It’s been a lousy six months in the life of the Minnesota GOP.<\/p>\n
Like an awful lot of Minnesota Republicans, I participate to try to work toward government <\/em>policy that is fiscally sound and respects individual liberty – not <\/em>because I personally feel I can bring any insights into the efficient operation of the party apparatus itself. \u00a0For the record, I offer no such insights; I stay on top of my household budget via the grace of God, a decent job and YNAB<\/a>. \u00a0A business? \u00a0Never tried it. \u00a0Doubt it’d work.<\/p>\n That’s why we – and by “we”, I mean “the party at large”, as opposed to “Mitch Berg and others”, since as a precinct convener in 2009 I had as much impact on the election of the party chair then as I do now with no party office whatsoever – elect someone to run the party. \u00a0But to the extent I supported anyone, I did it in large part based on the things that a state party chair is supposed to do: \u00a0Raise money and run a business.<\/p>\n Tony Sutton is quite a fund-raiser. \u00a0And he has run a business or two. \u00a0Beyond that, it was all greek to me.<\/p>\n Anyway, the MNGOP is a mess, and a bunch of very motivated people have spent the last six months trying to un-bumfuzzle the whole thing. \u00a0Henco Commissioner Jeff Johnson led a group of people – all of whom were by no means huge fans of Tony Sutton – and have\u00a0released their initial report<\/a>.<\/p>\n A report from the Minnesota Republican Party on its troubled finances delivered a frank admission of \u201cmisreporting\u2026 questionable decision-making\u2026 and lack of accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n The good news, according Jeff Johnson, chair of party\u2019s financial oversight committee, is \u201cfor me the fact that we didn\u2019t find any evidence that people were stealing money was reassuring.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Which doesn’t mean there aren’t big questions to be answered:<\/p>\n Among the revelations were payments of $18,000 to an investigator for research on the legalization of marijuana. According to the report, the investigator, Tim Goar, also helped with media relations, but \u201cGoar claims to have very few written reports and did not think he had saved any of his work. He says he had\u2026 only a verbal agreement with [Ryan] Griffin,\u201d the party\u2019s executive director. The report adds: \u201cWe were unable to successfully contact Griffin.\u201d<\/p>\n Griffin\u2019s name, and his apparent disappearing act, comes up several times. \u201cSome of Ryan Griffin\u2019s expense reports lacked documentation\u2026. We were unable to successfully contact Griffin,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n Griffin was paid $14,000 over his regular party salary for \u201clegal services\u201d and \u201clegal advice.\u201d But, the report noted again, \u201cWe were unable to locate any documentation detailing the services provided and were unable to successfully contact Griffin for more information regarding this issue.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n While there are those who will say “Oh, yeah? \u00a0I thought you said there was no stealing? \u00a0Huh? Huh? Huh?” I think the responsible response is that Johnson’s group are not criminal investigators; they are accountants. \u00a0They accounted for what they could, and raised the rest as questions to be answered in the next step.<\/p>\n This next bit will no doubt set the conspiracy-mongers to “puree”:<\/p>\n The report revealed that spinning off corporate entities was a common practice for the party. The party\u2019s Midwest Leadership Conference in October was run under the auspices of MLC, Inc., which owes more than $26,000, primarily to the DoubleTree Hotel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is a fairly common practice in business; spin off separate entities to isolate the accounting (and, in a pinch, the debt). \u00a0Is it ethical when the money’s not there to pay for it? \u00a0That’s a valid question.<\/p>\n Johnson claims the expenses that led to the party\u2019s $1.3 million debt offered \u201cno big surprises because all the items we had known about\u201d before the review. Still, some of the numbers are eye-popping — like $180,000 paid to a communications firm for a re-branding project, with more than $50,000 yet unpaid.<\/p>\n But the party\u2019s review was designed to deliver \u201cjust the facts, not the judgment whether something was wise or not wise,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n At any rate, the party seems to have managed to trim (according to one account ) half a million off its debt; with the rest, it’s heading in the right direction. \u00a0It’s bad, but probably salvageable:<\/p>\n While the report was less than comforting in assessing the party\u2019s shortcomings, Johnson voiced some optimism. \u201cThe simple fact is that most of these issues can be addressed by changes in our structure,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As we’ve noted in this space, not everyone is convinced. \u00a0Hell, I don’t have the knowledge, in and of myself, to be authoritatively convinced or not. \u00a0Just like three years ago.<\/p>\n Still, it’s my hunch we’re getting to the bottom of it. \u00a0My hunch and $2 will get you a cup of coffee, of course, but there you go.<\/p>\n Still…:<\/p>\n The report will not satisfy everyone, Johnson acknowledged. \u201cThere\u2019s a small group of folks that want a full forensic audit,\u201d he said, but the party can\u2019t afford that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I don’t know what a “full forensic audit” costs – but a cursory examination shows<\/a> it’s a lot of money. \u00a0And “Forensic Audits” focus on finding fraud (sort of – indeed, the definition of the term itself seems to be under some debate<\/a>), it might – might, maybe<\/em>\u00a0– be overkill for what the MNGOP needs, even if it could <\/em>afford another 5-6 figure professional consulting bill right now.<\/p>\n And the GOP’s State Central Committee – the “Board of Directors”, as it were – made that call at its meeting last December, in a majority vote of its elected members. \u00a0And it’s their <\/em>decision, right or wrong. \u00a0Not yours. \u00a0Not mine.<\/p>\n But here’s an idea (and it’s not mine, not by a long shot): All of you who want a forensic audit? \u00a0Raise the money, and pay for it! \u00a0<\/strong>Come up with the money it’d take to forensically <\/em>audit 3-5 years worth of books for an organization the size of the MNGOP (and from what I read, you’d do well to get that for less than $50,000) and commit it to the job!<\/p>\n Actions speak louder than words!<\/p>\n That, or get in there and find actual evidence <\/em>that Johnson’s investigation falls short in some key way.<\/p>\n I’m interested – very – in getting the GOP’s shop cleaned up. \u00a0Complete conservative dominance in Minnesota is the only thing that will prevent this state from turning into a cold Greece with boring food. \u00a0I’m not <\/em>interested in paying \u00a0a lot of money donated by a lot of ma and pa donors in order to put a pelt on someone’s wall unless there’s at least a whiff of smoke. \u00a0Six months ago, it seemed pretty plausible. Today? \u00a0I’ll take some convincing.<\/p>\n Bring the smoke, the money, or the State Central votes.<\/p>\n I just haven’t seen it yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s been a lousy six months in the life of the Minnesota GOP. Like an awful lot of Minnesota Republicans, I participate to try to work toward government policy that is fiscally sound and respects individual liberty – not because I personally feel I can bring any insights into the efficient operation of the party […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mngop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27797"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27805,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27797\/revisions\/27805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}