So, NH GOP, how will you wield a club called "or other Good Cause"? - Granite Grok

So, NH GOP, how will you wield a club called “or other Good Cause”?

NH GOP Victory Starts Now LogoThe NH GOP Annual meeting is coming up this next Saturday at the Pinkerton Academy in Derry.  One of the duties of the newly elected State Committee members is to vote on new officers (e.g., Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary, Treasurer). The other is to vote on changes to the By-Laws.  The Groksters that are duly elected State Committee members (I, not so much this cycle – methinks I’ve been too bad of a gadfly (in part) as a thorn in the side, so I’m told) each got an email listing those amendments which got forwarded to us all:

Submitted bylaw amendments can be found below:

Bylaw amendment 1
Bylaw amendment 2
Bylaw amendment 3
Bylaw amendment 4
Bylaw amendment 5
Bylaw amendment 6

Amendment 1 is rather interesting (underlined words are the additions, bolding mine):

County and City Committees may prescribe in their bylaws the conditions under which a member of such committee may be removed for failure to attend meetings or other good cause. Any such bylaws provision shall become effective upon approval by a majority vote of the Executive Committee. Upon a member’s removal under any such bylaws provision the member shall also be removed from the State Committee and a vacancy shall exist.

So if the local committee (city, town, county) removes someone, they are booted from the State Committee as well.  But here’s the rub that I pointed out:

And what is “good cause“?  And is there any “due process” process defined for someone who believes that they have been eliminated simply because “enemy list”?  Would this be used for removal from the Party for folks like us – or those consorting with the Dems?

Gosh, I would think that since the NH GOP Exec Board censored Democrat appointed Speaker Jasper, would that be sufficient for “good cause”?

Sidenote: btw, what practical worth is a “censor” other than having been denied a seat on the EBoard anyways?  Or was that only for PR reasons, for if there is no practical change, what good was it?  If there has been such a practical “worth”, I’ve neither seen or heard of any.

The case for endorsing another Party’s candidate is already covered by another rule so that it moot.  What ELSE would constitute “good cause”?  Leaving it so wide open, definition wise, like this certainly makes it very ripe for “monkey business”, doesn’t it?  Who then is to say, especially in this atmosphere of all but a 50/50 split in the Party, how would this be used?  “Oh Skip, stop being a tin-foiler” is what I will probably hear.  Yet, those that may be saying the saying may very well know of such examples – after all, politics IS politics and for all of the surface level manners and civility, there are a lot of folks so taken with the politics and the power attributed with it, their knives are far longer than the new brush cutting SOG machete that TMEW blessed me with for Christmas – and sharper, too (or, more likely, the stubby but razor sharp stiletto hidden at the ready).  We’ve all seen it, and for some to whom this is their be-all and end-all, it is played with all the blackness that can be mustered.

And the flip side can be even worse  – when the conventional wisdom of the members is convinced that “good cause” has been reached but those that truly get to define and act on “good cause” say “No big thang – move along, nothing to see here”, we can see the “protect the Insiders” be invoked by not invoking “good cause”.  And no one can tell me they haven’t seen THAT before, either.

So just for the sake of it, I decided to go look at the Belknap County Republican sub-site under the NH GOP one to see if “good cause” is enumerated in its By-Laws – by golly, there’s were none (tsk, tsk, Chair Glassman – oh shoot, is criticizing the NH GOP a zero-tolerance offense and I’be be removed for “good cause” if I was a member (which I’m not, but does that put me into the category of “outcast”?).  So how would that judgment be made?  Ad hoc does oft means “not open and transparent; if there is no process enumerated in black and white then Ad Hoc it must be?  Hmmm

Actually, another Grokster beat me to that conclusion:

It appears that amendment 1 is the Anti-Grokster amendment.  “Good cause” means posting about republican nonsense…

Heh!  I guess utter support for the US and NH Constitutions and the NH GOP Platform may well be considered to be “good cause” – Elites hate others wagging fingers in their faces – that wagging is only one way, I ‘spose…

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