Robin Hayes: Making it all up as he goes?
Okay, here’s the background from a February 13th memo written by NCGOP chairman Robin Hayes:
I want to update you on some developments regarding the 12th Congressional District organization and leadership, and how we plan to resolve some difficult issues.
As you may recall, our Congressional District organizational structure was thrown into disarray when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered new Congressional District maps drawn last year going into the 2016 Congressional elections.
Because the Party had no way of knowing whether the new districts would stand, and to avoid a chaotic restructuring of our congressional district organization during an election year, the North Carolina Republican Party Central Committee voted, for organizational purposes, to remain in the 2011 drawn Congressional maps through the November 2016 election with new District Chairs being elected under the new maps under the April 2017 district conventions.
One of the issues not fully anticipated is the scenario recently faced in the 12th Congressional District where we had a post-election vacancy of a district chair. As you may be aware, Charlotte resident Rob Watson was selected by the 12th District Executive Committee on January 13, 2017 to fill the remainder of the term until the April District Convention is held. Several people have voiced concerns regarding Mr. Watson’s eligibility to serve in this role because he resides in the new 12th Congressional District, but just outside the old.
We are confident he was not aware of this at the time. However, we are also aware of other activists who declined to seek the interim position, who have the same residency issues, and did not believe they were eligible. This is clearly an unusual situation, and I asked the Party’s attorney and Executive Director to try and find a solution that was best for the 12th Congressional District and fair to all parties involved.
As of now the 12th Congressional District is on an official hiatus from conducting official business, until the election of a duly elected eligible chair at the 12th Congressional District Convention. The NCGOP will, as was outlined in a previous letter to the 12th District Executive Committee, plan and call the 12th District Convention in coordination with Mr. Watson, the current Mecklenburg chair and other activists.
The District Convention will be conducted by NCGOP legal counsel. We plan on keeping Mr. Watson and other interested parties aware of any relevant business that takes place through the NCGOP Central Committee.
As you might expect, GOP leaders in the 12th congressional district are not happy with Hayes & co. stepping in and taking over:
[…] Dear Chairman Hayes:
On February 15, a memo was sent out from NCGOP Executive Director Woodhouse that included a letter dated February 13, 2017 from you, NCGOP Chairman Robin Hayes regarding “developments” in the 12th District Congressional District.
We would like to recognize and acknowledge that the NCGOP was placed into an unusual situation given the honest mistake by Mr. Rob Watson in thinking that he resided in both the old 12th and the new 12th and our election of him as our Chairman. While we respect that the NCGOP felt a response was necessary as it relates to the interaction between the 12th District and the NCGOP Central Committee, we find that several concerns within the contents of your letter that could have an impact on all Districts and County organizations of the NCGOP.
We would like to thank you for your attention to our situation and your efforts on our behalf. The members of 12th District Executive Committee are the duly elected representatives of the Republican electorate in the 12th District (both old and new). As such, we have numerous continuous and ongoing responsibilities to represent that interest including expressing concerns regarding the contents of your letter.
Our concerns are:
1. There is no basis in either the NCGOP Plan of Organization (PoO) or the District 12 PoO that gives the NCGOP Chairman the authority to put, in its entirety, any Congressional District “on hiatus from conducting official business, until the election of a duly elected chair”
a. Further we find that by offhandedly placing the 12th Congressional District on hiatus there are several hundred thousand Republican Voters in the 12th Congressional District that you affected.
2. There is no basis in the NCGOP PoO for the NCGOP to plan the 12th Congressional District Convention. Indeed as you say under the NCGOP PoO you can and have the duty to call the date of the Convention, but the authority to specify the location and time of the Convention lies strictly with the duly elected officials of the 12th District namely the Officers and Members of the 12th District Executive Committee (ExCom).
a. By your own assertion, you are giving “other activist” authority and input to plan and call the Convention. By doing so, you are taking sides and usurping the authority of the duly elected officials of the 12th District.
3. Without question there is no legal basis for you to specify the Chair of the 12th Congressional District Convention much less specify that the NCGOP legal counsel will conduct this meeting.
4. Also, there is no basis under any PoO that gives you the authority to establish a District Convention Committee. […]
The letter, in its entirety, is linked to this post. (It is signed and supported unanimously by the district’s entire executive committee.)
So, Dallas’s grandpa has them hot under the collar in the 3rd district over in the east, and in the 12th around Charlotte. (Talk about spreading’ the love.)
This whole fiasco has roots in the unusual decision to not realign the districts after the redistricting occurred. It is very questionable that the Central Committee had authority to do this, and besides the District chairmen serving on the Central Committee all had a huge conflict of interest in voting on that matter. This decision should have gone to the executive committee with all of the district chairmen recusing themselves from the vote.
There was a similar redistricting mess in the middle of the terms of district officers back in 1991-1992. The precedent set then was to use the Presidential year district conventions to reorganize the district officers based on new district lines, which worked very well, The same thing could easily have been done this time if egos had not gotten in the way. That would have avoided the problems that are happening now.
