As most of my close / long term friends know, I rarely use such impolite words like the above title implies. When I do descend to such levels to use such, it shows a such level of disgust that I am failing to find a "high road" way that adequately describes the situation. This whole mess is one of those times. As I pointed out here, the politicalese is now coming out. It always seems that when the tough gets going, the smoother and silkier the verbiage becomes. And now, within the boundaries of the ByLaws, the Executive Committee (36 or so members) will be finishing the borking of Jack Kimball on Thursday, Sept 1 with a fait accompli result of an undignified firing. Such a deal – shred the TEA Party guy after only 8 months, lost three special elections, but had the 2nd best fundraising while Fergus Cullen lost two general elections, blithered through lots of money, an expensive lawsuit….. but got two full year?
Oh yeah, Fergus hates conservatives.
All we E-Boarders have to do is vote this problem away, right?
Not so fast, sports. The base is not happy about this….and guess what – they can read too! And active, they are. With word that the Executive Board (contact info here) is going to merely go through the motions this Thursday (Sept 1), the activists have decided to take on the EBoard. Two petitions have now come out asking that elected delegates to the NH GOP Committee (the 400 or so Republicans that vote on stuff within the Party), sign one of several petitions that are calling for a Special Meeting.
Their purpose? To take the decision away from the E-Board, or, the ability to override their decision. Those little people, such uppitiness! Whatsa matter with them, don’t they know their place?
Er, yes, they do. And the Strafford County Republican GOP is the first out of the gate. The question is,
does the EBoard? Or will they just decide to rule by fiat (sorta what’s happening in DC right now)? I will tell you this, there will be consequences if they do.
Here’s the first: a Strafford GOP Resolution calling for – Due Process (hey, what.a.concept!):
Contact: Tess Conroy, Chairwoman
Strafford County Republican Committee
Chair@GOPStrafford.org
Chris Buck, Communications Chair
Strafford County Republican Committee
ChrisBuck@GOPStrafford.org, (603) 865-1918
Dover, NH – The voting members of the Strafford County Delegation to the New Hampshire Republican State Committee unanimously voted today for a resolution directing their elected officers to stop the hasty vote to remove State Chairman Jack Kimball.
The resolution opens with the statement that the Strafford County Delegation constitutes 37 out of the 493 voting members of the Republican State Committee. In total it enumerates 10 points that describe several violations of normal due process, including calling a vote to remove the Chairman with only a week’s notice, not requiring specific charges to be levied against the Chairman, not affording an appropriate timeframe for a proper defense, not constituting an investigatory committee to make a recommendation to the Executive Committee, and placing such an important and extraordinary decision in the hands of such a small minority, as compared with the 493 voting members of the State Committee.
The resolution further calls for the State Committee to refer the vote to the entire membership, to amend the bylaws to enumerate "removable offenses," and to require that the entire membership of the State Committee be involved in the process to remove any officer.
Accompanying the resolution is a petition, which was voluntarily signed by the entire State Committee membership present and constituting a quorum of the Stafford County Republican Committee Delegates. The petition includes several state legislators and local party chairs, and directs their representatives, including the Strafford County Chairwoman, the Area 2 Vice Chair, the National Committeeman and Committeewoman, and the other officers of the committee, who serve at the pleasure of their members, to vote in accordance with the directive of their constituents.
At the heart of the resolution and petition is the concept that due process must accompany any effort to remove an officer, as well as the hope that by affording additional time for the entire membership to consider the issue, cooler heads may yet prevail.
