Category: News

NCGOP District 1 Chairman Garry Terry has resigned.

His letter of resignation cites as reasons “a completely unqualified person attempt to lead the state party as chairman” and “vice chairman who cannot control her anger.”

We do not wish to further embarrass Mr. Terry by posting his entire letter of resignation, which it would certainly do.  Things went rather downhill from the quotes cited above.

However, we are proud to present the Vice Chairwoman’s statement acknowledging Mr. Terry’s resignation.

Statement on the Resignation of District 1 Chairman Gerry Terry
Michele Nix, Vice Chairwoman

In the absence of Chairman Harnett and with a heavy heart, this morning, I received the resignation of District 1 Chairman and Central Committee member Gerry Terry. His email is attached and has been forwarded to the NCGOP General Counsel’s office for dissemination.

I have had the pleasure of working with Mr. Terry for the past year and while we have had our disagreements, I have found him to be a man of principle. His service to the GOP and to our state has not gone unnoticed and I greatly appreciate all he has done for the NCGOP and District 1.

Unfortunately, we are at a time where tensions are running high within the GOP. I am continually working quietly in the background to find a resolution to the issues currently plaguing the NCGOP that could undermine what should be a stellar 2016 election for the Republican Party. I can understand the stress Mr. Terry and other members of the Central Committee are currently under and continue to urge them to find an amicable resolution so we can all begin working together to defeat Democrats this Fall.

Despite the stream of negative comments directed at me, I am not seeking Chairman Harnett’s job and continue to urge caution and patience in all matters regarding the NCGOP. My primary goal is to spread the great news about Republican solutions and candidates in North Carolina.

In 2013, Governor McCrory inherited from the Democrats a state government plagued with the fifth highest unemployment in the nation. Since taking office, Governor McCrory and our Republican-led General Assembly have presided over an economic engine in North Carolina. Our state has added 260,000 new jobs, and is now 6th in the nation for most jobs created. Governor McCrory and our fellow Republicans have lowered taxes, improved educational choice, provided teachers with better pay, cut tons of government waste, cut job killing regulations, and they continue to strengthen North Carolina families.

As Vice Chairman of the NCGOP, I am proud to carry our conservative message across the state and I look forward to working with all of our Republican candidates to get elected and re-elected in November. Let’s get back to work spreading the good news of the Republican Party!

The above was written by a person with class.  Someone I am proud to call a fellow Republican.

Edit:  We now hear that Mr. Terry wants to rescind his resignation.  Decorum restrains us from sharing our opinion of that.

We have been told that NCGOP Chairman Hasan Harnett’s email had to be shut off due to some sort of “security threat”.  For example, here is a quote from Deputy Secretary Scott Cumbie’s Facebook Note:

Within a few days a more serious act occurred. Since the details have not been made public, I will summarize what happened to the information that has been made public. The NCGOP staff was informed that an attack on the NCGOP servers and website was eminent. In an effort to protect the NCGOP’s electronic presence, remote e-mail IDs were disabled; websites were shut down; ISPs, hosting companies, ASPs and financial institutions were all contacted about a possible eminent threat.

This evening, while perusing the Chairman’s posts on Twitter, I found this:

The Chairman had tweeted the above screenshot on March 8 when he discovered his email was disabled. His comment on the image was: “My NCGOP Google email account is disabled. Really!!?? Normally I wouldn’t say anything but that is a bit much.”

Indeed, it was a bit much.  But they HAD to do it to secure assets against http://www.ccapac.org/2016/02/07/somebody-hit-a-nerve/an attack, right?

WRONG!

First, let me explain that I have been employed as a software engineer and in various other information technology capacities in industries from aviation to finance to material handling for about 30 years, and have been focused on web development for the past seven years.

When I saw that screen shot, I thought “hmmm… they use Google for their email, and had to shut it down due to a security threat?  That just doesn’t make sense.”  When Google is threatened by a security threat, that is BIG news, the kind that the world hears about if it requires that email accounts be disabled. The chances that Google email accounts would have to be disabled due to a “security threat” are slim to none.  Slim left town last week, and None has been gone for ages.

If my technical description that follows makes your eyes start to glaze over, please, rather than leaving this page, scroll down and read the last two paragraphs.

