Sunday, November 13, 2016

County GOP Committee Tried to Revoke Charter of the LA County GOP Club--Why?

I had wanted to prevent sharing this information.

Yet sadly, I find that this habit is happening against other activists and clubs throughout Los Angeles County.

What happened from some members of the current County Committee was particularly offensive.

I received the following email on Thursday, Nowember 9th from Republican Party of Los Angeles County Executive Director Jason Maruca:

Dear Beach Cities Republican Board,

The Republican Party of Los Angeles County (RPLAC) Bylaw Committee recently meet and determined that the Beach Cities Republican Club (BCR) has violated RPLAC bylaws. 

Specifically, the BCR is accused of violating the following RPLAC Bylaw: RPLAC - Article IV, Section 2 (c)1 - Disloyalty to Party “Gives support to or avows a preference for a candidate of another party office, or for partisan office”

The violation occurred at the August 2016 BCR meeting when Arthur Schapter, President of BCR, invited the Libertarian candidate for Senate District 33, Honor "Mimi" Robson, to address the club. The Bylaw Committee also considered additional actions taken by the BCR President that have been detrimental to the Party. This action is not based on one event, but rather a pattern of behavior.  

The Bylaw Committee is recommending the club charter for the Beach Cities Republican Club be suspended for next 30 days. During the next 30 days if Arthur Schapter is no longer in BCR Leadership (any position on the board), the suspension will be lifted. If Arthur continues to serve on the board after the 30 days, the BCR Club charter will be revoked.

The committee has opted to give the BCR Board the opportunity to respond to this decision in writing by 12:00 p.m. Friday December 11th. After that time the Bylaw Committee will consider whether or not to move forward with the suspension.

If you have any questions about the process, please contact Jason Maruca at (818) 558-7600 or jason@lagop.org.

HUH?

What?!

This message disconcerting and poorly written, even unprofessional.

Notice that my name is misspelled, for starters.

Then the email was calling for a response by December 11, 2016. That's a Sunday. HUH?

Then the Executive Director and I spoke for about half and hour.

I asked for specific information about complaints against me. He had no information to supply me.

The issue about inviting a Libertarian candidate to speak to the club followed from the fact that there was no Republican running in state senate district 33 against the hateful, detestable Ricardo Lara.

David Hadley allowed independent Bill Bloomfield to speak to the Beach Cities Republicans in August, 2012.

Here's a link announcing the event.

Here's a picture:



I do not recall my Assemblyman (who was President at the time) receiving any complaints about having this non-Republican speaking at the Beach Cities Republicans. Frankly, even today I would not have been upset, since he was the best chance for taking down Henry Waxman, the Democrat who was running to replace Janice Hahn in that region.

By the way ...

The next President, Evan Chase, invited Election 2014 Independent state senate candidate Seth Stodder to speak to the Beach Cities Republicans, too.

Why do I bring all of this up?

Because this recent attack on the Beach Cities Republicans smacks of selective enforcement. They are going after me, but they never raised any alarms about Bloomfield or Stodder speaking to the members of the Beach Cities Republicans.

What is going on?

I still received no answers from Maruca. He then all of a sudden changed the deadline for a response to NOVEMBER 11. Did he really expect me to assemble the BCR board at the drop of a hat? No time, no notice, no explanation about what was going on.

All of this was deeply unprofessional and immoral.

Later that day, I contacted the RPLAC By-Laws committee chairman Gary Aminoff for more information.

He told me that there were members of the AD-66th Central Committee unhappy with my activism. There were complaints that I was "harming the party."

WHAT?! That's not a reason. They said there were other complaints, I asked for documentation of these complaints, and I asked for the minutes of this supposed By-Laws meeting that had discussed revocation of the BCR charter.

He added that he served as chairman, and had no control over the initial set of complaints being filed against me. Then he told me that it was a unanimous vote to move ahead with a recommendation for suspension of the BCR charter.

[Addendum: Gary Aminoff corrected this account: I said that there was a unanimous vote of the committee in agreement that the Bylaws had been violated.  I approved the motion because there was a violation.]

What is going on? Why all of these complaints?

Were people unhappy with the growth of our club's membership?

