Since this is an inside politics blog – I figured I’d share some inside baseball from this weekend’s CRA Convention. The CRA has been beset by fake units and consultant manipulation in the last few years. As a statewide officer – I have seen that from the inside.
As the CRA Sgt. at Arms – I was in the middle of this convention.
As a side note, I got to meet in person some of Art’s favorites – Harry Sidhu, Janet Nguyen and Van Tran. The diversity of SoCal Candidates is amazing – (almost everyone that runs for anything in the North State is White… )
Other than the fact that Sidhu can’t figure out where the hell he lives – he seemed like an OK guy. Van Tran – the CRA seems to love him. Nguyen – couldn’t tell – she was very hard to understand when she was speaking. (Go easy guys – I am from the North State)
What a pressure-cooker the CRA Convention was! First off – it was 439 miles from my front door in Rocklin to Knotts Berry Farm (dive) Resort Hotel in Buena Park.
I managed to piss off every campaign (excpet for Fiornia’s) during the course of the CRA Convention. I guess that means I did my job as Chairman of the elections committee (a side duty of the Sgt at Arms…)
CRA Sgt at Arms speaks out – a View from Ground Zero at the CRA Convention.
Sgt. York.
Did you say fake units?
You know, like the four in the Corona area who only formed to game the system and create delegates for Jeff Miller, my Assemblyman.
My guess is that probably one or more of same have never met since.
From my Oct 29, 2007 Orange Juice post I offer the following:
“It is worth noting that of these new units some of the presidents do not even live in Corona. i.e. South Carona president Jeff Gibson is from Cota de Caza, Temescal Valley president Susan Gibson-Heins lives in Huntington Beach, Circle City president Paul Harrison is from Costa Mesa, Rimpau president Brandon Powers is from Diamond Bar and West Corona president David Posey is from Arcadia.”
Larry Gilbert, former president SRA, Saddleback Republican Assembly
yeah i was there too, how did chuck win the endorsement?! He had like no campaign organization compared to fiorina.
To balance the claim above about fake units formed in 2007, was the process not initiated by the backers of Miller’s opponent? Would anyone like a list of the fake units in Orange County and the dates they were formed for what appeared to be the same purpose?
The backers of Miller’s opponent formed fake units prior to the endorsing process, but it didn’t work. Why? Because Miller’s backers answered them in spades, forming units mentioned above.
Let’s have balance.
So you admit to gaming the system?
While I was not in the CRA when this was occuring I believe you are referring to new units in OC that actually were formed over a legitimate time frame and still hold Unit meetings today. Creating four NEW units in the same neighborhood in what 24 to 48 hours. That’s a record. And the leadership of the CRA units you refer to live within the community they serve not several counties away.
I named names. Perhaps you can be more specific rather than winging it.
Give my best regards to Brandon if in fact you are not him.
I will have plenty more on the delegations from various county units. Suffice to say, we had units from the north state whose entire delegations were from the southland.
The CRA allows 25% of the members of a club to be from outside – the problem is that those by-laws do not extend to limit delegates.
The practice of paper-clubs is time-honored, but people are getting lazy about it and making it obvious.
Sgt. York states, “The CRA allows 25% of the members of a club to be from outside – the problem is that those by-laws do not extend to limit delegates.”
There is absolutely no verbiage in the bylaws that state this.In fact, they state that any member can join any CRA unit they want simply by giving notice to the current unit President and notifying the new unit President as well. As long as they join a unit at least 30 days prior to a convention, they are eligible to vote in that election.
CRA needs to clean up its act and tighten up its bylaws to prevent the unethical gaming of the system. CRA should be a model for other other Republican organizations to follow but sadly, they’re not at this time.