My suspicions caused me to see what I could find out about NCGOP’s email server.  Guess what I found?  Google is NCGOP’s email server!  Now, what follows is a bit of “inside baseball” tech stuff, but it reveals the evidence.  I will do my best to explain it so that folks who aren’t computer geeks like me can grasp it.  It may omit some steps for clarity, but the essentials of the process are there.

First, it is useful to understand what Domain Name Service (DNS) is.  It is a worldwide network of servers that translate domain names such as google.com or NC4Hasan.com to an IP (Internet Protocol) address.  It is something like the phone book we all once used on a regular basis.  If you wanted to call someone, you looked under their name in the phone book, and found their number.  DNS is like a phone book where one server looks up the host name of another server to find its IP address.

If you send an email to someone at ncgop.org, your email server asks it’s DNS server “what is the IP address of the mail server for ncgop.org”.  The DNS server replies with the IP address, something like 173.194.207.27.  The email server then contacts the server at 173.194.207.27 to transfer your email message to that server.

Now, if I haven’t lost you, give yourself a pat on the back.  Thanks for hanging in there.  If I have lost you, don’t feel bad.  Just remember to scroll to the end of the article before you leave.

If I sit down at my computer and open a terminal window (I use Linux, on a Windows machine this is a “command window”) and run the command “dig mx ncgop.org”, the command tells me the host names of the email servers that handle mail for ncgop.org.  It looks like this:

Let me help you with the gobbledegook above.  Under the header “ANSWER SECTION”, we see that there are five servers that can handle mail for ncgop.org.  Notice anything there?  For all five, the domain name is either google.com or googlemail.com!

Under the heading “ADDITIONAL SECTION”, we see the IP addresses of two of those servers.  If we need any confirmation that these are in fact servers operated by Google, we can go to domaintools.com (and other sites who offer WHOIS lookups) to find who owns those IP addresses.  Here is what domaintools.com has to say about IP address 74.125.24.27:

If you are wondering about the other address shown in the earlier screenshot, check the line titled “NetRange”.  You will see that the information in the image above applies to IP addresses from 74.125.0.0 to 74.125.255.255.  In geek terms, that is an entire Class B network that includes both of the addresses shown in the earlier screen shot.

One thing has been proven above:  NCGOP uses Google for email.  There is not a thing wrong with this, but it casts significant doubt on the claim that email accounts were disabled due to some “security threat”.

Now, the critical reader might well argue that while I have provided significant evidence, I haven’t yet conclusively proven that anyone lied about why email accounts were disabled.

Stay tuned.  There is more to come.

Edit:  The “more to come” is here.

By: Paul Yeager
Often, significant things are revealed to us as we prepare for bed.  As I perused Facebook last night, I came upon the following post by fellow Patriot Lynette Crump Ramsey:

So, reading the Plan of Organization tonight…you know, bedtime stories and all…anyway, it jumped out at me…the part about the state finance committee. The COMMITTEE is tasked with raising the money to properly finance the business and affairs of the Party. This committee consists of the State Finance Chair, The Congressional Finance chairs, and the State Chairman. If raising money is an issue….maybe they should look at what the Plan says… My question is “do they really even know what their rulebook says?”

Lynette raises an excellent point.  Just what does the Plan of Organization say on the matter?  Article VI contains the following on page 21:

D. STATE FINANCE COMMITTEE
1. Membership
The Finance Committee shall consist of the State Finance Chairman, the Congressional District Finance Chairmen and the State Chairman. The State Finance Chairman shall serve as the Chairman of the State Finance Committee. Other Officers as may be deemed necessary may be elected by the Members of the Committee.
2. Powers and Duties
It shall be the duty of the State Finance Committee to develop ways and means to properly finance the General Election campaigns and other businesses and affairs of the Republican Party. The Committee shall manage a united fund-raising effort in cooperation with the State Central Committee and District and County Organizations for effective fund-raising campaigns. Said Committee shall not, directly or indirectly, raise or collect funds for the benefit of any candidates in Primary Elections. All persons making contributions to the State Party of $100.00 or more shall be furnished with a receipt thereof.
Contributions going directly to the National Committee or to any candidate shall not be acknowledged by the State Treasurer or recorded as a regular contribution to the Republican Party of North Carolina. A permanent record of all contributions shall be maintained by the State Chairman and the State Treasurer, and such records shall be available, upon request, to the appropriate County and District Chairmen.

