Where, Oh Where Has the Georgia Republican Party Gone?

Over the past few weeks, I have laid numer­ous facts on the table regard­ing the Title 21Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty(GRP) and its twin cor­po­rate cousin, Title 14Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc.(GRP, Inc.) In my first arti­cle,Kem­p’s Ulti­mate Goals Now Com­ing Into View-Pri­va­ti­za­tion of Geor­gia’s elec­tion process­es, I traced the orga­ni­za­tion of the gov­ern­ment-cre­at­ed, Title 14 enti­ty, GRP, Inc.,back to its 2014 found­ing by then elect­ed Chair­man of the Title 21 GRP, John Pad­gett. I not­ed sev­er­al facts con­cern­ing Mr. Pad­getts new cor­po­ra­tion, ques­tion­ing the legal­i­ty of those in con­trol claim­ing to this day that the Title 14 enti­ty, and the Title 21 enti­ty, are one and the same. They are not. They can nev­er be. We know that because we rec­og­nize that a cor­po­ra­tion is a pure­ly PRIVATE enti­ty, autho­rized by no laws and bound­ed by no restric­tions of Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ties. A Title 14 cor­po­ra­tion thus has no law­ful author­i­ty to play a role in elec­tions as a Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty.

Not­ing con­tempt fortra­di­tion­al par­ty infra­struc­ture,expressed by Geor­gia Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp ear­li­er this year, claim­ing to his pri­vate lead­er­ship com­mit­tee he could no longer rely on that vehi­cle towin in the future,in the ref­er­enced arti­cleI con­nect­ed numer­ous dots demon­strat­ing a pat­tern of polit­i­cal activ­i­ty shad­ow­ing a future trend­ing toward the cor­po­ra­ti­za­tion of Geor­gias elec­tion process­es. There is much more in that arti­cle which I believe is impor­tant. For that rea­son, if you have not read it I encour­age you to do so.

In the sec­ond install­ment,Geor­gia Repub­li­can Del­e­gates Head­ing for Dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion in 2024-McK­oon and oth­ers must resign, after receiv­ing aCALL FOR THE 2024 GEORGIA REPUBLICAN PRECINCT CAUCUS AND FOR COUNTY, CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT AND STATE CONVENTIONS, I once again observed that a cor­po­ra­tion orga­nized under Title 14 has no author­i­ty to engage in polit­i­cal par­ty oper­a­tions autho­rized under Title 21. Thus, I con­clud­ed that a cor­po­ra­tion has no foun­da­tion in law to make such a call or engage in elec­tion activ­i­ties reserved sole­ly for Title 21 enti­ties. That would include orga­niz­ing events ulti­mate­ly designed to select del­e­gates to a Nation­al Repub­li­can Con­ven­tion, the cor­po­rate Call under con­sid­er­a­tion there­by endan­ger­ing the prospect that Geor­gias cho­sen del­e­gates would receive cre­den­tials and be seat­ed. Because of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of such an egre­gious turn of events, I called for the res­ig­na­tion of elect­ed Chair­man Josh McK­oon along with all oth­er sig­na­to­ries autho­riz­ing that unlaw­ful statewide Call.

Most recent­ly I pub­lished,Kemp, Raf­fensperg­er and Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty Exec­u­tives, Just stupid?-Or is there method to their mad­ness?So that no one might mis­un­der­stand the ille­git­i­ma­cy of using a Title 14 cor­po­ra­tion to under­take Title 21 elec­tion activ­i­ties, I explored sev­er­al defin­ing rea­sons why doing so would be unlaw­ful. Because the exec­u­tives in con­trol of these sep­a­rate and dis­tinct Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty enti­ties pub­licly ignore the unlaw­ful nature of the hybrid orga­ni­za­tion they pre­tend to lead, I asked whether the offi­cials involved, includ­ing the gov­er­nor and sec­re­tary of state, are just stu­pid, or whether they are up to some­thing. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, in this case a ques­tion such as that has become war­rant­ed.

