NCGOP official doubles down on Hasan-gate
We heard some pretty strong language from NCGOP executive committee member, and former Lee County commissioner, Jim Womack regarding the current controversy at NCGOP HQ. Well, Womack is back: 
All;
I suppose most of you received this note from the Raynors, as well as the Scott Cumbie petition in the mail. I wanted you all to know I am TOTALLY opposed to signing any such petitions and that I still completely support our Chairman. If any of you have any reservations about Hasan, please let me know. I’d like the opportunity to explain why I think it is imperative we give him the most vigorous assistance we can muster. No one, including Hasan Harnett himself, is claiming that Hasan hasn’t made some errors of omission and commission- we all do from time to time. But, it is patently clear from Cumbie’s letter that the Central Committee has been colluding and plotting to disenfranchise and get rid of Hasan for many weeks.If anyone needs to be let go, then it should be the Central Committee members who are overstepping their authority as laid out in the Plan of Organization, without first getting a nod of approval from the Executive Committee that put them where they are. We elected Hasan Harnett as Chairman and now the Central Committee is plotting and conspiring to oust him. I take that as a direct affront and insult to the Executive Committee and all active Republicans, statewide.Until someone produces hard evidence Hasan has broken the laws of the state of North Carolina, or until he is indicted for breaking the law, we shouldtreat him with the dignity and support he so desperately needs in doing his job for all of us. I will continue to ask for the resignation from the Central Committee for anyone who colluded, conspired, or secretly coordinated to suspend Hasan’s email accounts, to prevent Hasan from having access to state GOP files and data, or to remove Hasan from his elected office.
Warm Regards/
Jim Womack
The strangest analysis of what is going on is the lengthy letter sent out by Scot Cumbie, a newbee nonvoting member of the Central Committee. Mr. Cumbie either lacks any background on how the NCGOP has functioned over many years, or he thinks we lack that background. Sorry, Mr. Cumbie, that dog does not hunt, and your analysis is very far from the mark of how the NCGOP has actually operated for many many years.
Cumbie tries to compare the NCGOP governance to a for-profit business corporation, which is a very far-fetched analogy. The NCGOP is a political organization, not a for-profit business, and a much closer analogy would be to another political entity such as government.
Cumbie’s description of how the NCGOP should run is like the Canadian parliamentary model of government. He would have the Chairman, like the Queen (and her representative, the Governor-General) as a powerless figurehead. He would elevate the Executive Director to a role akin to the Prime Minister, working through the cabinet (Central Committee) and sometimes having to get legislative approval (Executive Committee).
Sorry, Mr. Cumbie, until the current Central Committee came along, the NCGOP has never operated that way.
The American presidential model is more representative of how the NCGOP has operated. The Chairman is the executive, like the president, who has some unilateral policy powers, while on others he works through the cabinet (Central Committee) and on others needs approval from Congress (Central Committee). There is a chief of staff (Executive Director) who handles the nuts and bolts of seeing that policy is carried out but does not make policy.
Cumbie’s analysis of the dispute over the convention delegate fee also is way off the mark. The Plan of Organization is ambiguous over whether the amount of delegate fees falls under the chairman’s power to call a convention or under the budget power that is shared by the Central Committee and Executive Committee. If it is the latter, the Central Committee only prepares (proposes) the budget, and it has to be approved (adopted) by the Executive Committee before it takes effect. The Central Committee has no unilateral power to make a budget by itself. In this situation, there has been no approval by the Executive Committee of a ”convention budget”, only a line item in the regular budget of the overall anticipated proceeds of the convention that does NOT set the convention registration fee. If the Central Committee had at any time taken Woodhouse’s $90 fee to the Executive Committee, they would certainly have been shot down, which is likely why they never took it to that committee.
What we have is a Central Committee that wants to grab power for itself both from the chairman and from the Executive Committee, depositing some of the power it strips from the chairman onto the Executive Director. The Executive Committee and the convention delegates should not allow this to stand. Hasan Harnett is far from a perfect chairman, but the fundamental transformation of the party that the Central Committee is trying to do is far more dangerous for the party. Cumbie’s letter makes their real objectives very clear. It is time to just say NO.
Oops. The comparison to Congress in the fifth paragraph should be to the Executive Committee, not the Central Committee.