Note the sentence “It shall be the duty of the State Finance Committee to develop ways and means to properly finance the General Election campaigns and other businesses and affairs of the Republican Party.”

It would therefore appear that at least one of the claims that have been made against the Chairman are disingenuous and/or ignorant of the facts. As astute followers of this web site have seen, there are others.

And in response to Lynette’s question posed in her Facebook post, my reply is “They probably know, but I have seen scant evidence that they care”.

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) – More than a week after North Carolina GOP Central Committee members voted to censor Chairman Hasan Harnett, controversy continues to grow.

The committee originally gave eight reasons to censor the chairman, including fee differences for tickets to the GOP Convention and publicly posting things that discredited the party.

New details have emerged linking a Pitt Community College employee to the situation that eventually led to Harnett being censored and restricted by his own party.

After being locked out of his account, Harnett received a message from PCC instructor, and GOP district 3 webmaster, Ken Robol.

In the message, Robol told Harnett that he could hack into the website to give the chairman access.The two continued to communicate, eventually leading to a phone call.

Robol said he never meant to harm anyone or do anything illegal.

“I thought they were in crisis situation that I could help, just, that’s it,” Robol said.

Robol said the phone call with Harnett lasted just a few minutes. Harnett said he never accepted Robol’s offer to hack into the website, and Robol said he would have never gone through with it.

Robol said he didn’t agree with some of the reasons why Harnett would want access to the website again. Following the phone call, he alerted Tom Stark, the NC GOP’s legal counsel, to the situation.

“There could be some potentially unethical things, and I just didn’t want to be a part of it,” Robol said.

On Monday, WNCT confirmed there is an investigation at PCC into Robol. However, the details of the investigation were not able to be released.

Harnett said he thinks there is an underlying conspiracy in the NC GOP that has led to the current state of the party.

“We just need to come together, and this is not the time continue down the path of witch hunts,” he said.

With an important election year in North Carolina, Harnett said the drama is distracting from their main mission of getting Republican candidates elected.

Dallas Woodhouse, the executive director of the NC GOP, agreed. However, Woodhouse blamed the attention the party was getting on Harnett.

“The proper place to work through these issues is not through the media. The Chairman’s insistence in airing internal party business in public is purposefully harmful to electing republicans,” Woodhouse said in a statement to WNCT.

Harnett said it was Woodhouse and the committee who first made the rift in the party public after censoring him. He said his mission remains being open and honest, and doesn’t approve of other party members hiding behind non-disclosure agreements. He said voters in the state deserve to know the truth.

“The current behavior, as exhibited by the person who wrote that statement, clearly it goes opposite of what they believe in,” Harnett said.

Harnett has called on the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to investigate a possible conspiracy in the NC GOP party. He also is calling on other party leaders to release all of the documents pertaining to the case to the public.

The NC GOP will meet again in April, where Harnett could be completely removed as chairman of the party.

The Republican Convention in the state is scheduled for early May. The convention is when delegates are selected to eventually nominate the Republican Presidential candidate.

From Brant Clifton at The Daily Haymaker:

Brant Clifton at The Daily Haymaker

Hasan Harnett’s lynch mob has been using alleged “hacking” and alleged fundraising incompetence as their motivation for ending the current state party chairman’s reign early.  Apparently, from today’s Wall Street Journal, the mob is backing off the hacking B.S. and is running with the fundraising incompetence angle.

We decided to do some digging to see how well this fundraising incompetence allegation stands up — or doesn’t.  If you troll on over to the FEC database, you can find month-by-month filings from the NC GOP going back YEARS.

To be fair, we compared Harnett against three previous chairmen for the first nine months of their chairmanships.   Linda Daves was elected to a full term as chairman in June 2007.  According to FEC records — from July 1 2007 to March 1 2008 —  the NCGOP had receipts totaling $753,044.80.

Robin Hayes served from June 2011 to June 2013. According to FEC filings — from July 2011 to March 1 2012 — the NCGOP had receipts totaling $595,588.31.