New information comes available

Last week, new infor­ma­tion came forth con­cern­ing the 2014 incor­po­ra­tion of the pri­vate, cor­po­rate enti­ty, Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc. That infor­ma­tion arrived in the form of a Ful­ton Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court Order Grant­i­ng Sum­ma­ry Judg­ment in the case ofJohn L. Pad­gett v. Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc. (CIVIL ACTION FILE NO: 2021CV354612).A link will be pro­vid­ed as one comes avail­able. Accord­ing to Judge Alford Dempseys order, Mr. Pad­gett did not sue the Title 21 Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, only the Title 14 incor­po­rat­ed enti­ty of the same name, which he cre­at­ed in 2014.

Because Pad­getts suit only lists GRP, Inc. as a defen­dant, one ques­tion before us is to deter­mine, well, what­ev­er hap­pened to the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty (GRP)? Where did it go? Did it dis­solve? Is it still around? Why would Mr. Pad­gett not sue GRP at the same time?

The saga of cir­cum­stances detailed in the Judge Dempseys order began on Feb­ru­ary 3, 2014, the judge recall­ing events por­trayed in doc­u­ments of a cer­tainpre­vi­ous case, out of which Mr. Pad­getts mon­e­tary claims against GRP, Inc. arose. In that pre­vi­ous case, facts reveal Mr. Pad­getts per­son­al assis­tant, a Ms. Qiana Kei­th, made cer­tain alle­ga­tions against him, com­plain­ing of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion. Accord­ing to the recent order, Pad­gett had been elect­ed Chair­man of the Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty, GRP, the year pri­or, 2013. Judge Dempsey wrote, Pad­gettincor­po­rat­ed the GAGOP (GRP, Inc.)sev­en days after Ms. Kei­ths racial alle­ga­tions sur­faced (Feb­ru­ary 3, 2014). In so doing, Pad­gett became the GRP, Inc. CEO and CFO.

Curi­ous­ly, on page 2 of the order, the judge writes facts not entire­ly com­plete:

I say Judge Dempseys facts are not entire­ly com­plete because, look­ing back atMs. Kei­ths 2014 case against Pad­gett, Ms. Kei­th sues not only GRP, Inc., the cor­po­ra­tion, but also GRPas a com­plete­ly sep­a­rate enti­ty, GRP being the polit­i­cal par­ty with whom she had been employed.

Fur­ther­more, on pages 3 and 4 of Ms. Kei­ths suit, her lawyer pre­cise­ly describes two of the three sep­a­rate and dis­tinct defen­dants in rela­tion to the case:

Thus, on page 3, Ms. Kei­ths attor­ney draws a dis­tinc­tion between GRP,a reg­is­tered polit­i­cal par­ty as defined under Geor­gia law, O.C.G.A. 21–2‑2(25) and 21–2‑110,ver­sus GRP, Inc.,a Geor­gia non-prof­it Cor­po­ra­tion.Her attor­ney then pro­vides the address­es of both enti­ties, GRP beingoffices locat­ed at 3110 Maple Dri­ve, Suite 150, Atlanta, Geor­gia 30305,and GRP, Inc. being the office of itsreg­is­tered agent, Anne Lewis, 1170 Peachtree Road, Suite 2200, Atlanta, Geor­gia, 30309.

In due course, Ms. Kei­ths attor­ney draws an addi­tion­al dis­tinc­tion sep­a­rat­ing these enti­ties from law­ful­ly oper­at­ing as one unit, alleg­ing that,Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc., is asuc­ces­sor-in-inter­estto the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty.

Okay, what doessuc­ces­sor-in-inter­estmean?

A suc­ces­sor-in-inter­est is apar­ty oth­er than the orig­i­nalpar­ty. Thus the orig­i­nal Kei­th case was brought against anorig­i­nal par­ty,GRP, but also against a par­tyoth­er than the orig­i­nal,GRP, Inc. Kei­ths attor­ney could eas­i­ly sup­port that con­tention not­ing that, at the time these enti­ties oper­at­ed sep­a­rate­ly, main­tain­ing dif­fer­ent address­es to accept legal ser­vice, GRP, Inc. accept­ing ser­vice through a reg­is­tered agent, Attor­ney Anne Lewis, at her law office, and GRP accept­ing ser­vice by any­one present at its Maple Street office.

