Wool Being Pulled Over the Eyes of Grass Roots Republicans-Part 2

A Personal Note

Before I start, I want to make it clear, I have no per­son­al vendet­ta or ani­mos­i­ty against any­one about whom I may write. This is not per­son­al. I do not write “hit pieces.” If one of my pieces “hits,” a read­er will find it dif­fi­cult to find a fact mis-stat­ed, or con­clu­sion dis­tort­ed or twist­ed to achieve a cer­tain unwar­rant­ed impression. 

While I am not per­fect and do not pre­tend to be, I am thor­ough. I am extreme­ly care­ful to express mat­ters in ways to con­vey an exact sense of what I would like the read­er to con­sid­er. I work dili­gent­ly to be as accu­rate as pos­si­ble. When some­one claims I am mis­tak­en, I am glad to exam­ine such a claim against what I have writ­ten and pro­vide an answer. I do not shy away from crit­i­cism. I am hap­py to receive it because the last thing I want is to allow an inac­cu­ra­cy, or mis­im­pres­sion to flow from one of my writings. 

Know that by the time you read my Sub­stack, I will have read it over, some­times as many as twen­ty times. Each time I make one change, when I fin­ish I begin again at the top and read once more to ensure that the change I made flows in con­text with the rest of the arti­cle. But noth­ing I present is per­son­al. Noth­ing I say is gra­tu­itous. I care­ful­ly con­sid­er every word and every sen­tence to con­vey my desired mean­ing and hope­ful­ly min­i­mize the chance of error. I do that because we are los­ing our coun­try. Arguably, we live in the most dan­ger­ous time of our country’s his­to­ry. The best way to fight back is to pro­mul­gate the truth in ways that indi­vid­u­als in posi­tion to act can under­stand and con­sid­er their role in sav­ing it. That is my pur­pose here, noth­ing else. Thank you for reading. 

Recap

In my last Sub­stack, “Wool Being Pulled Over the Eyes of Grass Roots Repub­li­cans,” I brought for­ward a noti­fi­ca­tion post­ed Octo­ber 27th on gagop.org by Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair­man Josh McK­oon. That noti­fi­ca­tion indi­cates the man­ner in which the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, Incor­po­rat­ed “State Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee” (prop­er name-cap­i­tal­ized) has deter­mined it will decide bal­lot access for the Repub­li­can Pres­i­den­tial Pref­er­ence Pri­ma­ry next Spring. But accord­ing to the law, it appears to be a cer­tain oth­er com­mit­tee, com­prised of near­ly 180 indi­vid­u­als, estab­lished under the term, “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee” (low­er case), which is empow­ered to make bal­lot access deter­mi­na­tions. What you see in Chair­man McKoon’s post­ed noti­fi­ca­tion appears as a sleight-of-hand, an unjus­ti­fied usurpa­tion of polit­i­cal power. 

Here is Chair­man McKoon’s Octo­ber 27 noti­fi­ca­tion in full: 

As I wrote pre­vi­ous­ly, the “State Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee” (cap­i­tal­ized by GRP, Inc. rules), is mere­ly the NAME of a sub­com­mit­tee under­neath the true “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee” in law (See Fig. 1 below). As a sub­com­mit­tee estab­lished under GRP, Inc. rules, the “State Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee” pos­sess­es no author­i­ty in and of itself to ful­fill the OCGA 21–2‑193 func­tions in McKoon’s noti­fi­ca­tion. Those func­tions are autho­rized sole­ly to the “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee” (low­er case in law), func­tions which would include for­mu­lat­ing and pro­mul­gat­ing noti­fi­ca­tions such as the one above, McK­oon appar­ent­ly self-autho­riz­ing the pow­er nec­es­sary to ful­fill func­tions reserved entire­ly for the “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee” as that term is defined in the law. The GRP, Inc. “State Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee” is only empow­ered to car­ry out day-to-day oper­a­tions, giv­en poli­cies pre­vi­ous­ly “for­mu­lat­ed and adopt­ed” by the “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee.” It is not empow­ered to act in place of the “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee.” To do so would be a usurpa­tion of pow­er, or as our founders would say, an act of tyran­ny. (For a con­cise expla­na­tion of the par­lia­men­tary prin­ci­ples involved, please view this video cre­at­ed by pro­fes­sion­al par­lia­men­tar­i­an Kir­by Glad, specif­i­cal­ly geared to cer­tain par­lia­men­tary con­cerns in Bul­loch Coun­ty, GA.) 

