In the first three installments of our summary on the 2023 CAGOP Convention, your intrepid blogger has excoriated the opposition for various issues. This post is 100% on the CAGOP Staff and the consultants that control the CAGOP. Buckle up.
Remember, your intrepid blogger still abhors proxies and wants to see them banned or severely restricted.
The CAGOP By-Laws need major reform. They are limited and inadequate, exposing the CAGOP to unnecessary liability and creating a clear impression of impropriety. Note that all of the delegate disputes from two years ago have never been addressed, and deliberately so.
I have been around the CAGOP for 20+ years; the other disturbing pattern is conflict avoidance. The people that run the CAGOP, which applies to the so-called squishes and conservatives alike, all major on avoiding conflict and sweeping it under the rug. Another way this manifests is in the dishonest game the Rules and Credentials committees play, telling people with disputes that the other committee has no jurisdiction.
Then, conveniently, both meetings get scheduled simultaneously at the convention to prevent any adjustments. I no longer believe the explanations about the availability of meeting rooms. The convention centers have plenty, and this one was the same.
The real issue is that the CAGOP Staff have made themselves believe that their paychecks depend upon keeping the opposition out of office. This is my opinion based on years of evidence. It is sad because these same people that called the Sacramento Sheriff on me (leading to the FBI visiting because I live in Nevada) have gone out of their way to be friendly and polite to me since. (Except for Mr. and Mrs. Butthurt-Klemin)
The even bigger issue is that absent a major effort to address glaring holes and silences in the CAGOP by-laws, it will require a lawsuit from someone with money to burn who does not expect financial damages from the CAGOP to force the reform.
The control agents all understand there is no accountability, so their actions have become blatant and overt.
This makes me as sad as some of the bad behavior I saw from the opposition. I care about the party’s health; seeing the corruption is disturbing.
Let’s talk about the Rules Committee, but the real story is the Proxies and Credentials Committee.
The CAGOP system is rigged against the opposition because the Rules Committee is appointed 100% by the CAGOP Chair. Then, said committee, on a simple majority vote of the committee, can “Kill” any rules change. This means that the dead rule has to be brought up on the floor in the Sunday General Session and takes a 2/3 vote to be adopted. Effectively this is impossible.
This CAGOP convention was no different. The proxy system is vigorously defended, and a proxies and credentials committee full of appointees that will protect the status quo is the second part of the gatekeeping process.
It may surprise some to read me writing this. Just because I support candidates that my friends in the opposition don’t sometimes, this does not mean my personal views of the party’s problems have changed.
The CAGOP Rules Committee is more like a kangaroo court. It is what it is.
The CAGOP Proxies and Credentials Committee has become a corrupt joke. It sucks, too, because I know many of the people involved in both committees, and they are good people. What they are doing sucks. The decisions being made, even if being done so innocently and without malice, cast dispersion on the CAGOP and expose the organization to liability.
Sometimes I wonder if I should be spending my precious time and blog electrons writing about this stuff…
I just can’t quit the CAGOP.
Did you know that the CAGOP’s bylaws say nothing about an electronic system being used to appoint delegates? This means that people should be able to mail in a list or email in a list as the CAGOP By-Laws are silent. Yet, Modoc Chair Bob Zane was torched by the biased Proxies and Credentials Committee because he did not know how to use the system.
How many times since the online portal was created for delegate appointments have people aligned with the establishment been given grace for not being able to use the system? The refusal of the Proxies and Credentials Committee to accommodate Bob Zane is terrible form and bad faith that would not go over well with a judge. (Update: Zane never complained or appealed to the committee – he just emailed staff about the problem after the deadline)
In addition to Modoc, Bob Brunton, a nominee, got three delegate appointments. Bob said he was waiting until the last minute to make his appointments. When he went in, they were already done. He did not do them. But, the biased Proxies and Credentials Committee told him to go to hell, and three delegates loyal to the establishment were left in the queue. I could not imagine that a Judge would view this favorably either. (Update: I now have information that conflicts with any story that Brunton may have had his delegates “ripped off” – it is likely he made the appointments and then thought better of them)
Did I mention that Scott Winn, a paid consultant doing proxy gathering work, is a committee member? What would a judge say about that conflict of interest? I have a huge problem with paid political consultants that may have an interest in the outcome of things CAGOP being delegates to the party.
The CAGOP By-Laws must be amended with an INSTANT dispute resolution process to address issues. What the consultant-controlled Proxies and Credentials Committee did was corrupt and in complete bad faith.
