Right On Daily Blog

What would you say if the chair of the Largest GOP County Party in America proposes eliminating about 230 delegates from the 1440 delegates the CAGOP has? For years, the moderate wing of the CAGOP have opposed efforts to expand the delegate pool. The only significant change to delegate opportunities in the last 20 years was adding County Treasurers.

The moderates did indeed push a by-law amendment to strip counties of delegates that did not go on the ballot. This was when the moderates were spending millions statewide to attack county parties. Regardless of the garbage arguments about allowing elections—blah, blah, blah—the amendment was done to expose Conservatives all over the state to the rampage of the “spirit of democracy” PAC that was spending limitless dollars to clear central committees out of conservatives.

I have referred to these people as the Oligarchy of Controlled Failure. Many could care less about how few Republican campaigns remain in California as long as they are running one of them. The Oligarchy is also supported by a generation of term-limit babies that are invested in keeping the party ineffective while they line up their next run for office. I know a lot of these people personally and have made money working for many of them. My opinions about internal party politics often conflict with theirs. It is what it is.

The problem is that the opposition has not been cohesive and has attracted some fringe elements that are tabloid fodder. So, while I express my frustration over the decisions of the last 25+ years I have tracked the CRP, there have been few, if any, times when the Conservatives have presented an alternative that was sane and viable.  And when we had so-called conservative CAGOP Chairs, they governed like moderates all the way back to Shawn Steel. Still others used the CAGOP as a dating service or a book tour agent.

Relics of CRP Conventions Past

So just what is Tim O’Reilly, the current Chair of the LAGOP up to? For starters, he is a member of the current CAGOP rules committee. Secondly, he has endured withering attacks from the fringes of his party down in LA County.

Recently, David Hernandez won election as regional Vice Chair of the CAGOP. The region is LA County only. Tim O’Reilly was supposed to be the moderate shoo-in for that district, but David Hernandez organized a rag-tag coalition that stayed together despite game playing and drama at the just passed CAGOP Convention. Hernandez beat O’Reilly by 9 votes. Worse, Hernandez is good buddies with Satan himself Steve Frank.

But it gets even worse. Randal Jordan shocked the moderate establishment in the Central Coast.

The Merced GOP and Marin GOP saw a complete sea change. The SFGOP saw a John Dennis-CRA Coalition stop the attack of the far-left Briones crew, moving that committee to the right. Santa Clara and Sacramento’s once 2/3 establishment Majorities have been decimated. There were many other places where the opposition made gains.

With a now significant chunk of the CAGOP Board featuring opposition members, several counties changing hands and an even larger portion of nominees being aligned with the opposition, enter one Timothy O’Reilly.

The first amendment proposed by O’Reilly is linked here.

This basically eliminates CAGOP Delegates who failed to make the runoff. There are many districts where Republican registration is so low that the Republican gets 15-20% of the vote and sees two or more democrats get more votes. The current rule allows the top finishing Republican to be the nominee and thus a delegate to the party.

The significance? By my count this would eliminate about 15 delegates from the CAGOP, with only about 3 of them aligned with the Oligarchy of Controlled Failure. More importantly for Tim O’Reilly, had this rule been in effect a net 8 of David Hernandez’ votes would have been removed.

The big Kahuna is here, the second by-law Amendment.

It re-sets the appointment rules for Republican Nominees to the following metric:

Let’s say you make the runoff, great! You are the only delegate you get…

… unless you get 40% of the vote! Then you get a whole three appointments.

The net impact of this amendment would be to eliminate about 200-220 of the 1,440 delegates to the CAGOP. At least 90% of these delegates would be opposition aligned. 

The question your intrepid blogger has, is did the Jessica Patterson-Kevin McCarthy axis propose this as a power grab? Or is this simply an enraged Tim O’Reilly seeking to wreck widespread destruction on the CAGOP in order to eliminate about 2/3 of David Hernandez’ votes?

So the Oligarchy of Controlled failure or the Chair of the LAGOP or both have proposed two rules that would eliminate something like 1/6 of the current delegates to the CAGOP.

1. It is already absurd that a party of 5.3 million people are only represented by 1,440 delegates. So we want to cut that number by 16-17%?
2. One of the main incentives for people to run in difficult districts is being members of their county and state parties – this would be eliminated in large parts of the state by this amendment
3. Counties like Solano, Sonoma, Yolo and the entire bay area would have no nominees with delegate appointments.
4. What incentive is there to campaign, if the current rule that gives you 2 delegates for exceeding registration and making the runoff is eliminated. Getting party representation is one of the few consolation prizes you get for spending $3500 to file for office (as the party almost never pays filing fees for anyone anymore)
5. Imagine being Andy Vidak, losing your seat in the State Senate and now getting only 3 delegates instead of 5?
6. Imagine being Chris Bish, actually raising almost $100K, getting 38% of the vote in your district and getting no appointments at all?

Oh and leave us not forget, the CAGOP always struggles to pay its’ bills. So, this amendment would eliminate $23,o00-$25,000 in delegate dues. It would also eliminate something like $15,000 – $20,000 in convention registrations times 3 conventions. Then add in the meals and functions some of these people buy in addition. The combined financial impact could be well over $100,000 per two-year cycle!!!

Imagine the impact on county parties if they can’t recruit candidates for major office. It would make running campaigns for local office even more difficult than they already are. Love him or hate him having Steve Garvey on the ballot for the runoff is going to help GOP turnout in November. If O’Reilly’s amendments pass they will be punching holes in the up-ticket offices all over the state!

This is quite possibly one of the most destructive proposals I have ever seen in the years I have been around the CAGOP.