Seen graph­i­cal­ly, the true, cor­rect and law­ful com­mit­tee orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­ture under OCGA 21–2‑111, as com­pared to GRP, Inc. rules, would look like this: 

The first col­umn in Fig. 1 rep­re­sents the law­ful “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee” struc­ture. Except when a statewide con­ven­tion might be in ses­sion, the “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee” pos­sess­es all author­i­ty over par­ty affairs through­out the state. The “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee” is the ONLY polit­i­cal par­ty com­mit­tee required under law. That committee’s gov­ern­ing juris­dic­tion is the entire state of Geor­gia, across which it exerts con­trol over every rule, every reg­u­la­tion and action of the par­ty. The OCGA 21–2‑111 “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee,” renamed, “State Com­mit­tee” under GRP, Inc. rules, essen­tial­ly issues march­ing orders to Chair­man McKoon’s “State Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee.” To be clear, the “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee” under law, and the “State Com­mit­tee” under GRP, Inc. rules, IS THE SAME COMMITTEE. Whichev­er way you refer to it, that is the com­mit­tee both required and empow­ered under OCGA 21–2‑111. McKoon’s ref­er­enced “State Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee” is a sub­com­mit­tee of the “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee,” A.K.A. “State Com­mit­tee,” and is only empow­ered to car­ry out the orders hand­ed to it from above. It is not empow­ered to “for­mu­late, adopt and pro­mul­gate” its own orders out­side of those autho­rized by the “State Com­mit­tee.” The Octo­ber 27 noti­fi­ca­tion is the for­mu­la­tion and pro­mul­ga­tion of an order strict­ly authored by Chair­man McK­oon, appar­ent­ly fol­low­ing no law­ful­ly-empow­ered orders from the “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee” as that com­mit­tee is estab­lished under OCGA 21–2‑111. With­out orders from the “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee,” McK­oon would have no author­i­ty to pro­mul­gate such a notice. 

Notice there is no “State Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee” (cap­i­tal­ized) empow­ered under law. That is because, again, it is not a pri­ma­ry com­mit­tee empow­ered under law, but a mere sub­com­mit­tee empow­ered under GRP, Inc. rules, oper­at­ing beneath the pri­ma­ry com­mit­tee. It has no pow­ers not specif­i­cal­ly del­e­gat­ed to it from the law­ful­ly-empow­ered, “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee” (“State Com­mit­tee” in the par­ty rules). As you see in the dia­gram above, again, the law­ful­ly-empow­ered “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee,” estab­lished per OCGA 21–2‑111, has sim­ply been renamed, “State Com­mit­tee” under GRP, Inc. rules. 

While the GRP, Inc. “State Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee” pos­sess­es only that author­i­ty DELEGATED to it from the “State Com­mit­tee” (See Fig. 1), Chair­man McKoon’s Octo­ber 27 noti­fi­ca­tion to prospec­tive pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates effec­tive­ly inverts the law­ful order of author­i­ty, appar­ent­ly plac­ing the “State Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee” ABOVE the “State Com­mit­tee,” mak­ing it the pri­ma­ry equiv­a­lent to the “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee” in law, to its left in the dia­gram. It is not. McKoon’s “State Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee” is sub­or­di­nate to the “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee” in law. McKoon’s bas­tardized com­mit­tee struc­ture, as he uses it in his post­ed noti­fi­ca­tion, as com­pared to state law, would look like that depict­ed in Fig. 2: 

This inver­sion of author­i­ty is an exam­ple of clas­si­cal tyran­ny. Under Geor­gia Law, the par­ty mem­bers rule the par­ty. Under GRP, Inc. rules, as por­trayed by Chair­man McK­oon in the Octo­ber 27 noti­fi­ca­tion, the par­ty exec­u­tives rule the par­ty mem­bers. This noti­fi­ca­tion by McK­oon, in effect, restores the “divine right of kings” mod­el of gov­ern­ing, which our founders reject­ed on July 4, 1776, fought a war for inde­pen­dence over, and ulti­mate­ly prevailed. 

That said, I do under­stand, Chair­man McK­oon is not the first to use the names of these com­mit­tees in a way that undu­ly con­cen­trates polit­i­cal pow­er over bal­lot access, lim­it­ing it to a rel­a­tive­ly few num­ber of indi­vid­u­als. One per­son recent­ly claimed this pro­ce­dure has been going on since the 1970’s. Be that as it may, my pur­pose here is to inform the pub­lic, specif­i­cal­ly Repub­li­cans, includ­ing those on the “state exec­u­tive com­mit­tee” under 21–2‑111, and “State Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee” under GRP, Inc. rules, of the real­i­ty. Regard­less how long this pro­ce­dure has been going on, it must be stopped and the rule of law restored. 

McKoon’s Notification to Presidential Hopefuls, Pay to Play?

Now that we are brought up to speed, let’s look specif­i­cal­ly at Chair­man McKoon’s noti­fi­ca­tion to prospec­tive pres­i­den­tial candidates. 