Thus, adding to the facts writ­ten by Judge Dempsey in his recent order regard­ing John Pad­getts case against GRP, Inc., the Kei­th case involved both GRP (a polit­i­cal par­ty), and GRP, Inc., (a sep­a­rate and dis­tinct cor­po­ra­tion), those enti­ties cre­at­ed under dif­fer­ent titles of Geor­gia law, Ms. Kei­th alleg­ingboth enti­tiesare respon­si­ble for the unlaw­ful con­ductagainst her.

To be clear, I am not accus­ing Judge Dempsey of wrong­ly rep­re­sent­ing the facts in issu­ing his recent sum­ma­ry judg­ment against Mr. Pad­gett. Pad­gett did not sue GRP, only GRP, Inc. Thus, any dis­cus­sion of a sep­a­rate and dis­tinct enti­ty, GRP, would not be ger­mane to this case. For our pur­pos­es, how­ev­er, a full pic­ture of facts regard­ing the orig­i­nal case are para­mount to achiev­ing an under­stand­ing of all that has tran­spired since.

Records of Georgia Republican Party disappear

No one can jus­ti­fi­ably con­tend that the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, orga­nized under Title 21, has nev­er exist­ed. Evi­dence of GRPs exis­tence, an undis­agree­able fact regard­less, is cit­ed in Ms. Kei­ths case against Mr. Pad­gett in all of his capac­i­ties. Although the fact of GRPs exis­tence is true, and every­one knows it is true, it appears that for some rea­sonall ref­er­ences to the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty have been wiped clean from pub­lic access by the State of Geor­gia.Yes, the State of Geor­gia appears to have dis­ap­peared the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty from its pub­lic records. When asked under Open Records Requests to pro­vide any reg­is­tra­tion state­ment for the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty dat­ing back to 1964, includ­ing reg­is­tra­tion state­ments by like-named orga­ni­za­tions or cor­po­ra­tions, also to include any fil­ings or arti­cles of incor­po­ra­tion, bylaws, and rules for the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty and the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc., the Sec­re­tary of States ORR records staff ulti­mate­ly answered the fol­low­ing:

The ORR staff even­tu­al­ly offered no addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion. Sub­se­quent­ly, when asked about those same records the Geor­gia Archives like­wise answered it is in pos­ses­sion of no such records:

Thus, accord­ing to those who by law would pos­sess the records request­ed, and who would be com­mit­ting a felony for not pro­vid­ing them as request­ed,no pub­lic records regard­ing the reg­is­tra­tion of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, or its his­to­ry, exist at this time.

FEC reports establish the time GRP Inc. took over for GRP

The Fed­er­al Elec­tion Com­mis­sion (FEC) requires polit­i­cal par­ties to file reg­u­lar finan­cial reports. Some reports are filed month­ly, some quar­ter­ly and some annu­al­ly. A month-by-month com­par­i­son of Form 3x reports for the year 2015 reveals that in May of 2015, theGeor­gia Repub­li­can Par­tyfiled its 3X as usu­al. In July of that year, how­ev­er, anoth­er Form 3X amend­ed the May fil­ing for the same FEC Com­mit­tee ID #: C00150672, the name of the par­ty for which that ID # applies being changed fromGeor­gia Repub­li­can Par­tytoGeor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc.

Jus­ti­fy­ing the change of iden­ti­ty filed with the FEC on July 17, the fol­low­ing month, on August 14, 2015, new Trea­sur­er Mansell McCord filed a notice chang­ing the name of the polit­i­cal par­ty, appar­ent­ly after the fact, inform­ing the FEC the rea­son,We have incor­po­rat­ed.

