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Following a surreal CRA convention in which factions squared off with petty moves that included holding proper delegates out of the convention until their credentials were “vetted,” a number of folks opposing the antics brought suit asking the CRA to follow its own rules. When it became apparent that the CRA was about to lose the case, they brought a motion to have the matter sent to arbitration. The CRA motion was approved by the superior Court on Friday. The result of this purely procedural motion will be to remove the matter from the court system and into the alternative dispute arena.
This dispute arose when a faction of the CRA attempted to impose a “residency” requirement for delegates attending the convention. If you are from a geographic region run by someone like the buffoon Dale Tyler at the Saddleback Republican Assembly, you are allowed to go to a neighboring geographic region under CRA Bylaws. This “residency” requirement was struck down by a Superior Court Judge that found that the bylaws had no such requirement. Attempting to end run the Court Order, a faction of the CRA then took the unprecedented action of closing the general session to all but “approved” delegates, preventing any admission of the general public. In addition, this faction then subjected many delegates opposing the faction to a “vetting” process that prevented properly seated delegates from participating in the convention for hours while they sat around outside the hall waiting to be “vetted.”
Ironically, after creating this mess, many involved with the tomfoolery that made the convention an embarrassment are now asking for those that prevailed on the earlier motion to “let this matter end.” According to CRA President Celeste Greig:
We now call upon the Plaintiffs to drop this matter in its entirety and let us all prepare to elect a new President of the United States in 2012, elect and re-elect Conservative Republican candidates, increase our voter registration and continue the Reagan Revolution. Congratulations go to CRA’s legal team for preparing and arguing to the Court the successful motion.
While I agree completely with her sentiment that the party should work together for a common cause, I find it ironic that this call for cooperation comes AFTER the abuse of process that went on before and during the convention. I also find it funny to congratulate your legal team for what is a completely non-substantive purely procedural “win” whose main purpose was to remove the case from the Judge that found the “residency” requirement to be illegal. I will continue to follow this matter and would hope that the CRA will stop the ridiculous internal fighting that has rendered the party virtually irrelevant in today’s California politics.
This is what is frustrating about being gagged due to legal issues. Your account of the situation is absurd and patently false.
I have so much real evidence of fraud – that had we had this evidence before the convention, there is no way the judge would have issued the TRO.
You should have called some of your friends in the Restore Team to ask them why they stopped beating their chests. We have the goods, we know what they did and how they did it.
The specifics will be coming out at a time of our choosing and people will be able to see what was done in full detail. The CRA was the victim and Restore the CRA – Geoff Willis Team – was the aggressor.
You guys overplayed your hand badly. I can not comment further – but this posting was so ridiculous that I had to leave a comment.
Aaron F Park – CRA Sgt. at Arms
Wow, I am flattered – I have a team! That is amazing and I had no idea given that I am not on either “side,” was not a delegate and have no stake in this fight except to stop the sophomoric trickery that derailed the convention and divided the party. If you have “have the goods” please share them, I would really like to know the truth. Your comment that “the specifics will be coming out at a time of our choosing” sounds a lot like McCarthy saying “I hold in my hand a list of communists.” I notice that you attack the judges ruling on the TRO but applaud the court regarding the arbitration decision. That destroys your credibility and makes you sound like just another whiner whose juvenile tactics to take over a political process was brought to light and you don’t want to suffer the consequences or public scrutiny. Your comment makes my point that you are far more interested in your petty little games than in reinvigorating the GOP.
@ Geoff – I really want to post the goods, but because of the still ongoing drama, I am being muzzled. But, trust me – it will be posted and it will all be relevant despite what the anonymous lawyer is writing. I appreciate that you are posting under your own name and will be happy to dialogue with you any time. My email is on the CRA website.
@ Geoff – you omitted the fact that people were disrupting the convention from the very start necessitating the closed sessions. The lawsuits filed did not address the closed sessions as the By-Laws allow for them by being silent on the issue. If the closed sessions were a significant issue – they would have been mentioned in the lawsuit.
The disruptions included people showing up at a 3pm Credentials Committee meeting and shutting it down with disruptive activities. two of my club members were working the registration table while a consultant and two capitol staffers were harassing them (I was there) – all this happened before 5pm on Friday.
So “your side” earned the closed sessions through your behavior. Therefore, your post is factually inaccurate due to the omissions in it.
So please – call me names all you want, but at least acknowledge the totality of the situation before you throw bombs.
Finally, the judge would not have had to refer the case to binding arb had Voigts, Rogers and LeFever not filed motions to have the court overturn the CRA’s elections. Like the good conservatives they are – they ran to court after they lost.
I “appluad” the court’s decision – but it was unnecessary as it was in response to lawsuit number 2, Geoff. Lawsuit number 1 ended without incident on 4/28/2011 when the high-priced lawyers decided to file new motions and to let the TRO expire.
