The CRP Corruption Chronicles 2021 Edition. Let’s Talk About the Web Known as Meridian Pacific, Team Cal and New Majority (Part 1)

Meridian Pacific is one of the few remaining heavy hitters in California Republican Politics. If you look at the reports of the CAGOP – you will see millions of dollars in business every election cycle.

Here is the California GOP’s FPPC report thru mid October filltered for Meridian Pacific, Inc. There will be more money on the year end report.

Problem: Meridian Pacific is running Jessica Patterson’s campaign – while they are a multi-million dollar vendor to the CAGOP. It might be legal but it would be like having Mark Zuckerberg running your San Jose City Council Campaign where you could vote on their property taxes or development.

Jessica Patterson has a direct say in the CAGOP Campaigns that Meridian Pacific Gets.

It gets better. Tom Ross is a partner in Meridian Pacific, and I have written about that in the past (I will bring those blogs back in a bit), he is also  the Political Diretor of the New Majority PAC and by virtue of a complete joke of a legal technicality, sits on the board of the CAGOP. Tom MeNernan (SP?) is the titular head of TEAMCAL. The man never shows up for board meetings, effectively making his alternate Tom Ross a board member of the CAGOP. This is a flaunting of the conflict of interest rules and I am not sure it would pass a legal smell test if challenged. From Meridian Pacific Website: Tom currently serves as the Political Director to New Majority California and TEAMCAL (the major donor organization within the Republican Party)

What this means is that Tom Ross gets to vote on his own contracts. (Actually, they have the CAGOP By-Laws written in such a way that Team Cal gets to operate with impugnity, more on that soon) Tom Ross gets to finance a Chairwoman candidate for CAGOP who can also influence said contracts and Ross himself is paid out of the proceeds of said contracts because he owns part of Meridian Pacific.

Cozy.

That would be a clip from the announcement email of Jessica Patterson. Note the email address the announcement came from. Meridian HQ thought it was cool to channel Michelle Obama’s “Are you in?” approach. Given that the principals of Meridian HQ were cool at best to President Trump and have been outright hostile to conservatives for years (including multiple attempts to shred the CAGOP platform), it makes sense that they would rip off Democrat campaign tactics.

As an aside, Jessica Patterson is claiming to have raised $36 Million. This is a deceptive lie. We can see from the above that $5.2 Million of it was “Pass-Through” money from Yes on 22 and other ballot measures. “Pass-Throughs” is where a CAGOP endorsed issue approaches the party and asks to use the party’s bulk mail permit to get mail done for about half the cost. They donate to the party who then pays for the mailer. The party usually is able to keep a small percentage of the buy. My guess is we will see more of these when the year end reports are filed and displayed. (I’ve seen about $1.2 Million from Prop 23 in another spot with a different vendor, for example)

This is a screenshot from the New Majority PAC. As you can see, they donated a ton of money to Jessica Patterson’s campaign for CAGOP Chair. Ostensibly, you’d conclude that most of the money was paid to Meridian Pacific for her campaign’s expenses.

Howard Hakes – CAGOP Board Member, New Majority Board Member

Tom Ross – A Principal in Meridian Pacific, currently serves as the Political Director to New Majority California and TEAMCAL (the major donor organization within the Republican Party)

Jessica Patterson – $40K recipient from New Majority PAC, client of Meridian Pacific, Chairwoman of the CAGOP with influience over Meridian Pacific Contracts

Andy Garakhani is all over the reports of the New Majority as he is a paid consultant for them. He is also on the CAGOP’s campaign finance reports. He was making calls to elected officials to gather up endorsements for Jessica Patterson.

The problem here is that the conflicts of interest make it look like Tom Ross et.al. used $40k of the New Majority’s money to get his firm a no-bid contract of at least $5.2 Million. So, even if this arrangement is legal, it raises ethical alarm bells.

This is what Steve Frank is fighting against in his race for Chairman – the players involved have a ton of money at stake and they will fight like hell to keep it.

Does it make better sense why Patterson has been content to let 10 County Parties Collapse, ignore countless others, ignore misconduct of electeds, ignore local party endorsements and the like? She is an employee of the swamp and registering voters is not a money-making operation, strong county parties threaten the power structure and of course challenging any of the sitting electeds is an absolute no-no.

Buckle Up, more to follow…