Claude Pope served as NCGOP chairman from June 2013 to June 2015.  According to the party’s FEC filings – from July 1 2013 to March 1 2014 – the NCGOP had receipts totaling $791,161.07.  

Hasan Harnett was elected chairman in June 2015.  He’s been locked out of the headquarters building, his party email, and party fundraising databases on-and-off since that time. He’s also had to deal with the rise of affiliated committees and donors being told to sit on their hands.  According to FEC filings — from July 1 2015 to March 1 2016 – the NCGOP had receipts totaling $658,783.67.

So, let’s recap.  The allegedly incompetent NCGOP chairman has presided over a party that has taken in more than it did under Robin Hayes during the same time period, and is not far off from the marks set by Linda Daves and Claude Pope.  I don’t remember anyone in authority calling for Robin Hayes’s head over “fundraising incompetence.”

Also, of note — Pope took a six-figure salary. (Also, to my knowledge, Neither Hayes, Pope, nor Daves were harassed daily by people who are supposed to be their teammates nor locked out of the office, email, or files.  Pope, Hayes, and Daves also didn’t have to deal with funds being diverted to affiliated committees and super PACs.)    Harnett is not taking a salary.

NCGOP $$$ intake under Harnett beats Hayes (not far from Daves, Pope)

Brant Clifton at The Daily Haymaker

Jim Womack is a widely-respected Republican leader.  He’s a military veteran, and has been a Lee County commissioner and an appointee in the McCrory administration.  He serves on the state GOP executive committee and is a member of the party’s resolutions committee.

In an email to his county party chairman and county executive committee, Womack minced no words in discussing the turmoil surrounding the state central committee and state party chairman Hasan Harnett:

[…] I keep hearing that all then dirty little details about Hasan’s actions will be forthcoming from the state GOP, but after a week or more nothing has been provided. This note and powerpoint from Hasan are pretty damning towards the Central Committee. I will again make a call for the resignation of everyone involved in Hasan’s email being cut off at our district convention, and at the next state meeting or convention. In fact, I will be drafting a resolution demanding those resignations to present on the floor at the state convention. It is high time the Central Committee took a hard look at their over-reach and in failing to meet the will of the Executive Committee.

Hasan was duly elected by the rank and file. It is completely inappropriate and a slap in the face to the state GOP for this underhanded and non-transparent behavior to have taken place. Woodhouse needs to go, right along with anyone who had a role in any false allegations against Hasan and in his email being shut down without his consent.[…]

Here’s the powerpointWomack references in his note.

For what it’s worth, it’s good to see a grownup trying to provide some leadership in this situation.  Where the heck are the governor, lieutenant governor, and US senators — the top of the GOP ticket in November? 

Some may dismiss all of this as too inside-baseball.  But the candidates need to be aware that this nonsense at the state party is leaving a bad taste in the mouths of a whole lot of folks they’re going to need to put out their campaign signs, canvass door-to-door, and work the polls for November. 

Updated March 27, 2016 8:48 p.m. ET

RALEIGH, N. C.—An outsider who was elected chairman of North Carolina’s Republican Party against the wishes of its leaders is in a feud with party brass—a fight that mirrors tensions in the national GOP and is hampering party activity in this swing state during an election year.

Chairman Hasan Harnett was barred from party headquarters in Raleigh last week and cut off from GOP email and other accounts after pushing to reduce the cost of a ticket to the party’s May 6-7 convention to zero from $90.

Mr. Harnett, the state party’s first black chairman, said the convention fee amounts to a “poll tax,” and that he was trying to fulfill his campaign promise to make party involvement more attractive. “This is a fight for the movement that’s going on all over this nation,” he said. “People are sick and tired of being bullied by the small few who control everything.”

The North Carolina GOP’s central committee censured Mr. Harnett on March 20, citing eight “gross violations” of party rules, including advertising unauthorized fees for the convention, and wasting staff and volunteer time. The committee is circulating a petition that is a procedural step toward Mr. Harnett’s removal.

“His actions have effectively frozen the party,” said Matthew Arnold, GOP chairman of the 4th congressional district in central North Carolina, who voted to censure Mr. Harnett.

