#ncgop: County party chairmen lash out at Berger, Moore re: H373, S119
The furor over that affiliated committees mess is not dying down. I had been hearing that Speaker Tim Moore and President Pro Tem Phil Berger have been getting an earful from angry party activists.
We got our hands on one example of the angry communications being directed to these two GOP legislative leaders. Here’s Moore County GOP chairman John Rowderdink giving Moore and Berger his two cents:
Grassroots Republicans in North Carolina are deeply disappointed with the recent passage of HB 373 and/or SB 119.
Judging from the conversations I have had with Republican activists here in Moore County and in other parts of the state, we see these bills as seriously undermining the North Carolina Republican Party. I can only speculate about what your rationale was for pursuing these bills. You may have been opposed to the election of Hasan Harnett as Party Chairman, you may be concerned about the present financial condition of the party, or it may be some combination of these and other factors. I only know one thing for certain. Given the facts are they are, you could have chosen to work with our party to strengthen it, or you could have chosen to undermine it, and you chose the latter. That you have taken such action to undermine our party in the immediate run-up to such an important election is deeply divisive.
You seem to think that the North Carolina Republican Party will be whatever you want it to be; that the control of the party will exist wherever you want it to exist. You are wrong. If you someday choose to implement the affiliated party committees as outlined in these bills, you will find the party to be an empty shell. The North Carolina Republican Party cannot be successful without the grassroots people who roll up their sleeves during every election to knock on doors, distribute campaign materials, plant signs, and do all the other things loyal, faithful Republicans always do. These are the people whose trust you have violated.
We are disappointed.
I hate to be such a pessimist, but the only way I think these guys (Moore and Berger) would 
give a hoot about protests like this is if you have a four, five, or six-figure check in your other hand when you hand them your letter.
Shoe leather and sweat equity CAN beat the PACs / special interests machine. (See the David Brat – Eric Cantor primary race in Virginia.) But it takes some extremely hard work. One would hope that the fate of our state and nation would make the hard work well worth it.
Want to make sure these guys get the point? Put more than a few of them in the unemployment line on primary election day (March 15).
We can all relax now. The Hood said there’s nothing to worry about on NC Spin. Put the torches out. Lay the pitch forks down. Everybody go back to sleep now.
(BTW~Good job Ray Ray.)
Hood, as is so often the case, is in his ivory tower, and has no clue about real world politics. One of the best things that ever happened to Locke was his moving on. Hood supports some of the most inane big government crap sometimes.
Yes. For example John Hood loves HOT (High Occupancy Toll) lanes. He is buddies with Robert Poole, the inventor of HOT lanes, who writes for the Reason Foundation.
While I am in agreement with much of what is advocated by those you choose to refer to as “grassroots GOP activists”, it really isn’t that simple. Far too often, I have seen people scrambling for control and power and once they get it, make some of the stupidest moves ever.
I believe I share the values of these activists, but strongly disagree with their methods. We need party leaders who can unite ALL elements of the party from the activists to the establishment GOPers as well. If I were an elected official, I wouldn’t want my future in the hands of those party activists who continually attack me or seek my defeat. Cant blame Berger and Moore. Don’t think this has ANYTHING to do with the current party chair but rather is just a recognition that many party activists are more intent on gaining power and getting even instead of electing conservative men who are able to get conservative legislation passed. Just my opinion.
The can’t-we-all-just-get-along attitude has not solved any party problems. It has made them worse. We’re past that now.
LOL.
And if I thought the party apparatus that was in charge of the committee charged with raising funds for my re-election felt the same way you do, I would do everything I could to take control of that committee away from them!
Committees with the responsibility to elect GOP majorities in the legislature need to do just that and not be used to enforce party orthodoxy, in my opinion.
what kind of majority do you want ? that’s that question
1 one that will do anything possible to protect its self even if it looks corrupt to the people
2 one that with every step they take they respect the people work for the people and avoid any look of corruption
you can choose the option you want 1 or 2 cause the one you choose matters a lot in this conversation
Still waiting for an explanation as to how it is corrupt or an abuse of power for legislators to take control of the committees who are charged with raising the funds for their reelection.
Why even have a party?
Can someone start a list of everyone who voted for the bill and who will challenge them in the primary? let’s turn the outrage into primary victories.
Conservatives need to develop and publicize such lists. As someone on another thread suggested, there also needs to be a compilation of candidates supported by Stewart and Shumaker, and conservatives should shun them.
Because of the Woodhouse situation, I could perhaps overlook Senators votes, but the House vote seperates the men from the boys.
