WILD JUNE SEC MEETINGCHAIR LOSES CONTROLBUDGET CHAOS

Newly elected State GOP Chair Brita Horn is having a very bad June with Vice Chair Darrel Phelan resigning in an e-mail castigating her severely and with losing control of State Executive Committee (SEC) a majority of which she recently appointed directly or indirectly. The Chair noted that she has ten days to set a meeting of the entire State Central Committee no later than 30 days from the announcement to elect a new vice chair which meeting should be a donnybrook. The June 11th SEC meeting was called to consider the party’s budget for the next two years. The cavalcade of screw ups started with the failure of Chair Horn to give the required five days’ notice of the SEC meeting to its members or send out an agenda. Horn indicated that she made calls to various members and gave otherwise notice which was disputed by several members of the SEC. A motion was made to waive the notice requirement which passed by a 13 to 7 margin. Corporate law does not allow waiver of notice requirements without unanimous consent of all members of a board. With two SEC members absent unanimous consent was not even possible. The purpose of the meeting was to consider the proposed two-year budget presented by Chair Brita Horn. She refused to provide a copy to members before the meeting and since the 21 attending members attended by zoom, they could only try to catch glimpses as slides were put up on the screen. The presentation was extraordinary in that there was outlined $2.4 million in expenses but no discussion of how revenues would be raised. Brita said simply that the Party hoped to get some funding from the Republican National Committee (RNC) and she was spending three to four hours a day calling potential donors from lists provided by the RNC. The explanation was not reassuring. On the expense side the budget apparently was intended to reflect the Chair’s new vision for the Party but without an explanation of what that vision was. The vision appears to require a great number of paid party functionaries including at least $100,000 per annum for the Chair, $85,000 for the Executive Director Alec Hanna, $45,000 for Regional Directors, $36,000 for Field Directors. All such persons would be W-2 employees and get health insurance and workmen’s’ compensation and even 3% match IRAs. The so-called budget was not received well. Chair Horn could not answer various questions and constantly had to pass oa questions to Executive Director Alec Hanna for answers. It was not a good look. For the first time in living memory the SEC rejected a Chair’s budget by a 11 to 10 vote. The rejection was all the more surprising as Horn had appointed many of the members of the SEC. But led by Secretary Russ Andrews and as shockingly allowed by the Parliamentarian new votes were taken until the pliable CD 8 rep Maria Weese finally switched her vote so the budget passed 11 to 10. The meeting ended with no one happy and some indicating the Parliamentarian was in the back pocket of the Chair and needed to be removed at the next SEC meeting. Whatever claim by Brita Horn that her reign would be one of unity and cordial relations was now gone well short of 90 days from her election. Horn faces the SCC voting in a Vice Chair who is actively hostile to her. Brita Horn Republican “Unity” is a beautiful to behold.