#ncga: It’s getting’ all affiliated up in here, yo.
Back in September, House Rules chairman David Lewis slipped into technical corrections some language about these affiliated committees– basically allowing our elected officials to bypass the party organizations and privately rake in their own cash. Here’s what we said back then:
Quite a few honorables have mentioned a flood of angry phone calls and face-to-face conversations with folks from all over the state that they’ve never had a cross word with — until now.
I heard from VERY SENIOR sources in the state Senate on thi
s matter. They told me senator Berger’s staff sold the elections package and the “affiliated committee” concept as “an insurance policy.” Senators were reportedly told the provision would be smart to approve — just in case the state party fell into deep financial trouble. These SENIOR Senate sources tell me that leadership has assured the GOP rank-and-file in that chamber that there is low, low, low probability that their caucus will ever set up one of these committees. These sources also told me that leadership will continue to honor the commitment to staying out of primaries. Said one of these sources:
”We’ve had a good ten-year relationship with the folks at the state party. We are really not seeing a need right now to shake things up.”
Low probability, eh? Well, the Republicans in the Senate have gone forward with an affiliated committee. (The House is surely not far behind.) :
[…] The new Senate Republican committee was seeded with $10,000 from Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger’s account. It will be able to raise money from Senate members to target toward key races. In theory, such committees could get involved in primaries, contrary to party rules that require official GOP organs to stay neutral.
“We have no concerns over the new Senate Committee as the Party and Senate caucus are working closer together now than ever before,” said North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Hasan Harnett. “This year, the Party worked in tandem with the Senate to assist the caucus recruit several candidates, increasing the total number of Republican contested races from 41 in 2014 to 44 in 2016. Further, Senator Berger is engaged with the overall Party structure, helping ensure the Party has the necessary funds to move towards victory. We will continue to work together everyday and see that we elect our Republican candidates come November.”
This new arrangement makes it soooooooo much easier to take payoffs, launder money, and put out hits on “troublemakers.” Now, the powers-that-be can shut out those prying outside-the-beltline eyes and really limit the number of eyes laid on their, um, “business.”
I wrote a post in October entitled “RIP, NCGOP.” The stuff I discussed there has now come to fruition.
It’s officially no longer a struggle between Rs and Ds, liberals and conservatives. It’s the governing class and the parasites that pay-to-play vs. the rest of us who work hard, play by the rules, and fund this travesty every April 15th.
I’ve never been a big fan of allowing incumbent politicians to use special interest payola to pick and choose WHO they want to, um, “serve” with.
They’re trying really hard to turn election day into a formality. Maybe they’ll eventually get rid of it. Who knows?
As far as we’re concerned, are we going to let them continue to get away with this? We have a chance to lay the smack down — fire some weasels and replace them with actual servants of the people — on March 15th.
Will we do what needs to be done, or will we continue to be driven like sheep by the consultant-generated lie-packed campaign ads and propaganda?
I guess we are seeing the rise of the Royal GOP. The NC Republican Party will be a peasants association.
What this does is put the Marc Basnight system on steroids. It allows special interests to buy a legislative chamber wholesale with one check, instead of having to deal individually with each legislator, and the leader’s control of the honey pot of money keeps the individual legislators in line for whatever deals he has promised for the money. This is political corruption on a wholesale basis, and it is shameful.
We have a very weak state chairman to have knuckled under to this, but part of that weakness comes from being stabbed in the back by a clique of the Central Committee.
Conservatives should give money to individual conservative legislators they trust, and NONE to the affiliated committees or to the NCGOP.
“Conservatives should give money to individual conservative legislators they trust, and NONE to the affiliated committees or to the NCGOP.”
Luckily, I think at least some county parties are figuring out that they need not follow rules that the folks in Raleigh won’t follow, either. Look for more local involvement and taking sides in primary races in order to counter this power grab by the legislators. And perhaps some will conclude that losing races in November is a necessary evil to endure in order to dump these clowns. Addition by subtraction.
Totally agree John. Old Guard refuses to go gently into that good night. It is our duty to remove and replace those in Senate, State GOP… who are not constitutional conservatives. The last State meetings were a circus.
Is the Chairman elected by the grassroots at convention really supporting this?