Yes, Raphael, Robin Hayes and the Central Committee have a bad habit of usurping power. First, the NC GOP Chairmanship, then the Districts’ method of transitioning to newly drawn districts, and now the 12th Congressional District’s convention.
My hat’s off to the 12th District’s Executive Committee. They’re setting a great example by staying calm, drawing attention to the directives in the PoOs, and announcing that they plan to comply with them and need NO HELP from USURPER HEADQUARTERS, thank you!
To be clear all the members of the 12th executive committee where notified of a meeting in writing. A teleconference meeting was held and a quorum was obtained. The response was discussed and voted unanimously by members of the 12th that participated in the meeting
Move along. Nothing to see here. This is just another example of how we in Raleigh intend to run the party. It is our decisions that matter,not yours. Why should we worry about what people at the local level think or want? We are the ones making all the decisions. That is what you voted for when you removed the previous state chairman and gave us total power.
People whined last time Robin Hayes was chairman when he let state party staff change the county board of elections names submitted to the state board in a number of different counties without even telling the county parties they were doing it. Robin Hayes is totally cool with staff control of the party from Raleigh. That is also why I was brought on in my position, to run the party. That is what I have done and what I intend to continue to do, as long as you reelect my sockpuppet, err . . .ah, Chairman Hayes, and his supporters as district chairpersons.
Incumbent district chairmen in other districts lived in counties that were no longer even in their Congressional district, but stayed in office. Why is the 12th being treated differently?
Even if they come up with some concocted justification for treating the 12th differently, then it should be the district vice chairman, as acting chairman, who would be responsible for the convention, NOT the state party apparatus. This whole thing just stinks.
I wonder if the party’ General Counsel can explain that. After all he is the same guy who said that the impeachment of David Lewis could not proceed due to some hair splitting, while with Hasan Harnett, where there was a lot less of actual service involved and a stronger reason not to proceed, it could go forward. After these two highly conflicting rulings involving two party officials from different factions, inconsistent rulings seem to be commonplace with this guy.
Their less than consistent rulings are situation conditional to be sure. Reminds me of the time they said that Haywood County couldn’t proceed with an action requiring two-thirds of their Executive Committee’s approval and that two-thirds MEAN’T two-thirds of the ENTIRE ExComm present AND voting affirmative.
Flash forward a year and then they ruled at an NCGOP ExComm meeting that two-thirds approval means two-thirds of whomever bothered to attend. Which, of course, is not in accordance with the POO’s very explicit definition, but strict adherence to the rules would have thwarted their desired outcome.
Good example. The establishment in Raleigh wanted one thing in the Haywood County dispute so they ruled one way on defining what constituted 2/3rds of a party executive committee, but they wanted the opposite in the state chairman’s ouster, so they ruled the opposite way. That is not objective. It is all subjective as to what the Raleigh establishment wants in a particular situation. At the state executive committee meeting to purge Hasan Harnett, that thug Billy Miller as meeting chairman kept cutting off anyone who tried to bring up the Haywood County ruling. I hope we never see that arrogant jerk Miller chairing anything in the party ever again.
Similarly when it came to service of the complaint against party officials, they strained at gnats to find a way to disallow the service on David Lewis to block the proceeding from going forward, but made a completely contradictory ruling to allow the circus against Harnett to go forward, even though the claim of actual service was much weaker than on Lewis. The only claim of service they had on Harnett was a first class letter put in the mail to his home address while they knew he was out of the country. Party legal officials should not be making such contradictory rulings as these examples just to favor their own faction over another.
Billy Miller also showed his thuggish nature at the Presidential Year convention with rulings from the chair that facilitated a seriously flawed process to steal the National Committeewoman’s slot for the establishment’s Ada Fisher.
If the establishment produces Miller as a convention chairman again, then there should be a serious effort from the floor to remove him from the chair and substitute someone who will treat the grassroots fairly..Miller clearly will not.
There will be an opportunity at the state Executive Committee meeting after the convention to drain the swamp of the party General Counsel and Assistant General Counsel as well as four other state officers elected by the committee, two of whom were also key players for the establishment in the Hasan Harnett purge..
The party needs both a General Counsel and a convention chairman who will make objective, consistent, and unbiased rulings.
This is why the convention needs a convention committee voted on by the Ex-com to the run the State Convention this committee would be active all year long and maybe half the members would be over lapping 2 year terms to have experience on the committee but make sure they would stay honest and not power hungry. This committee could then have a hospitality ambassadors to help make sure everything was run smoothly
things like the http://www.ncgopconvention.com/
site would then be in control of this committee and make sure it stayed updated and did not just sit there blank like it is now without even a link to eventbrite where the current tickets are for sale
you cannot say the people in charge are doing their job when everything looks like a failure from the outside
If the establishment continues to control the NC Republican Party there will be little reason to support it. If things go badly at this convention that will be the sign for many of us to work toward a true conservative party. Conservatives and Classical Liberals (not convinced present day Libertarians embrace Classical Liberalism anymore) need a reliable party organization.
A lot will be determined at this convention and following Executive Committee meeting.