Because cor­po­ra­tions are estab­lished dif­fer­ent­ly from state to state, the FEC would not be an agency to scru­ti­nize whether a name change of an enti­ty might be law­ful. The FEC is pri­mar­i­ly involved in archiv­ing and inves­ti­gat­ing cam­paign finance infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by can­di­dates, PACS, and polit­i­cal par­ties around the coun­try. To the FEC, this report sim­ply regards a name change of a polit­i­cal par­ty. But to us, for our pur­pos­es, this infor­ma­tion is use­ful to deter­mine the time frame dur­ing which the switch of iden­ti­ties, from a polit­i­cal par­ty (GRP), to a cor­po­ra­tion (GRP, Inc.) occurred.

We know thatGeor­gia Repub­li­can Par­tyChair­man John Pad­gett incor­po­rat­edGeor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc.on Feb­ru­ary 07, 2014, the Cer­tifi­cate of Incor­po­ra­tion issued 3 days lat­er, Feb­ru­ary 10.

Yet, the change-of-name notice to the FEC did not occur for anoth­er 18 months. Thus, obvi­ous­ly, the incor­po­ra­tion of Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc. DID NOT auto­mat­i­cal­lyincor­po­rate the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty.In fact, noth­ing would be fur­ther from the truth. That is because, as I have stat­ed many times, cre­at­ing a cor­po­ra­tion by the name of Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc. has no effect on a polit­i­cal par­ty of the same name under a dif­fer­ent title of law. There is noth­ing in law con­nect­ing one to the oth­er. To pre­tend it does is a scam, and very like­ly a move toward cor­po­ra­tiz­ing our polit­i­cal par­ty sys­tem.

Clear­ly, dur­ing the 18-month peri­od between Feb­ru­ary of 2014 and August of 2015, two sep­a­rate enti­ties exist­ed, the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty and Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc. Dur­ing that time, the par­ty trea­sur­er con­tin­ued to file FEC finan­cial reports in the name of Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty up through and includ­ing May of 2015, sub­se­quent­ly amend­ing that report to reflect a new name in July, and only noti­fy­ing the FEC of the name change in August. Is that all that needs to be done to change a Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty into a Title 14 cor­po­ra­tion, sim­ply sub­mit­ting a name change? Of course not. There is no pro­ce­dure in law that can affect a polit­i­cal par­ty to become a cor­po­ra­tion.

Now we know

But now we can sur­mise why John Pad­getts attor­ney did not sue the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, only the incor­po­rat­ed enti­ty, Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc. All those events occurred under John Pad­getts chair­man­ship. And accord­ing to Pad­gett, the Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty no longer exist­ed. Remem­ber, he incor­po­rat­ed it. By that time, we can be sure oper­a­tions of the par­ty had all been shift­ed over to the cor­po­ra­tion, bank accounts and offices closed, new accounts and offices opened. At some point, with obvi­ous aid by indi­vid­u­als with­in Geor­gia Gov­ern­ment, the records of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, orga­nized under Title 21, went miss­ing. Thus, regard­ing the law­suit, who would the coun­ty sher­iff even serve? To what address would the serv­er trav­el? Suing a non-exis­tent enti­ty, or at least one which has no records of exis­tence would halt Pad­getts case against the cor­po­ra­tion in any event. Even if he could find some­one to rep­re­sent the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, all of the par­ty mon­ey had been trans­ferred, pos­si­bly unlaw­ful­ly, to the cor­po­ra­tion. At some point, all evi­dence of GRPs exis­tence, past or present, became erased from pub­lic access. Fur­ther­more, accord­ing to Judge Dempsey, Pad­gett had received cer­tain immu­ni­ty as the CEO of the cor­po­ra­tion. To assert that he also head­ed a polit­i­cal par­ty dur­ing this time could result in more legal actions, unpro­tect­ed by the cor­po­rate veil. Thus, Pad­getts attor­ney only sued GRP, Inc.

Okay, but really, where did GRP go?

The ques­tion remains, if the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Inc. is not the same enti­ty as the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, and the records are in a rab­bit hole near the South entrance to the Capi­tol, where did the par­ty go? What hap­pened to the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty? The Sec­re­tary of State does not know. The Geor­gia Archives does not know. Did the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty sim­ply lapse into noth­ing­ness?