Here’s how the fraud is relevant – the TRO did not tell us we had to seat people with expired dues, however since records were withheld at the direction of the “restore the cra” team, that was impossible to determine. The TRO did not tell us to seat non-republicans, the TRO did not tell us to seat people that were in more than one unit in violation of the by-laws, the TRO did not tell us to seat delegates that were not CRA members, the TRO did not tell us to seat people who transferred units without notice, etc etc etc…
This is where the report on the fraud becomes 100% relevant – because absent records, a residency rule was the best way we thought to stop the fraud.
We got sued, we lost, we dug through the existing by-laws without records – mind you – and enforced them as best we could. The irony is that section 10.07 of the bylaws is clear about how records are supposed to be made available upon request… so those assailing us for not following the CRA’s by-laws hung themselves when they refused to provide records.
Now that I have seen the records – I know why they were not produced. The specifics will be the subject of posts that will come out at a time of our choosing (namely when the lawyers green-light me). And, Geoff, you’ll get a front-row seat to it.
And now – we get accused of rigging the CRA’s officer elections because for the first time in years there was a credentialing process that was resisted at every step.
Hopefully, Geoff – you get a better sense of my earlier comment – now that I have time to develop the thought.
— and I can back up my above claims.
You can play the “anonymous poster” game all you want. You should know me by now as I didn’t make my identity a secret during the last go around about the convention problems.
I love how you never admit that your side has any fault in this fiasco. You blame the “other side’s” delegates for “forcing” you to close the open session. What a joke. There were numerous individuals, such as myself, who had paid the registration fee and simply wanted to watch the “open” session since we never had been to a convention before. Oh, and I would say the closed sessions were a significant issue considering the delegation overwhelmingly (including, by necessity, many of your supporters) voted to refund the registration fee for anyone who had been denied admittance to the Saturday general session (you conveniently forgot to mention that one).
You still ignore the fact that the “fraud” as you claim has been rampant on both sides of the aisle for years, yet Ms. Grieg failed to address it as President until the eve of the convention, after the delegate list had been released – convenient. You also still ignore the massive conflict of interest that existed on the Credentials Committee with people who were running for office picking the delegates who were going to be challenged, and those who were not. You still ignore the fact that your side applied the by-laws they chose to apply, and applied them inconsistently, on at least one occasion failing to apply them to a unit headed by a supporter of Ms. Grieg.
The fact is, I agree that there are fundamental problems with the way the CRA picks and approves delegates for the conventions. However, it has been that way for far too long, and your side did nothing until just before the convention. I believe that if you really cared about reforming the CRA (rather than simply winning an election), you would have let the convention vote proceed as it always has, and then make the needed changes after, when both sides likely would have won spots on the Board. But you didn’t do that, you chose to manipulate the system and exclude delegates in unprecedented ways. Do I think you violated the TRO? No. But that doesn’t matter because you simply found another way to game the system.
Newbie – tell me who you are and I will answer your fallacious posts. Otherwise, I won’t legitimize them with a comment. You can email me, my address is on the website.
BTW – the Credentials Committee included both sides!
Aaron. Newbie is a real person whom I have personally met. Unlike some members of our city council Newbie is a card carrying conservative Republican. While we disagreed on a 2100 MV Ballot Measure he did attend the meeting in question.
@ Larry, I don’t know him and it helps immensely to know who you’re responding to. Until I know who it is – it stands where its’ at.
I am not going to get into the details here because there are clearly things that we will simply disagree about that aren’t important enough to continue the debate. The only point that I will reiterate is that I don’t have a “side” – I am simply a modest blogger trying to shine light on important subjects. I think that there are a number of more important and fundamental issues framed by this debate.
First, we use the phrase “that’s politics” to justify all sorts of marginal behavior and act is if we must accept this as the way business must be done. I reject that. In this case, both “sides” used different methods to attempt to pre-determine the outcome of the election. Both sides “stacked” delegates and both sides played geography games. If there was “fraud” neither side was innocent.
Second, a court has found that the “residency” requirement imposed by the CRA was not consistent with the language of the CRA bylaws.
Third, I was not at the credentials committee meeting but I guess I don’t understand the correlation between disruptive behavior at that meeting and closing the general session. If folks are disruptive at a meeting, there are sanction available both under law and under CRA bylaws to deal with that – shutting “one side” out of the meeting seems to be motivated by petty politics than truly trying to prevent “disruption.”
Finally, the committee that determined who needed to be vetted and who could gain admission to the convention outside of the vetting process had a terrible ethical conflict – most of those committee members were running for office at the convention and had a vested interest in determining who could participate in the convention and who should be excluded.
The real problem here is that this process is terribly disenfranchising. Folks with no life but politics, who have no “real” job but focus all of their energy on creating this kind of chaos to promote their own cause will bear this kind of strife. Psychologically “normal” folks with real jobs but an interest in our democratic system routinely throw up their hands and walk away rather deal with this petty bickering. We lose a critical part of our base by allowing party management to wallow in this kind of political filth.
The solution is simple – real rules base upon current circumstances. Clear rules on geographic and other membership requirements. Prevent the kind of fiefdoms in the local units (like my particular unit the Saddleback Republican Assembly) that dissuade valuabe potential members from even bothering to participate.