Mr. Arnold said he voted for Mr. Harnett for chairman last June over a better-known candidate endorsed by Gov. Pat McCrory and U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis. Since then, he said, “it’s been one disappointment after another.”

Party leaders say Mr. Harnett, a motivational speaker and a former Democrat, has failed in the traditional chief duty of the chairman—to raise money. On his own, Mr. Harnett raised $37,000, which they say covers roughly one month of the party’s operating budget and nowhere near the costs of holding a convention or mounting a unified campaign in presidential, gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races in November.

Mr. Harnett said he raised considerably more than $37,000, if contributions raised by staff members are included. He said he has been given little autonomy and scant access to resources like party records, which set him up to fail.

It isn’t clear that the move to oust Mr. Harnett will succeed, as it will require a series of votes among hundreds of party leaders over the next month, Mr. Arnold said.

“Things are always a gamble,” Mr. Arnold said. “But we want to make sure people understand where we are.”

Mr. Harnett said he wouldn’t go quietly, even though he knows the fight is ugly. “Who likes to see Republicans eat their own?” he said.

The tension in North Carolina between the party’s establishment and grass-roots activists mirrors a dynamic at the national level that has propelled businessman Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to the top of the GOP primary heap ahead of more mainstream candidates, said Michael Bitzer, a political scientist at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C.

The fight matters, Mr. Bitzer said, since North Carolina is a Republican-leaning swing state that was carried by two points by Mitt Romney in 2012 and by less than one point by then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008. “If Republicans don’t win North Carolina, how does the Republican ticket win the White House?” he said. “If you’re facing a competitive environment, public spats are not what you want,” he said.

Party leaders are hoping to force Mr. Harnett out before May’s state convention, which has outsize significance this year because of the selection of delegates to this summer’s national GOP convention in Cleveland. Mr. Trump won the largest number of delegates in North Carolina’s primary in March, with Mr. Cruz coming in second. It is possible that delegates to the national convention could ultimately choose the nominee if Mr. Trump, the front-runner, fails to win enough delegates to clinch the nomination outright.

Some North Carolina GOP leaders say they had to censure Mr. Harnett now to avoid confusion over the way the state convention is run. If the process of selecting delegates for the national convention is compromised, they say, the legitimacy of the state’s delegation could be challenged.

A party spokesman, Scott Cumbie, said Sunday that the censure was the result of performance issues, and not related to the timing of the convention.

Mr. Harnett cites the importance of the national convention as one reason he is fighting to stay. The North Carolina GOP needs to send delegates who will stay loyal to Messrs. Trump and Cruz in the event of a contested convention where other names could emerge, he said. If the state convention is dominated by the traditional wing of the party, voters who chose Messrs. Trump and Cruz could “be disenfranchised by people who represent something totally different,” he said.

Many Republicans see the party infighting as an esoteric issue, and say the rank-and-file members are clearly enthusiastic about November based on the record primary turnout. Allies of Messrs. McCrory and Burr say the race is a distraction, but not a hindrance.

“We have no concerns about the party’s ability to work through its current issues and still be in place to play a major role in supporting all the party’s nominees,” said Chris LaCivita, chief strategist for Mr. McCrory.

Harnett allies say traditional GOP leaders in North Carolina are tone-deaf. “The grass-roots, Tea Party conservatives in the state are really, really angry,” said Eric Haynes of Clayton, N.C. “I feel like they don’t want us in the Republican Party.”

Write to Valerie Bauerlein at valerie.bauerlein@wsj.com

http://www.wsj.com/articles/republican-party-rift-in-north-carolina-mirrors-feud-at-national-level-1459111188

Note:  This is a post from the Webmaster, not Chairman Harnett

In the recent censure of the duly elected Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, did the Central Committee follow the rules?

You decide.

This discussion will examine the applicable rules in light of the NCGOP Central Committee’s “No Confidence, Censure and Restriction of NCGOP Chairman” document released on March 20, 2016.  The first paragraph of that document states:

The North Carolina Republican Party (NCGOP) Central Committee, in its duties to oversee the day to day management of the Party and to protect the Party’s integrity, passed a formal resolution of no confidence in NCGOP Chairman Hasan Harnett.

Let’s examine the relevant rules.

