Iredell County sez: DISLOYAL !!!
I do believe that’s at least THREE county GOP organizations leveling that charge at state senator Phil Berger, president pro tem of that chamber and the Republican establishment’s ‘bag man’ in our state capital. Could there be more like this coming?
(Sources tell us 21 of the county GOP’s 22 executive committee members voted in favor of this action.)
We covered the Berger-Ed Wilson saga a few years ago. There’s been some recent heartburn about
Republican officials meddling in various Republican primaries. We’re finding more and more that some elected and unelected Republican establishment types are actually favoring Democrats in elections around the state.
Phil Berger is currently locked in a tough reelection battle with fellow Republican Sam Page – the incumbent sheriff in Berger’s home county of Rockingham. That vote happens in March 2026.
The first county resolution charging Berger with party disloyalty was from Duplin County way back in January, followed soon thereafter by Lee County. Both were “clean” resolutions dealing with only the disloyalty charges. Those should have been brought on for hearing before the State Executive Committee long before now, but they haven’t been. At the ExCom meeting after the state convention I raised the issue, and Chairman Simmons tried to dodge it by stating, incorrectly, that such charges had to come from the person’s home county or district. After the meeting, I pointed out the legislative history of why that provision had been adopted, as I wrote it while a member of the PoO Committee, and it was specifically intended so that any county or district could bring such charges. After months of further delays, the matter was finally submitted to the PoO committee which ruled that any county or district could bring those charges.
Again, Chairman Simons sought to get the PoO committee to help prevent a vote. He submitted a further question to the PoO committee asking whether voting on the issue now would be interfering in Berger’s primary. The PoO committee answered that NO, it would not be interfering in that primary.
Then Simmons appointed Billy Miller to chair the November ExCom meeting and turned to him for a lifeline to stop the vote. Miller then addressed only the charges brought by the Third District ExCom against Berger and said he would rule those out of order at the meeting because that resolution went into further problems with Berger beyond the party disloyalty. While that position, in and of itself, is very highly questionable, Miller also clearly overlooked the Duplin GOP and Lee GOP charges against Berger that were pending longer and are clean resolutions that deal only with the party disloyalty issue. Miller’s excuse does not hold water with them.
The Duplin and Lee charges against Berger need to be heard in November. The stalling by NCGOP has been going on for far too long.. If this is stalled any longer, it would be hard to see that stalling as anything other than deliberate interference in that State Senate primary by party leadership to cover up for Berger. That should not be tolerated, This issue should have been heard and adjudicated long before now.
Amazing that you literally WROTE it yet the powers that be (Chairman Jason Simmons and general counsel Christian Fraley I assume) are trying to do gymnastics avoiding calling the special executive committee hearing meeting and arguing with you about what the language YOU WROTE actually means. Yikes! They have indeed interfered with the primary at this point by protecting Berger and also let all RINOs on our party’s Committees know that it’s a free for all. Endorse Democrats as you will!
Hell will freeze over before Senator Berger hears a peep of disapproval from the leadership of his own county (Rockingham). In fact the chair is presently circulating a document purporting to show a resolution adopted November 17, 2022 Executive Committee meeting declining to censure the Senator (and the other judges who endorsed the Democrat candidate) on the grounds that it would violate their “free speech” rights. (1) Being present at the meeting, a vote to leave the perpetrators alone did carry, but I do not recall a formal resolution. It must have been inserted into the record after the fact. (2) As for that respect for “free speech” it certainly did not apply when some months before, the same chairman had, without any vote or discussion in the executive committee, banned three party loyalists from setting foot in the party headquarters, effectively ostracizing them from the party, because she held them responsible for some hostile and unkind postings regarding herself on Facebook. The chair justified her action on the claim that since her name was on the lease for the facility (as though no others helped pay for the rent or maintain it), she had the full authority to say who could and who could not enter it (wow!). (3) And in another case of selective respect for “free speech,” at the same executive committee session that let the Senator and judges off the hook for disloyalty. a precinct chairman (myself) who had raised a loud fuss over the issue during the fall campaign was deposed from his position. Many old guard activists in the Rockingham GOP have ceased activity in the party because of the leadership’s hypocrisy and bullying over the last few years.
Cannot Exec Cmtee members ask for the resolutions to be added to the agenda (can’t members place items on the agenda or is that somehow out of order now?).
The resolutions in their entirety from, I’ll say, the beginning of time, have been discarded by the NCGOP.
The Resolutions committee is currently trying to get official copies from leadership from the June 2025 state convention to be presented to the NCGA (which I might add that leadership is supposed to do in accordance with the resolution at passing). So, the entire resolutions topic should be brought up at the November meeting and get Simmons to answer to the body, why they don’t recognize our voice.
The NC GOP has turned into something ugly.
This is reminiscent of Whatley covering for Tillis. The NCGOP is corrupt. It is Pay to Play. I wouldn’t give them a penny. They support RINOs.
All I can say is, don’t blame me! I voted for Brooke McGowan.