There is an amendment to the bylaws of the Republican Party of Iowa up for consideration at the Dec 8th meeting of the State Central Committee. The current constitution and bylaws are available on the party’s website. The bylaw change is being proposed by 2nd District SCC member Marcus Fedler.
The change is in response to some events that occurred during the 2012 primary campaign. During the primary, the House Majority Fund sent out some mailings in support of incumbents who had Republican primary challengers.
The problem that many people had (myself included) is that the House Majority Fund is run through RPI and the mailing said, Paid for by the Republican Party of Iowa. It certainly gave the appearance that the RPI, the state party, was picking sides in the primary.
To put in perspective, the House Majority Fund, and its sibling, the Senate Majority Fund, consist of monies raised by the House and Senate caucuses under their respective leaders. RPI comes into the picture because neither caucus is an independent political entity. RPI provides numerous services to the caucuses. Both funds have employees and these employees are employees of RPI. RPI handles all the paperwork and payroll for them. RPI provides office space, equipment, utilities, etc. The controversy occurred because the caucuses also use RPI’s mailing permit and mailings must include the disclaimer,Paid for by the Republican Party of Iowa. House Speaker Kraig Paulsen came to an SCC meeting to address the issue this summer. He and I spoke beforehand and I assured him that I did not want to hinder his ability to raise money and spend it as he saw fit to benefit his caucus. I reiterated that one of the tangible benefits that RPI provides is handling the paperwork, being the employer of record and managing the bank accounts, mailing and ethics filing for the caucuses. Significantly, we wanted to continue supporting the caucuses in these ways. The only stipulation would be that the caucuses could no longer use RPI’s disclaimer in support of a particular candidate in a contested primary.
Here is Fedler’s proposed amendment:
The Republican Party of Iowa shall not use any resources for the benefit of any Republican candidate in contested primary races. “Resources” includes but is not limited to; the use of Party funds obtained in any way; the use of the name “The Republican Party of Iowa” on mailers, emails, press releases, or any campaign materials of any kind; the use of nonprofit mail status; lists; or staff. This section shall not preclude any member of The Republican Party of Iowa from individually supporting candidates in Primary races.
I am in favor of the principle. The principle that RPI remain officially neutral in primaries. My view on SCC members publicly endorsing or working for primary candidates is well known. But I believe that the last sentence of this amendment is redundant. There is indeed nothing in this section that could be construed as preventing individual members from supporting or even accepting paid positions with candidates in primaries.
As a rules guy, I believe in simple clear language. When this amendment comes up for debate, I will be a supporter, but I will suggest the following alternative language:
The resources of the Republican Party of Iowa shall not be used to benefit any individual candidate in a contested primary.
In the current climate, I suspect that there will be some who believe that my proposal is an effort to weaken the amendment. That I am trying to set up a rule that would force the SCC to remove members who support candidates in primaries. There is no conspiracy here, I am on board with this amendment. I just believe in simple concise wording.
Dave, how blunt do you want me to be? Marcus Fedler is purporting this rule because his organization, Free County, primaried Priscilla Marlar against sitting state rep Jarad Klein this last spring.
This proposed rule change is to enable him to support Ron Paul type candidates against anyone he doesn’t like with his own organization and their funding mechanism, while hamstringing the LMF from supporting their own people. I will add that their recent foray into the primaries also yielded numbers ethics violations.
This is the kind of deck stacking that Marcus and his ilk repeatedly chastised the GOP ‘Establishment’ for doing, now he wants to do it himself, reminiscent of the kind of tactics our left-wing opponents use.
I could not support this rule change knowing how it would be used.
Matt, I understand the history here. But when I evaluate a rule, I do it based on the principle involved. I believe strongly that the ‘party’ should stay out of primaries. I also believe that the legislative majority funds should stay out of primaries and focus on beating Democrats, but I was not elected to their leadership.
I am hesitant to evaluate the rule based on how one faction will use it. The reason is that in the future, my faction might be the militant one, and the party might use its resources against a primary challenger I support. We saw this in 2004 in Pennsylvania when Toomey challenged Specter. The national party apparatus came down for Specter. Of course when Senator Toomey challenged him again, Specter switched parties.
True Dave, but my point is, is what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. SCC people are in a position of trust, and people that kind of position need themselves to stay neutral. You can’t have unity if a faction is basically preventing another from doing something while in turn it’s using it’s own position of leadership from within the party to do the very same thing, while at the same time very loudly railing against the ‘Establishment’ tactics of the opposition.
Unless we find a way to create an equalized situation, we are going to put a rift so deep in the party that it will never likely be healed. Jarad for example is hard-right SoCon, the fact that he was primaried in such a manner show this goes way beyond the ‘Establshment’ v. Liberty paradigm that they like to shoddily prop up.
What it really is, is the Libertarian wing trying to beat down all the others and take complete control. A wing that I might add, can be very soft on social issues that the more SoCon minded support. If we enable them without holding them to the same standard, the internecine battles could open up into open war and wound us all while the Dems clean up the scraps.
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