The problem is that neither of the current “sides” really wants that kind of clarity. That kind of clarity would prevent the political gamesmanship that is the lifeblood of the political creatures trying to manipulate the democratic process in very Machiavellian ways. Clear rules would prevent the kind of manipulation that led to the election of the current slate of CRA officers and also led to a large number of important GOP supporters washing their hands of the whole process.
Geoff.
As a former, termed out, president of the Saddleback Republican Assembly one of the roles of our CRA unit was to vet and promote conservative candidates for elected office. Our Board created questionnaires for both city council and school board candidates to see if their philosphy aligns with that of the CRA.
I understand that the SRA Board has just made a decision not to endorse city council candidates in the 2012 election. I need to find our By-Laws to see if they have the power to make that decision.
If you are not satisfied with the candidate field there is no mandate to issue endorsements.
Where I do have an issue with city council endorsements is the OC GOP where you have Central Committee members in Yorba Linda voting for candidates as far south as Dana Point. Those elected members are not familiar with the unique issues faced in that city. Obviously the same applies with Laguna Beach representatives 73rd AD voting for candidates for Fullerton city council. I have discussed this concern with Tom Fuentes after he retired from the OC GOP chairman post. Scott Baugh instituted the policy which, on the surface, could result in a positive result for the top of the ticket candidates.
Well said Geoff. Of course, since Mr. Park’s side will never admit it did anything wrong, real reform will never happen which is why great people and real conservatives like Larry Gilbert left long ago. Mr. Park refuses to answer the hard questions (like the conflict of interest – yes both sides were represented, but your side had a larger majority to pick the safe delegates – and NO ONE running should have been on the Credentials Committee; or the fact that Ms. Grieg did nothing to address the paper units before the convention) because he can’t. His side owns the CRA now, and if the bogus paper units continue, I can’t wait to watch them turn on each other.
Classic straw man, Mr. Park. Everything Geoff said (aside from his opinions) is true. Ms. Grieg’s folks (yourself included, I’m assuming) DID pass a geographic residency requirement policy just before the CRA convention. A judge DID find that the policy violated the CRA’s bylaws and DID issue a TRO preventing the CRA from enforcing that policy. Having lost on the residency policy, you and your team DID prevent anyone from entering the PUBLIC general session on Saturday unless they were and approved “delegate” (a tactic I am told by many is unprecedented, and to this date I have not seen a single one of your team dispute that). Prior to the general session, the Elections Committee (consisting, as I understand it, largely with folks from your team – and most of whom were running for office – no one has explained how that is not a conflict of interest) DID prepare a list of challenged delegates (again, huge conflict of interest) who were then forced to be vetted by the entire delegate convention (those lucky enough to have survived the Elections Committee’s wrath) to plead their case as to why they should be allowed as a delegate, whether or not they met the CRA’s requirements for being a delegate.
So, your blathering about fraud has nothing to do with the post, which is factually accurate. Moreover, I have said consistently, that both sides gamed the system to their advantage by stacking delegates in the past. However, I believe your side stole the election by using its position on the Elections Committee and other leadership positions to disenfranchise many of Karen England’s delegates by selectively applying various bylaws (some of which had nothing to do with whether a delegate was proper or not). For example, I was told by one member that her unit was not required to go through the vetting process even though it did not follow the bylaws on delegate selection. That unit happened to have a president who supported Ms. Greig, so draw your conclusions from that.
Like Geoff, I look forward to hearing the evidence from both sides and hopefully moving forward to more important things like the ever-important 2012 elections.
Really, you guys can keep this going past the 2012 elections. We Democrats have got that covered. Just do what you have to do.
That’s my fear Vern.
@Geoff and Vern – I won’t reply to an anon commenter. However, to the two of you, I’d like to AGREE with Geoff.
However, these issues about the CRA are going to have to be exposed in order to restore the good name of the CRA. It’s called cleansing.
I was there, too. I commend the Restore Team. I’ll rest there. It is time to move forward.
This all sounds so childish. To think people spend time on this kind of petty intrigue.
Been around,
Sadly, you’re right about how childish it is. However, the once influential and great CRA is being rendered impotent by liars and pathetic “leaders” from local units to the detriment of solid leaders like Craig Alexander of SOCRA. Craig and I have had our disagreements on the CRA convention, but I support him completely on fending off the union attack on the CUSD and its ever-present threat to our young students. Craig’s efforts are what the local CRA chapters should exist for – to fight for true conservative principles in the communities where the members live. However, some have become so warped by their quest for power (acutally, perceived power since few respect them or their tactics), that the CRA has devolved into small fiefdoms who guard entry into their ever-growing meaningless clubs with pettiness and vindictiveness, often attacking other conservatives without regard for truth or decorum. As a member, I am appalled by the state of the CRA and its supposed mantra as the “conscience of the Republican party.” From what I have seen, several leaders have little conscience but only a thirst for obtaining power at whatever the cost.