The first piece of action during the Homer SCC meeting was during roll-call when they refused to seat the legally elected chair of District 12 (with the minutes to prove it). The current oligarchy has made up a rule that even empty precinct seats count against a District Committee’s quorum. This not only flies in the face of common sense and ALL historical precedent, but means almost no district in the state can have a legal quorum for their meetings.

This position also goes against the testimony of those who were present when the precincts were eliminated from the rules. Those who had been involved when the rules were revised, pointed out that the only “authorized” precinct seats on the committee were those that were filled. I talked to a number of District Chairmen who have now decided not to try and hold any meetings, since something similar might happen to them. It basically gives the Establishment the ability to shut down any district they want, and keep their money if their account was handled by the State party; in fact, the Treasurer has refused to give the money back to District 12 after they passed a resolution requesting their funds back. Later in the meeting the SCC voted to have the “interim” chair, someone who had lost a prior election to the committee and was appointed by the State chair, completely reorganize District 12, breaking the rules set in place that require the secretary to be in charge of any reorganization.

Next, some special orders were brought up just for this meeting, most of no consequence, but along the lines of secrecy that have been implemented (i.e. no recordings) they even tried to ban photographs. I motioned to remove that restriction and it was removed by the body.

The appeals were then held for Russ Millette and Debbie Brown. In a real display of poor process, the SCC made up rules that new evidence couldn’t be submitted. Nevertheless, the body overrode the chair when it came to Debbie Brown’s appeal, since she hadn’t been given the chance to present evidence before. Both appeals were rejected, though the evidence was overwhelming in their favor, but right and wrong didn’t get to play into it. What we saw was the same drama we’ve seen over the last year since the 2012 State Convention; the moderates stomping on the conservatives without regard for rule by law or the vote of the convention.

One of the sad points that was raised included the fact that Mrs. Brown had found out that the Regional Reps (except for the Fairbanks region) had no proof of being elected. One of those reps, who had lost the election at the convention, was the one who charged Debbie Brown, but three months later he still had no proof of his election. This also echoes a point that was brought up in the District 12 fiasco where someone had appointed themselves precinct leader, and demanded to be part of the District committee and was one of the complainants against the District 12 committee because they wouldn’t just accept his word for it. It really highlighted how the standards of voting have degenerated for our party.

The SCC approved all the committee assignments, but without splitting them up to allow comments. So now, we have the same rules committee that has always excluded all the charges against those on their side of the fence, and has never even bothered to fix the typos in the rules. The only change made was to swap the chairman with someone else in the committee. Note that the last chairman, who is now still a member of the committee, was the one who spoke publicly against the Republican Senate candidate in 2010, and was running the committee that dismissed the charges against himself.

The Vice-Chair was then elected, with the encouraging result of David Eichler, a conservative dentist from North Pole, being elected.

Finally, the SCC voted on the next conventions. One positive result was that Fairbanks was voted to have it for 2016. The negative result was that Juneau was chosen for 2014 (May 1-3). While I enjoyed the 2010 convention there, and the people in Juneau do a good job running events; it is the most expensive venue to have a convention, since you have to fly in and the hotel rates are very high. It was sad that Wasilla was denied after not having a convention there for many years, but many more grassroots conservatives would have made it to Wasilla, so it just couldn’t be allowed to happen. We can only hope that the conservative republicans in the State overcome the obstacles that the moderates have set before them and participate in the 2014 State Convention, not allowing the triumph of evil men.

The next SCC meeting was then set for August 24th in Fairbanks. Immediately after the meeting the Assistant Secretary, who had also been elected by the same group of conservatives as the ousted chairs, resigned.
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Lance Roberts is a Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly member who is also the Alaska Republican Party District 5 Chair.