David Hogg, the gun control activist who rose to national prominence after surviving the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, could lose his Democratic National Committee (DNC) leadership role due to a procedural dispute.

A DNC panel recommended a new election for the Vice Chair post Hogg now holds, potentially ousting him amid internal party tensions over his insurgent political tactics.

Hogg, a 25-year-old who became a leading voice in the student-led March for Our Lives movement after 17 people were killed in the Parkland school shooting, has since emerged as a prominent Democratic activist.

After he won a seat as one of four DNC Vice Chairs in early February, he pledged to bring fresh energy to what he called “asleep at the wheel” Democratic leadership.

But Hogg’s mid-April announcement that he would back a $20 million campaign to unseat Democratic incumbents in safe blue districts triggered a backlash from party leaders, including DNC Chair Ken Martin, who called on Hogg to either sign a neutrality pledge or step down.

On Monday, the DNC’s credentials committee voted Monday to void Hogg’s election. The vote was based on a procedural complaint, not Hogg’s political push, but it nevertheless opened a path for the party to remove him.

The panel voted 13-2 to back a resolution calling for a new election for Hogg and fellow Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta. That resolution must now go before the full DNC membership for approval.

Hogg said in a statement that while the decision was made on procedural grounds, “it is impossible to ignore the broader context of my work to reform the party, which loomed large over this vote.”

“The DNC has pledged to remove me,” he said, “and this vote has provided an avenue to fast-track that effort.”

The complaint that spurred the review came from Oklahoma DNC member Kalyn Free, who said the February Vice Chair election violated internal rules and disadvantaged female candidates.

“Today, the credentials committee of the DNC confirmed that correcting mistakes in process, and protecting democracy is more important than saving face,” she said in a statement.

Kenyatta, a 34-year-old state Representative from Philadelphia, expressed frustration in a series of X posts. He said he disagreed with the ruling and took exception with media focus on Hogg as “the main character” in an “easy story” about the DNC pushing back against efforts to overhaul the party.

The problem with that narrative, he said, is that Free’s challenge “was brought well before” Hogg announced the $20 million effort through his Leaders We Deserve initiative.

“The credentials committee believed, as they stated, that they are remedying a procedural flaw. But doing so the way they did, is a slap in the face,” he said. “However, any story about this, that neatly places this into a narrative about David Hogg is wrong. … This story is complex and I’m frustrated — but it’s not about (Hogg). Even though he clearly wants it to be.”

The DNC could hold a virtual vote on the matter ahead of its August meeting, where the final decision may ultimately be made.

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The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals is backing a lower court decision that issues a “broad injunction” against an “overbroad” and “impermissibly vague” Florida law purportedly protecting Florida youngsters from drag shows.

“When a court holds a law facially unconstitutional, broad-based relief may follow,” the majority argued.

“Florida’s SB 1438 (the ‘Act’) takes an ‘I know it when I see it’ approach to regulating expression. The Act prohibits children’s admission to ‘live performances’ that Florida considers obscene for minors. But by providing only vague guidance as to which performances it prohibits, the Act wields a shotgun when the First Amendment allows a scalpel at most.”

The majority ruling sides with Hamburger Mary’s of Orlando over Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

The opinion specifically cited DeSantis as looking to restrain protected speech, noting that “when signing the Act into law, Florida’s governor described it as being about ‘adult performances … like those drag shows.’”

Additionally, the opinion finds legal defects in the law itself.

“The Act’s vague terms like ‘depicts … lewd conduct’ and ‘value for the age of the child present’ make the law’s scope ambiguous and potentially inclusive of even Hamburger Mary’s “family-friendly” drag performances.”

Hamburger Mary’s differentiation of all-ages events from more risqué, 18-plus performances is meaningful to the majority of the three-judge panel, which differentiates between that and the state lumping all performances together.

Furthermore, the law’s reliance on “lewd conduct” as something to prohibit (as in the case of a drag performer simulating birth to a baloney sausage) falls apart given that it is an undefined term, the majority contended.

“On paper, the Act is the Goldilocks of speech regulation, ensuring each child can access only that speech that is ‘just right’ for their age. Seventeen-year-olds have access to speech that would be obscene as to sixteen-year-olds but not eighteen-year-olds, sixteen-year-olds can see content that would be obscene as to fifteen-year-olds but not seventeen-year-olds, and so on.”

The Judges used an iconic suntan lotion ad to illustrate the fundamental inconsistency.

“Consider this example: Miami is home to an historic, thirty-five-foot-tall billboard for Coppertone sunscreen, which features the brand’s historic logo — a girl, perhaps age seven, or so, with a dog pulling at her swimsuit, revealing her pale posterior and its contrast with her tanned skin,” the Judges stated.

“Would a depiction like the Coppertone logo be ‘patently offensive’ for a five-year-old? An eight-year-old? How about a seventeen-year-old? We don’t know, and we don’t think the burden should be on speakers to find out.”

The U.S. Supreme Court previously refused to intervene in the ban by a 6-3 margin.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term, joined with fellow Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett in saying it would not be “appropriate” to intercede at that point.

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