Were they unhappy with the concerted efforts of our members to help David Hadley and other local Republicans get elected?

What was particularly disconcerting about this effort is that the Beach Cities Republicans are the most active members in the South Bay, if not the entire county.

Why would they try to stop a good thing?

Let's state the facts plainly. The RPLAC By-Laws committee--whoever they are currently--was putting a gun to the head of every member of Beach Cities Republicans.

They were trying to intervene and prevent a basic election from taking place which would allow the members of a chartered club to decide who would be the next BCR President, whether me or someone else.

This is wrong.

This is America, not a third-world country where individual voters are not permitted to exercise their franchise to vote for their representatives!
Don't Revoke ME, PLEASE!

They were dictating to them a forced outcome for the November 17th BCR elections. If they re-elected me as President, they would revoke our charter.

I began sharing this information with the Beach Cities Republicans board and other members.

One member demanded a copy of the RPLAC By-Laws. At least ten people were ready to come with me to the next RPLAC Executive Committee meeting on November 12th.

Then I received another email from Aminoff, informing me that this matter would not end up on the November 12th agenda.

THEY BACKED OFF! SUCCESS!

The power belongs to We the People!

Aminoff then told me that I would receive a letter outlining the violation (still nothing about a supposed "pattern of behavior").

Here's the thing:

Jason Maruca had already sent me a letter!

Check it out below:

From: Jason Maruca
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2016 3:57 PM

To: Arthur Christopher Schaper; Mark Vafiades
Subject: Call Follow Up

Arthur,

As we discussed over the phone today, RPLAC chartered organizations are not allowed to promote candidates from other political parties. This is a direct violation of our bylaws.

Thanks,

Jason

--

Jason Maruca

Executive Director

818-558-7600   Direct

Republican Party of Los Angeles County
16133 Ventura Blvd, Suite 560
Encino, CA 91436

And guess what?

I complied with this request.

Call to Action:

I encourage everyone who is reading this post ...

1.Demand answers from the current RPLAC leadership on this matter:

Why did some members of the local Central Committee or the By-Laws committee try to have the Beach Cities Republicans charter revoked?

Why?

Gary Aminoff: By-Laws Committee Chairman
gary@lagop.org
(310) 387-6900

Jason Maruca: 
jason@lagop.org
(818) 558-7600

2 comments:

  1. Addenda:

    Gary Aminoff, the Chairman of the RPLAC By-laws Committee, provided me the following information to clarify matters:

    "The sole role of the Bylaws Committee was to determine if there was a violation of the Bylaws."


    Here's the full contents of a letter which Aminoff had sent to me regarding
    this confusing and disturbing matter:





    ___________________________________________________

    "Arthur,

    "There will be no action taken at this time.

    "A letter will be sent to you, outlining the violations and indicating that any further violations will result in penalties, which may include the suspension of the charter of BCRC.

    "By the way, as Bylaws Committee Chairman, I have no authority to bring this action, or stop this action. As Bylaws Committee Chair I can only chair a meeting where facts are presented to the Bylaws Committee and the Committee decides if there has been a violation of the Rules. That information is then presented to the Executive Committee, and they decide what action to take. The Bylaws Committee found that there was a clear violation of the Bylaws, and we presented those findings to the RPLAC Chair. He decides what action to take from there."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why wasn't action take against former AD66 Assemblyman David Hadley for throwing Donald Trump under the bus in an article that was posted in the Daily Breeze? Is it OK to bad mouth the top of the GOP ticket? That is more serious than inviting a Libertarian to speak whose only opponent was an alt-left radical Democrat? I bet William F. Buckley is rolling over in his grave. Arthur someone has to take the blame for the big defeat suffered by David Hadley. Hadely tried everything to in including throwing our soon to be 45th. president under the bus and spending a ton of money on his loss to no avail. Perhpas if the CA GOP went back to its roots and supported family values instead of caving in to Charlie Munger's moral values we might actually one day be able to make CA great again instead of it being this radical left-wing hell hole it has become. Keep up the good fight. If this is done to BCR is any GOP club safe in LA County? I think not!! The Dems have to love this circular firing squad aimed at fellow. Republicans.

    ReplyDelete