No. The Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty still exists. It still resides in the legal/political ether of the State of Geor­gia. Regard­less whether the Sec­re­tary of State or Gov­er­nor, or the offi­cers of the cor­po­ra­tion desire for it to die, it can­not die. The Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty can­not die because it was cre­at­ed by Geor­gia Law and can only be dis­solved by Geor­gia Law. Unfor­tu­nate for any­one desir­ing to car­ry out that pur­pose, unlike cor­po­ra­tions under Title 14, once reg­is­tered,there are no pro­vi­sions in Geor­gia Law to dis­solve a polit­i­cal par­ty.There­fore, although the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty is, and has been, non-com­pli­ant since at least the 2016 elec­tion, appar­ent­ly all it must do to become active again is file all past reg­is­tra­tions and resume reg­is­ter­ing, as required by law, going for­ward.

Georgia, a State Sponsor of Creeping Corporate Fascism

The State of Geor­gia appears knee-deep in a coop­er­a­tive effort with Repub­li­can offi­cials to rewrite the way elec­tions are con­duct­ed. A polit­i­cal par­ty can­not incor­po­rate. I have demon­strat­ed why that is over and over. Yet, not only does the Geor­gias Sec­re­tary of State office appear com­plic­it in an unlaw­ful effort to dis­ap­pear the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty from the face of the earth, but any­one else in posi­tion to affect these cir­cum­stances, such as Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp, also appears com­plic­it. In Feb­ru­ary, Kemp told us he no longer has regard for tra­di­tion­al par­ty infra­struc­ture. That would be a ref­er­ence to the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty. Kemp then chose not to attend the Colum­bus Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty Con­ven­tion in June. That is because Kemp has cre­at­ed his own, non-tra­di­tion­al, pri­vate par­ty infra­struc­ture to win in the future. Kemp is estab­lish­ing Repub­li­can Coali­tion cor­po­ra­tions in numer­ous coun­ties across the State. Thus, appar­ent­ly, Kemp has elect­ed office-hold­ers of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty coop­er­at­ing to cor­po­ra­tize the polit­i­cal par­ty sys­tem in Geor­gia. No one is stop­ping this. Sec­re­tary of State Brad Raf­fensperg­er can­not find any files relat­ed to the Title 21 Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty pre­vi­ous­ly in exis­tence under the present form since at least 1964. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Chris Carr is so busy not doing his job in oth­er areas in which Geor­gias elec­tion sys­tems are being destroyed, that he has no time to focus on this area either. Any­one who seri­ous­ly ques­tions the state of elec­tions in Geor­gia is being pros­e­cut­ed by a rogue polit­i­cal oper­a­tive in Ful­ton Coun­ty while no one in posi­tion to stop her will claim author­i­ty.

The avail­able evi­dence should lead any knowl­edge­able Geor­gian to rec­og­nize the dan­ger that we are wit­ness­ing the build­ing of a state-sanc­tioned, state-pro­tect­ed, and there­by a state-spon­sored cor­po­ra­toc­ra­cy, even­tu­al­ly to become a cor­po­rate-fas­cist state. A sit­u­a­tion in which cor­po­ra­tions, rather than the peo­ple, con­trol our gov­ern­men­tal insti­tu­tions, is a pre­req­ui­site for oper­at­ing a repres­sive, how­ev­er sus­tain­able, total­i­tar­i­an regime. The tra­di­tion­al par­ty infra­struc­ture in Amer­i­ca and Geor­gia is not per­fect. But in its imper­fec­tions human dif­fer­ences play out sim­u­lat­ing jus­tice, albeit imper­fect­ly. Should we, the peo­ple of Geor­gia and the Unit­ed States, lose the pow­er to affect the gov­ern­men­tal insti­tu­tions endowed to us by God, the result will bring about the con­di­tions in which the few enslave the many. We have been through that. We do not need to go through it again.

Many thanks to those atGoReclaimGa.orgwith­out whose hard work and ded­i­ca­tion this Sub­stack would not be pos­si­ble.