Well, ODW, I can tell you the above Chair had to be dragged into that position. Seeks to go no further. What I’ve seen, is once elected officials reach a position of power(majority), they forget how they got there.
You’re right. I know a number of county chairs who are just sick and tired of being embarrassed and undermined by their elected officials. The sentiment I’m feeling is that some of them are gong to throw Party rules under the bus and actively and not-very-secretly start working against Burr and anyone else looking at a Primary.
Legal or not all the actions supporting these committees and the insertion of this language looks corrupt, seems corrupt and is pretty hard to defend and as that letter stated “undermining the North Carolina Republican Party”
The real problem is that the Democrats had control of this state for far too long and their actions were corrupt looked corrupt seemed corrupt for way to long and now the republican leadership in the state house state senate and governors mansion should have run run run run far far far away from anything that looked like corrupt action and they have not and so it will be very hard to reach voters and explain any reasons why the republicans are different our leaders have disrespected our conservative values
All of this controversy could have been avoided and we all could be talking about something positive that could help make America and Our State better
So explain to me why its an abuse or corrupt for legislators to want to control campaign committees that are in place for the sole purpose of getting them elected or reelected?
It looks corrupt because of timing :
– This looks like a direct reaction to the delegates at convention NOT choosing the Chairman they wanted to run the state party (disrespect to all convention delegates AKA the people)
– Legislators on the floor of the convention hall were talking and kind of threatening how they could take their caucus money away (premeditated action )
– BUNDLING if this was needed it should not have been added last min and it should have passed standing alone in it own bill by placing it in a bill that had to happen instead of its own it looks CORRUPT
So bad timing makes it look corrupt hope this helps answer your question
Then it depends once they are set up and active how corrupt they become it looks like something that could be easily abused but sadly we will not know if they are honorable or evil until they happen
Well from my vantage seat, I think the timing was more of the result of the end of the legislative session and not any disrespect for the party chairman.
Would also point out that none of that would be CORRUPT anyway. Perhaps you could say it was a power grab but the truth is, its just an internal party squabble that is pissing some people off who want to MAKE it into some big ethical issue. It isn’t. And I doubt that the public would give a crap a all.
Maybe you were not so observant of the way Marc Basnight and Jim Black did biz. We do not want that corruption in our party. Elected officials should be there to serve their constituents, not the special interests. Black went to federal prison over it, and this legislation is jail bait for current and future legislative leaders.
In one of your posts, you noted that you were a one issue right to life guy, and I would suggest that maybe you should be a little more observant there, too, as least as far as National RIght to Life is concerned. National RTL is in bed with the GOP establishment, which is why they endorsed Tillis over someone much stronger on that issue. Read what Erick Erickson, a very strong pro-lifer, wrote about National RTL:
http://www.redstate.com/2015/09/21/a-horrific-article-about-national-right-to-life/
It is not ”legislators”. It is the leadership – the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tem of the Senate, and control of these funds lets them bully legislators who dare to disagree with them. That is Corrupt with a capital C.
Look at the eight that Tim Moore just had $15,000 each distributed to BEFORE filing even happens and thus BEFORE primaries. They are all establishment hacks and Moore cronies, some likely to face primaries, and most of them are Obama Republicans who have voted for legislation that backs key Obama policies. That sort of cronyism stinks. The party does not have enough control to stop that, but they should. Moore is a liberal Republican and will skew any fund he controls to liberals in the party.
What really stinks about the legislation is that it creates a one-stop shop for corruption. A special interest can deal direct with the Speaker, cut a deal on some legislation, put a pile of money in the Speaker-controlled fund, and then the Speaker can use that fund to intimidate legislators into supporting legislation he wants such as that he has promised to the special interest. Black and Basnight played politics this way, but not having these committees made it a bit more difficult. Now our own Republicans have green lighted corruption.
Party oversight stops the worst abuses, but the legislative leaders still abuse even the current system, as the recent $15,000 payouts show.
Senate support I suspect gave with a different motivation. They became aware that the liberal wing of the party was pushing Dallas Woodhouse for NCGOP Executive Director, and Woodhouse, through a PAC he ran, had just weeks before conducted attack polling against a number of key GOP Senate leaders. They were understandibly concerned about the prospect of Woodhouse having any control over their funds. Normally, I think the Senate would have resisted this crap, but the threat of Woodhouse at NCGOP gave them an incentive to support it.
I agree with this analysis although without the view that somehow the legislative leadership determining who gets funding is a bad thing.
It should be the full caucus, not one kingpin or his flunky.
