Yesterday was the day I realized that I can no longer associate myself with the so called “conservative majority” of Sacramento County Republicans. Three different threads have proved to me the futility of trying to work with these folks.
Sacramento County Sheriff
There are three candidates for this seat. Two are Republicans—Brett Daniels and Scott Jones—while the third is a Democrat. As a member of the California Republican Assembly here locally, I and some of my friends have been pushing for an endorsement for Scott Jones. The local CRA clubs are the only Republican body that has a practice of making pre-primary endorsements that has not taken a position in the race. The statewide CRA vice-president in charge of this area manipulated the process when a local endorsing convention was held to deny a vote for this race. Per statewide bylaws, the largest local chapter can call an endorsing convention within 50 days of an election if one has not been held. The SRA (Sacramento Republican Assembly) has refused to call an endorsing convention for this race. Whether my guy gets the necessary 2/3 vote needs for an endorsement, the fact that a vote is not even going to take place is an outrage.
What is SRA willing to do in this race? They are unwilling to do their job but have instead voted to go after any elected Republicans that endorsed the Democrat in the race. So instead of endorsing someone and then challenging local Republicans to back their guy, they are jumping to attack people that tend to support them on other issues. I previously covered this in my article about Chess and Checkers so I won’t rehash the particulars of the individuals that they targeted or what I think their motivations might be for endorsing as they did.
Support the Platform PAC (STP)
Support the Platform ran a slate last election cycle to elect people to the Sacramento County Republican Central Committee. This was an effort to elect conservatives to greater representation on the Central Committee. STP got much of their slate elected, whether thru their efforts or just because they ran so many candidates is a matter of some conjecture. STP’s governing board is composed of current and former SRA officers. At various points in time STP has been directed by votes of the board or membership of SRA. In addition, SRA has given money to STP. In some cases it was a loan to be repaid and in others it was not. At other points, STP has asserted that it is an independent Political Action Committee (PAC) and not subject to direction or control of SRA.
The incestuous nature of the relationship is such that the FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission) could have a field day with this group if it ever amounted to anything. In addition to the money issues, they have jointly planned strategy and even coordinated with candidates running for office. If they maintain their independence as PAC they are in clear violation of many campaign laws. Below is a record of financial transactions between STP and SRA as of April 2009.
In the last election cycle, I was involved with STP. In the process of getting the Cosumnes Republican Assembly formed in the southern part of Sacramento County, I incurred the wrath of many in SRA including the STP board and was not invited to be on their slate this year. That was expected and OK with me because I don’t have any money to contribute this year and I’m disappointed in their leadership at SCRP but I’ll get to that at another time.
Anyway, I heard the new STP radio spot on KTKZ yesterday. I was not surprise to be called a RINO just because I was not with them. This is politics and us versus them is often used in such advertising; however, there are two claims that I believe are total crap that are in their advertisement.
Because of Support the Platform conservative leaders; the Sacramento County Republicans are adding one thousand new Republican registrations every week. Because of Support the Platform’s efforts, Placer County is a leading Republican County.
Thus STP claims credit for the voter bounty program that is running in Sacramento County. So how much did STP PAC and its members contribute to the bounty program? Zero. That’s right, not a single dollar. All money from the bounty program is coming from three sources: national and State party committees due to defending targeted races for State Assembly and Dan Lungren’s congressional seat and two local Assembly members that are contributing 50 cents each per registration. Why? Because State law prohibits the money from going directly to the effort. In effect it must be passed thru a third party (the county committee) in order to be spent. The fact that the current county chair is associated with STP is irrelevant to anything. Anybody between Tom Campbell and David Duke could be county chair and the money would still be there.
The second claim is just as much a pile of steaming hot excrement. “Because of STP, Placer County is a leading Republican County.” OK, so how long has STP been in Placer County? How much have they spent from their PAC? How many people has STP elected to the Republican Central Committee in Placer County?
In prior years, STP has never had a slate in Placer County. They have never spent a dime electing Republicans to the Central Committee. Until this year they had no presence in Placer County at all. The only reason they are in Placer at all this year is because Jeff Allan, the current head of STP, moved from Sacramento to Placer County. In Fact, the way I hear it, STP is running a slate not against the evil RINOs but against the Tea Party Patriots!
Sacramento County Republican Central Committee
I tried to bring up the STP ad at the Sacramento County Republican Central Committee last night and as expected the chair—who is also on the governing board of STP—shot it down as a non-issue. I mentioned that she had a conflict of interest in this situation and she dismissed it as something that she knew nothing about. She offered to bring it up at the next meeting if I could get a transcript of the ad by then.
All I asked was that STP drops the claim from the radio spot. I didn’t even bring up the Placer County claim. I simply asked that the Central Committee should not allow an outside group to take credit for the work of the Committee. A majority if not all STP board members were at the meeting. As with most things at such meetings, half the folks don’t know what is going on and the other half don’t want to deal with it.
Conclusion
Stay tuned for more on the continuing saga of how Republicans are determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
05-20-2010 Update
Local CRA chapters finally got together and voted on endorsing in the Sacramento County Sheriff race. Scott Jones was unanimously endorsed. Too bad we couldn’t do it when it mattered instead of being the last group to take a stand; afterall, voting only began ten days ago.