He’s a really nice and good man but I can’t see where anyone much on the Committee (there are a couple) who have his back. Bet he feels like he’s standing on a railroad track with a train called the Committee and Senate… coming straight at him. Sad that it doesn’t appear that anyone with experience and some clout won’t try to help him.
Gotta’ support the party of Princi-PAL$$$$$$$$$$$$.
Remember Democrat shenanigans and corruption BAD!!!…..
Republican shenanigans and corruption GOOD!!!
Shouldn’t the Republicans in charge in Raleigh just go ahead and embrace transparency and honesty and print a menu of services and the associated cost to get bills passed similar to a restaurant menu. It could look something like this:
Legislative Entrées
Local bills……………………………………….$ 15,000*
Statewide bills…………………………………$265,000*
Board of Governors appointments……..$125,000*
Each entrée comes with 2 sides.
*Subject to Market pricing (meaning, it’s actually going to cost you whatever we leaders say it will cost to get the bill passed, Rates listed may not apply.)
**Bills involving “specific industries” there will be a minimum $50,000 fee for filing the bill and in order to actually pass the legislation will require an additional $250,000 made payable prior to actual passage of the bill.
***Additional charges will apply for A’ la carte legislative orders.
****Last minute substitutions (at 3 a.m.) are allowed but,…..there will be an additional charge.
As the article states, the fight is no longer R vs D but rather We The People vs The Political Ruling Class (PRC) The RNC + DNC = PRC. Good thing there are more of We The People than there are in the PRC.
Whenever we can settle on a date (preferably sunny weather) I’m willing to meet at the State House with you worthies, and run these people out of town on a rail. Think that might get the stay-behinds’ attention? We can hence forth celebrate Raleigh Rail Day … he said only half-kidding.
“We will continue to work together everyday and see that we elect our Republican candidates come November.” OUR REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES? The candidates THEY want elected. If we do not stand up to this chicanery, then we get the leaders we deserve. TERM LIMITS, FOLKS!
Very sad to see Hasan supporting this. Does anyone ever ask Hasan about what the Heck is going on? Shouldn’t the buck stop with him? I never hear a word from the man it’s like he doesn’t even exist? I have never seen a person go from tea party to Rino so quick.
Yes you have. Her name is Ellmers. But as for Harnett, I have to ask, did anyone ever hear him claim to be a reformer when he ran for Chairman? I didn’t. And I only voted for him without expectation because he wasn’t the other guy. I suspect a lot of us thought that just because he wasn’t the Governor’s guy, he was there to take over the party for the good guys. Forget the Party leadership until 2017 when we can dump District Chairs who are contributing to this corruption.
Meanwhile, conservatives can strike back in 2016 by dumping RINO incumbents on March 15th and turning their back on surviving RINOs on the first Tuesday in November.
This is all the more reason, we should do what we can to dump this liberal POS David Lewis in his NC House primary, and then get loaded for bear to take him out as National Committeeman. He is BAD (Basically A Democrat).
As piss poor as the NCGOP leadership is, how can you blame house and senate members for wanting to have control over their caucus funds? We do it at the Federal level all ready with the NRSC and NRCC, they’d be crazy not to do this at this point.
The way I understood they always had control of the money when it went through the party plus they got the benefit of the lower postage rate but they had to abide by party rules like not getting involved in primaries.
now they are free to do anything they want not funneling it through the party
if I got it wrong someone correct me
The reason why grassroots Republicans and conservative are appalled at the idea is simply to take a look at the NRSC. They stick their noses into primaries, and always for the most liberal candidate. We need to blow up the NRSC, not replicate it at the state level.
Take the 2010 Senate race in Florida. The NRSC got involved heavily and endorsed ultra-liberal Republican Charlie Crist in the primary, giving him money and giving him access to the NRSC network to raise money. When Marco Rubio, raising money through conservative national networks, jumped ahead of Crist in the polls, Crist bolted and ran as an independent. NRSC had lots of egg on its face asking for its money and that of its other donors back, which Crist laughed at. Now Crist has moved all the way over to Democrat, where he probably belonged all along, and is running for governor.
