At The Central Committee
By Mitch Berg
I’m at the MNGOP Central Committee meeting, at the Doubletree in Bloomington.
It’s a pretty big day here; Tony Sutton resigned last night (it’s been in all the papers).
Sutton was, I think, a transitional figure for the party. The MNGOP has always been a very top-down party, Sutton presided over a party leadership that opened up the party to the grassroots more than any previous one – but whose institutional inertia still was heavily loaded towards insiders. Such is the nature of political parties (the DFL is about the same, only different – it’s all about insiders from the various non-profts that are carrying most of the water for the actual party these days).
And it’s perhaps inevitable that Sutton’s record is mixed; he did a great job of scouting up major donors in a tough economy. He also spent a lot of money – with good reason (we had an election to win, after two very bad cycles).
Unfortunately, his budget, in addition to being in deficit, was a bit opaque. A group of activists is circulating a flyer saying that the GOP needs to provide the Central Committee’s delegates need to get not just the budget, but all the information leading to the budget, including a complete list of who the party owes money to, and how much. And until that happens, there is really no excuse for passing the budget as submitted. In the interest of disclosure, I was involved in writing thier flyer; the group involved represented a wide range of opinion; some long-time Sutton dissidents, some supporters with questions, some people who just want to see the party get on the right track and capitalize on the very real gains we picked up last election cycle.
Here’s the flyer:
The Republican Party of Minnesota Is Broke
It Is Your Job To Fix It.
The MNGOP Is In Crisis
The Minnesota GOP is broke. Worse? Nobody knows how broke it is.
Ask the leadership for a balance sheet – nobody can provide one. There is no transparency to this party’s budget process.
We’ve read the party’s list of creditors – and then read in the Star/Tribune that the party owes people who aren’t on the list. Why? Good question. Nobody in this room can tell you.
You wouldn’t run your business this way.
It’s our job, as State Central Committee delegates, to fix this.
State Central delegates are like a business’ board of directors; we provide a check and balance on management. Delegates need all of the party’s information to make sound decisions. See Article II of the party bylaws for a job description.
We Propose A Solution – And We Need Your Help.
· We need a plan to eliminate excessive debt, increase fundraising and win elections.
- We need full disclosure, accountability and transparency to form and implement this plan.
- We need a line by line analysis of the budget; where do the numbers come from? Are they effective uses of money? Is old debt included in these numbers?
To get the information you need to do your job as a delegate, you need to vote “No” on the proposed budget.
There needs to be a discussion on the budget, the plan to get out of debt and on the party’s leadership. Rubber-stamping the proposed budget will just kick the problem down the road.
Vote “No” on rubber-stamping the proposed budget.
A number of delegates are planning on submitting a motion to reject the budget and demand all of the needed information.
Not sure I’ll be able to hang around long enough to see that. The acting chair is talking rules right now. The joke is that they’re trying to bore any dissidents to death.
December 3rd, 2011 at 10:10 am
I’ll be interested to see how it turns out.
December 3rd, 2011 at 10:38 am
Does that mean Mike is running the party now or will the Central Committee pick a new chair?
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
December 3rd, 2011 at 11:45 am
Walter,
Michael Brodkorb resigned at Deputy Chair something like a month ago to work on Mike Parry’s campaign to unseat Tim Walz.
December 3rd, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Ooh! Berg said “the DFL is about the same, only different”! That’s a tacit endorsement of the DFL.
December 3rd, 2011 at 7:33 pm
Crazy thing is, the MNGOP is one of the very few State Party organizations where activists even get to SEE a budget, of any kind, let alone vote on it. Every two years we have a fight over a platform that few read and nobody understands because everybody thinks they’re a lawmaker. Now everybody thinks they’re an accountant, too? Why not leave this stuff to those we hire to do it, and ask an occasional question?
December 4th, 2011 at 9:40 am
J Ewing:
What part of Minnesota do you live in. The people in CPU let alone when I’ve gone to the state conventions have cared a great deal about the platform. They not only have read it, but they’re worried about how if you change one sentence it totally changes the policy that it enforces.
You don’t have to be accountant to be worried about does your organization spend too much money or is it being spent on the wrong things.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
December 4th, 2011 at 9:55 am
Mitch:
I found your hour on the Republican Party to be very interesting. For those people who say that the state party leadership is unfairly attacking Tom Emmer and trying to blame him for their mistakes I’ll like to talk about a story that has left me disappointed in Tom Emmer. For the record I gave money to Tom Emmer, I made phone calls and posts on computers defending him, and I voted for him.
A couple of months ago Emmer’s radio partner Bob Davis did a segment about the tax increase plan that had Warren Buffett’s name on it. Davis claimed that he was looking for other ideas and just don’t criticize it. A caller got on the air and correctly tried to make the point that we have a spending problem. Davis made fun of the concept of the spending problem and was calling for doing the tax increase so we can cut taxes for the average person (in other words talking like a liberal democrat). I had a person in the car with me that got a kick out of it because he thinks the rich should be taxed more and this only reinforced his thinking along with any liberals listening.
I sent both Davis and Emmer an email. Davis sent me an email which said I didn’t listen and I should listen! Emmer didn’t respond for a week and I think the timing of his response was made because I had sent their station manager a letter with a copy of Davis’ email showing he said I didn’t listen. Emmer defended his partner and said he thought it was good radio.
I’m sorry, but if Emmer cares more about defending his partner and doesn’t reconize bad radio when it happens he certainly must have been making mistakes and was partially responsible as Mike tried to point out for the loss of the governor’s race.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
December 5th, 2011 at 10:57 am
What part of Minnesota do you live in. The people in CPU let alone when I’ve gone to the state conventions have cared a great deal about the platform. They not only have read it, but they’re worried about how if you change one sentence it totally changes the policy that it enforces.
If that’s their concern, then they should stop worrying because the party platform doesn’t enforce any policies. No one – no delegate, no candidate, no elected official, no party official, no citizen or resident – is bound by the any part of the platform.
December 5th, 2011 at 11:04 am
Crazy thing is, the MNGOP is one of the very few State Party organizations where activists even get to SEE a budget, of any kind, let alone vote on it. Every two years we have a fight over a platform that few read and nobody understands because everybody thinks they’re a lawmaker. Now everybody thinks they’re an accountant, too? Why not leave this stuff to those we hire to do it, and ask an occasional question?
I agree with your criticisms of the platform but in this case I think that Mitch’s group insistence on an accounting of how the party ended up in the hole is warranted. Assuming that proper records were kept and no malfeasance occurred (which I assume was the case), it could be as simple a matter of showing how much was received and spent last year in various categories and then doing a comparison to this fiscal year and explain any categories that had any changes. You should be able do that in a PowerPoint presentation at the next meeting.