Did you know that Kathy Kneer in Shasta County appointed delegates before quitting the Shasta GOP altogether? Kathy is by all accounts a fine person with many friends, but her move was in complete bad faith. A new Chair was elected in enough time to have made the appointments themselves.
Hugh Bussell did the same in Alameda. Again, a new Chair was elected in enough time to have made the appointments. I have issues with the new Chair, David Chan, but those are not germane to this discussion about the crooked proxies and credentials committee.
This is where the CAGOP Staff Came in. They recognized the delegates appointed by the establishment-aligned former chairs of both counties. Then, they claimed the CAGOP By-Laws did not allow the Proxies and Credentials Committee to “remove” delegates.
Further, an attorney on retainer for the CAGOP inexplicably said that “General Elections” only happen once every 4 years. (regardless of what the county party by-laws say or reality that is every two years) This insane opinion would get laughed at by a judge. Still, more importantly, it shows the pre-meditation by the control agents to rig the outcome of the credentials committee meeting.
Then the Proxies and Credentials committee told the new chairs of both counties to go to hell. What a great look when juxtaposed with a call for unity from the re-elected CAGOP Chair.
Had I been on the committee, I would have recognized both sets of delegates.
It will likely require a judge to resolve these issues as the rules committee would rather die than address this situation in the by-laws or by adopting a policy and procedure manual for the Proxies and Credentials Committee.
It gets worse; based on how the CAGOP By-Laws are written, we do not know when appointees become delegates. There are three possible interpretations. This also leaves the door open for the CAGOP to get sued for their consistently biased decisions regarding these issues.
Why do I keep talking about the CAGOP getting sued? They do not consistently apply the few by-laws they have, and many decisions made by committees are cowardly conflict avoidance. Being a coward only breeds more significant conflict down the road.
If you want unity, it requires strong leadership and negotiation. What we have is a committee with paid political consultants and members with other conflicts rendering biased decisions.
There are long-term consequences – all of the elections for corporate officers that occurred with these decisions standing could be challenged. How about a tenacious leftist lawyer with practical litigation skills taking down the CAGOP’s corporate veil because of the appalling one-sided and wonton disregard for propriety. Then these control agents would all be calling their homeowner’s insurance carrier, as each of them would be personally liable for the issues with the corporate veil shredded.
To any attorneys out there, don’t scoff; I’ve seen corporate veils get shredded a few times in my life as an insurance agent.
Then we have the crazed Omar Navarro. He was stripped delegate appointments because the committee saw social media posts they believed were “proof” that he lived out of state.
G. Rick Marshall showed up on behalf of Omar Navarro with proof that he was still a resident of California. Scott Winn, a paid political consultant who gathers proxies for the establishment, demanded a power of attorney from Marshall to speak on behalf of Navarro. Winn would get fried faster than Grimace can grab a box of McDonald’s cookies by a judge for what he did.
The Proxies and Credentials Committee violated the CAGOP By-Laws and Roberts Rules in the case of Omar Navarro. He was entitled to two delegate appointments…
Hey, wait, I thought the Proxies and Credentials Committee could not remove delegates? I guess that only applies to Hugh Bussell and Kathy Kneer’s appointments, not Omar Navarro.
Worse, showing incompetence to add to the corruption – the same committee allowed Omar Navarro’s own individual proxy in lieu of his Regular Delegate status to be validated! I thought he lived in another state and could not make appointments… why in the hell was his own credentials recognized?
You’d have to be a complete idiot to not believe the common thread here was the alignment of the people they victimized. What kind of group tells two newly elected county party chairs to go to hell, and then strips a California Resident nominee of their delegates? A group that was given direction and instructions beforehand on what to do.
The total number of delegates affected by this is 12 that should not have been recognized versus 12 that should have been. In addition, 9 more that should have been allowed to be appointed. This is a total swing of 33 votes…
Regardless of how you are aligned, these situations should give you all pause. 28 out of 1361 votes is statistically significant.
I hate that this happened because it gives credence to the hair on fire election fraud conspiracies and legitimizes the email Mike Cargile just sent out claiming the convention’s results were pre-ordained.
I was personally fully invested in the election of several new CRP officers, and the Rules / Credentials Committee situation cheapens the efforts of all of us.
If you think only people like me want this, witness Harmeet Dhillon’s comments about the Alameda GOP situation in the post-convention board meeting. She clearly said the process is severely broken and needs to be reformed.
Start by banning paid political consultants and political staffers from the rules and credentials committees. The CAGOP’s By-Laws need major reform, and there needs to be an operations manual drawn up for the proxies and credentials committee to standardize the process.