In para­graph one, Chair­man McK­oon writes: 

As we have seen, this is an emp­ty claim. If it were true, it would read some­thing like, 

“Deter­mi­na­tion of the names of can­di­dates to appear on the bal­lot for Repub­li­can Pres­i­den­tial Pref­er­ence Pri­ma­ry is made by the State Com­mit­tee (or per­haps “state exe­cu­tuve com­mit­tee”) of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty pur­suant to Sec­tion 21–2‑193 of the Offi­cial Code of Geor­gia Annotated.”

That para­graph rep­re­sents a usurpa­tion of pow­er from the par­ty mem­bers’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the most local lev­el, hand­ing that pow­er to cer­tain state-lev­el exec­u­tives. That prac­tice does not agree with OCGA 21–2‑193, which the Chair­man uses to autho­rize his pub­lished notification. 

Next, we see in item #5 the fol­low­ing require­ment of any per­son seek­ing Repub­li­can bal­lot access next Spring: 

Chair­man McK­oon presents his entire list of items as “request­ed infor­ma­tion.” Yet that “infor­ma­tion” has dol­lar signs on it. It is cash mon­ey in the amount of $25,000! That is some pret­ty expen­sive “infor­ma­tion.”

Chair­man McK­oon is quick to clar­i­fy, how­ev­er, stating: 

Oh, now we see, this cash is not for bal­lot access. This cash would sim­ply be to demon­strate to a cabal of 15 peo­ple or less a candidate’s “via­bil­i­ty.” But, isn’t that how mafia boss­es “sug­gest” peo­ple pay for pro­tec­tion? “Hey, Vito, I ain’t sayin’ youze gonna end up at the bot­tom of the riva’ if you don’t pay up, but, hey, I ain’t pro­tectin’ ya’ if youze don’t. So do the right thing, Vito. Capish?” But, of course, we know this mon­ey can’t be to pay for bal­lot access because, appar­ent­ly, PAYING FOR BALLOT ACCESS IN A PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY WOULD BE AGAINST THE LAW!! 

To get around the law, appar­ent­ly, this defac­to “qual­i­fy­ing fee” is por­trayed mere­ly as a “vol­un­tary con­tri­bu­tion,” I guess sort of like the vol­un­tary con­tri­bu­tions you make when you pay your income tax­es. No quid pro quo here! 

Now, I don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly want to part with $25K of my own mon­ey, but if doing so would prove I’m a viable can­di­date for Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, and leave me with the same chance as any­body else, then I got­ta ask, where do I sign up? 

All kid­ding aside, the dis­claimers in this notice offer no appar­ent lev­el of sin­cer­i­ty, the last para­graph writ­ten COERCIVELY, express­ing with a, “wink wink,” The mak­ing of a con­tri­bu­tion does not guar­an­tee bal­lot access although it cer­tain­ly is a demon­stra­tion of via­bil­i­ty.” Real­ly? “It CERTAINLY is a demon­stra­tion of via­bil­i­ty?” Come on, now. Can we be more plain here? If I might make a sug­ges­tion, why not sim­ply ask for a rea­son­able con­tri­bu­tion to help mar­ket the even­tu­al elect­ed can­di­date? But no, they have to go with all this “wink wink” stuff. Obvi­ous­ly, if you want your name on the bal­lot, you bet­ter con­tribute $25K to the cor­po­ra­tion. Oh, did I say, “cor­po­ra­tion?” Indeed I did. This appar­ent defac­to qual­i­fy­ing mon­ey, in fact all of the mon­ey ever intend­ed for the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, does not go to the par­ty per se. It goes to a pri­vate cor­po­ra­tion that is only mas­querad­ing as the par­ty. We have been through this. None of Chair­man McKoon’s noti­fi­ca­tion is pro­mul­gat­ed from a Title 21 polit­i­cal par­ty. Thus, he is not enti­tled to use OCGA 21–2‑193 to jus­ti­fy his state­ments. Instead, it is pro­mul­gat­ed from a Title 14 non-prof­it cor­po­ra­tion. Some­one please look through Title 14 of the Offi­cial Code of Geor­gia and find for me where a cor­po­ra­tion has access to place can­di­dates on a legal Geor­gia bal­lot. Save your effort, it’s not there. 

So, here we have a polit­i­cal par­ty that is not a polit­i­cal par­ty, its chairman/CEO appear­ing to sell bal­lot access on a pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry bal­lot for spots over which it has no law­ful con­trol, all the while the Sec­re­tary of State, Gov­er­nor and Attor­ney Gen­er­al look the oth­er way. 

Can real­i­ty get any more mind bend­ing? I can’t wait to see what comes next. 

(Research cred­it for cer­tain infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed here­in goes to GoRe­claim­GA and Mr. Kir­by Glad, Reg­is­tered Pro­fes­sion­al Par­lia­men­tar­i­an.)