If you have watched Boehner abuse power to punish conservatives, I hope you do not want the same thing for NC.
I think that is a decision for the legislators not the party activists. they elect a speaker or president pro tempore to lead them. if they are unhappy with who they elect, let them replace them.
party activists need to focus on getting our candidates elected whether or not we agree with them on every issue.
Why should party activists focus on getting “our” candidates elected if said candidates consistently vote in opposition to the party platform? Why should ANY activist lift a finger to elect a candidate with whom he/she disagrees about the issues?
So you approve of the bullying and retaliation against conservatives by McConnell and Boehner? We need to be reducing the power of legislative leadership in Raleigh and Washington, not increasing it.
Republicans have had truly awful leadership in three out of four legislative bodies – the US House, US Seante, and NC House. Only the NCSenate has had acceptable leadership. Power tools like control of contributions facilitates bad leadership staying in power.
These ”affiliated party committees” can take unlimited funds, which makes them major potential sources of corruption.
This is a pretty accurate assessment of the situation. The $15,000 payouts were done around Aug. 18. We were hit with HB 373 Sept. 24. It was only after much heated debate that we learned that the concern about the Party dipping into caucus funds was allegedly aroused by Claude Pope doing so to the tune of $2,500 last year. We were then told that it was because of that action that leadership had been considering this provision in HB 373 since well before Hasan and Michele were elected. If that is so, many of us in the House caucus felt we should have been told early on. I was with Hasan and Michele the night they were elected, and they were already being warned of efforts to undermine them. The controversial provision vin HB 373 seemed to fit right in with such an effort. I was one of those who voted against it and urged McCrory to veto it. When SB 119 was being debated, I was texting Hasan, considering our options. I feel certain he was being pressured, but he finally advised me we would just have to take the risk of passing it and hope it would not be abused. So, on his advice, I reluctantly voted for SB 119, even though I considered it only slightly better than the same provision in HB 373. During the debate in caucus over all this, I complained about how it was handled, the timing, and how it looked. I warned them that things like this would fan the flames of those considering forming a third party, and that if they kept doing things like this, they might eventually go the way of the Whigs. But they don’t listen to me. I’m too grassroots.
Mr. Pittman, can you tell us when former Chairman Pope allegedly raided the house caucus account because I have heard that it was actually the house caucus that asked for and was denied a loan from the GOP last year. A little more detail could shed a little light on this situation.
I really don’t know, except I think it was said to have been last November..
Thank You Mr. Pittman for adding clarity to this conversation
You are entitled to honesty. It will not endear me to our leadership, but I was not elected to represent them, and I have no use for these games.
Larry, the progressives are primarying you next year. Do you have a website where conservatives can send you money to fight them off?
Leadership doesn’t think the disenfranchised (conservative) Republicans will bolt. They could be right. Or not. Republicans finally got control in NC after all of these painful years. What did they do when they finally got into power? Act like Democrats, and they’re not good at it.
The leadership can continue to underestimate the frustration and disgust that the grassroots feel, but I have a good idea that they will become convinced on election day.
Disenfranchised conservatives bolt in two ways. They stay home, as happened with 4 million conservatives on squish Romney in 2014 and probably cost him the election. For activists, they just drop out of working and contributing.
The liberal Republicans overplayed their hand in the Mississippi primary last year with their underhanded and dishonest attacks in the primary against the conservative winner of the first primary. That has reverberated with conservative activists across the country who now no longer are willing to hold their nose for establishment candidates. They realize that the establishment hates conservatives in their own party more than they hate Democrats. The establishment has done this to themselves.
It’s “pay to play” politics. The legislators take in cash to the PACs in return for favorable legislation for their cronies. That pool of money is then used go defend those corrupt legislators from being primaried back home.
The Progressive Republicans in Raleigh know that they can shake down enough lobbyists to get the payola they need to stay in power.
We are talking about them using this money in primaries. Against other Republicans. You caught up yet?
Look at what NSRC has been doing in primaries the last three cycles or so. They blatantly intervene in primaries, always against the conservatives, and that is exactly what HB 373 sets up. Tim Moore has already tipped his hand with those 8 contributions to liberal Republicans before the primary..
Mr. Steed, in response to your previous inquiry, my website is http://www.electpittmam.com . There is a PayPal button. My campaign address, for those who want to send checks, is
Committee to Elect Larry Pittman
P.O. Box 6311
Concord, NC. 28027
Thanks for asking. I was a little hesitant to post this here, but since you asked…
I will send you a contribution. You are one of the stalwarts who remembers who put you there instead of selling out to the special interests.