Or take the Senate race in Colorado in 2010. The NRSC backed Jane Norton in the primary. Norton had been an AARP lobbyist during the Hillarycare fight, which outraged conservatives. Conservatives were backing a District Attorney named Ken Buck, who is now a Congressman from Colorado, and is one of the most conservative members of the House. Buck jumped ahead in the polls and NRSC encourage Norton to go scorched earth in attacking Buck, which she did and NRSC helped her with ads to do it. That did not save Norton’s bacon in the primary, but it set Buck up for a negative attack by Democrats. NRSC sat on its ass in the general election, which Buck lost a photo finish result.
Or take the Nebraska Senate race in 2014. NRSC’s annointed candidate fell behind in the polls, and Ben Sasse, backed by national conservative groups built a substantial lead in the polls. NRSC had its candidate go scorched earth on Sasse with vicious negative attacks. Even when the NRSC’s candidate fell to third place in the polls (which is where he finished on election day, too) and he was no longer even viable, they did not let up the vicious negative attacks on Sasse. It had gotten to the point that the only candidate who could benefit from those attacks was the Democrat nominee, but NRSC still spent money on them.
And in 2014, the NRSC was all-in with constant attacks on conservative State Senator Chris McDaniel, who emerged top vote getter in the Mississippi Senate primary. There is little doubt that they also played a role in the despicable dirty tricks that cost McDaniel the runoff.
I could go on about what despicable bastards the NRSC are.
Watching what the vicious conservative-hating establishment thugs have done at NRSC is revealing of the dangers of similar committees on the state level. We need to stamp them out, and we need to defeat the politicians who push them, starting with liberal David Lewis.
Oh, and for those who want to see a conservative Senate, the groups to give money to are the Senate Conservatives Fund at http://www.senateconservatives.com and the Club for Growth at http://www.clubforgrowth.org
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER to NRSC!
It is not just NRSC. There is an NRCC travesty even closer to home, right here in NC.
Remember State Chairman Tommy Fetzer making a formal endorsement as NCGOP chairman in a 2010 Congressional primary? Even though he had had a hard slog against a conservative grassroots challenger to win the chairmanship, Fetzer did not just wake up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and decide to intrude into a primary in violation of the Plan of Organization. No, Fetzer got a call from the NRCC which asked him to do that, and the suckweasel was arrogant enough to do it.
The NRCC’s preferred candidate did not even make the runoff, but ran fourth or fifth in the first primary. A Tea Party stalwart won the top spot in the runoff for this NRCC-targeted seat in the 8th district. NRCC had a fit about the prospect of a Tea Party candidate being the nominee for this seat and got on the horn to Fetzer. Fetzer laid it on thick, just as NRCC wanted, not only improperly endorsing the second placed primary candidate in the runoff but also calling the Tea Party oriented top finisher ”unfit for public office”.
North Carolinians have every reason to oppose these insider smoke-filled room ”affiliated committees”. Looking at the federal equivalents it is easy to see that they are nothing but evil.
Respected conservative blogger Ace of Spades comments on the presidential race in a recent column (that I read thanks to a link in an ad on the Haymaker) shed some light on how this ”affiliated committee” structure on the federal level has corrupted and perverted our party.
Ace’s main point is that Marco Rubio is completely unacceptable as a presidential nominee because he is thoroughly wrapped up in the ”clientist” (or you could say ”corporatist” or ”special interest”) wing of the GOP that kowtows to the K Street special interests instead of representing their constituents’ interests. Although Ace does not get into that point, the question to be asked is – how do the special interests maintain their hold on the beltway GOP establishment – and the answer is clear – NRSC and NRCC.
Here is the article: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/361196.php
Polls are showing that over 70% of Republican voters disapprove of the way our GOP ”leadership” is operating in DC and over 60% go so far as to agree that they have been ”betrayed” by that leadership. ”Betrayed” is a pretty strong term. This sense of betrayal is a large part of what is driving the candidacy of Donald Trump and other insurgents in the GOP primaries for president. The grassroots is utterly sick of our ”leadership”.
Our state leadership is already on this path and shown by the sickening influence that the Solar mafia has had on particularly the House and its leadership. They go all clientist and forget the party base which has spoken in the party platform on the other side of that issue. This ”affiliated committee” nonsense, and especially the ability to get into primaries, puts them on the same disgusting level as our national GOP ”leadership”. Unless the brakes get put on this clientist corruption, I would foresee a split in the party, and the immediate effect of that will be a huge boon to the Democrats.