party will also pay for national background checks, though just for candidates, for the committee to vet.
Candidates will be asked to sign and notarize affidavits, swearing they provided true information to the party and did not omit incriminating material. Hopman said the intention isn’t to use them in court, though she said she wouldn’t rule it out.
She noted not every criminal conviction or mistake would be a career-ender.
“I do think it’s a case-by-case basis, and figuring out if we can salvage this person’s candidacy — in Mr. Southerland’s case, I did not see any possible path forward,” she said.
An open search for a replacement
Southerland has announced his intention to withdraw from the race, however, he won’t be allowed to officially do so until after the New Hanover County Board of Elections’ canvass on Friday. Once the results are certified and Southerland submits his paperwork, the New Hanover County Democratic Party will be tasked with picking his replacement.
Normally, the party’s executive board will discuss a candidate and submit the name for a vote by the County Executive Committee, a group of 80 to 100 people made up of precinct chairs and vice chairs, executive board members, the North Carolina State Executive Committee members, all of the party’s auxiliary and affiliated organization presidents, and all of the party’s elected officials.
However, party members have been split in submitting a placement, according to Hopman. Thus, she said the decision will go straight to the executive committee.
And the candidate pool isn’t limited to those who lost in the primary — newcomer Margie Gewirtzman came in fifth and former school board member Nelson Beaulieu ranked sixth. Anyone who is willing to submit to the party’s new vetting procedures can campaign for the replacement seat and make their case to the committee.
Hopman said some party members have advocated for Gewirtzman, who has indicated to the party chair she will continue her campaign. If the election was a non-partisan contest, Gewirtzman would automatically gain a spot on the general election ballot per a dropout, but the school board contest is partisan.
“She has infrastructure in place, name recognition, she has been running,” Hopman said. “But there’s also a lot of proponents who are like: ‘We should absolutely not do that. The public just told us that this was not one of their top choices when they had other candidates to choose from.’”
The party chair said she’s had several others reach out with interest about campaigning for the seat, though she would not divulge names until they made an official announcement.
The original plan, Hopman told Port City Daily last week, was to have a candidate by the party’s March 21 convention. However, not everyone at the convention votes on a replacement, so it made more sense for the executive committee to hold an emergency meeting in early April to vote on a candidate. According to Hopman, the plan is to use ranked-choice voting and the meeting will be open to the public.
In the interim, there will be one party event to introduce the candidates to the public.
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