NCGOP Plan of Organization (PoO)

The Plan of Organization or PoO is NCGOP’s constitution and bylaws, setting forth in black and white how that Party’s business is to be conducted.  A new plan (which might be just like the old plan) is adopted each year at the State Convention.  In evaluating this controversy, it is a useful reference.

When reviewing the PoO for sections relevant to this issue, we first encounter paragraph 5.b on page 21, which says:

b. Procedure for removal of any Member or Officer is defined in Article VII A.7 The decision of the State Executive Committee shall be final.

Now the astute reader will notice that the above paragraph refers to the State Executive Committee, not the Central Committee.  Keep in mind that there has been no request or recommendation from the Executive Committee on this matter.  It is also relevant that the PoO defines the Executive Committee, not the Central Committee as having:

supreme management of all affairs of the Party within the State.  It may delegate such duties as it deems proper
to the State Central Committee.

(Section 2 – Powers and Duties of Committee, page 19)

Was the action of censuring the Chairman delegated to the Central Committee?

The reader may also note that the citation refers to removal rather than censure.  The PoO mentions no procedure for censure.  Hold that thought, as we’ll discuss situations not explicitly covered by the PoO in a moment.

So, what does Article VII A.7 say?  It’s on page 24.  The relevant paragraph a.1 says:

a. Any Member of a Committee organized under this Plan may be removed either:

1. By a 2/3’s vote of the respective Committee after being furnished with notice of the charges against him, signed by the lesser of (i) 50 Members or (i) one-third of the Members of the respective Committee. Any Republican against whom charges are brought shall be furnished with 2 weeks notice of
said charges and be given an opportunity to present a defense. Removal by a vote of the respective Committee shall be confined to gross inefficiency, Party disloyalty (as defined herein) or failure to comply with the County, District, or State Party Plans of Organization.

Does the procedure defined above apply to removal of the chairman?  The author finds that unclear.  If it is assumed to apply, then we must ask:

• Was a notice of charges against the Chairman served?
• If so, was such notice served with 2 weeks notice?
• Did the charges therein fit those specified above?
• Was the Chairman given an opportunity to present a defense?

If the answer to any of the above questions is “no”, then the actions of the Central Committee were not compliant with the PoO.

The author finds the above citations to be the ones most relevant to the issue.  There is no language specific to censure of the Chairman, or anyone else for that matter.

So, if there are no provision of the PoO that specifically apply, what do we do?  Fortunately, the Plan of Organization spells that out for us.  Paragraph VII.C.2 on page 30 says:

2. Parliamentary Authority
The current edition of Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised shall govern all proceedings, except when inconsistent with this State Plan of Organization or Convention Rules properly adopted.

Note that the above citation says “all proceedings”.  As it does not say “convention proceedings” or “county executive committee meetings”, it clearly applies to all proceedings, which would include those of the Central Committee.

Which brings us to…

Robert’s Rules of Order

Robert’s Rules of Order is the short title of a book, written by Henry Martyn Robert, that is intended to be a guide for conducting meetings and making decisions as a group.

Originally published in 1876, it has been revised regularly through the years, including two major revisions, by Robert and his successors based on feedback from users. The most recent version is the 11th Edition published in 2011 under the name Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised (abbreviated RONR).

As stated in the PoO citation above, Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised shall govern all proceedings.  So, what do Robert’s Rules say about the current controversy?

In the third paragraph of section 75, we find the following:

In either case, the committee investigates the matter and reports to the society. This report need not go into details, but should contain its recommendations as to what action the society should take, and should usually close with resolutions covering the case, so that there is no need for any one to offer any additional resolutions upon it. The ordinary resolutions, where the member is recommended to be expelled, are (1) to fix the time to which the society shall adjourn; and (2) to instruct the clerk to cite the member to appear before the society at this adjourned meeting to show cause why he should not be expelled, upon the following charges which should then be given.

and in the fifth paragraph:

The clerk should send the accused a written notice to appear before the society at the time appointed, and should at the same time furnish him with a copy of the charges. A failure to obey the summons is generally cause enough for summary expulsion.

Was the Chairman given such notice?

Was the Chairman given an opportunity to show cause?

If the answer to either question above is “no”, then the Central Committee did not comply with Robert’s Rules of Order, as required by the PoO as cited earlier.

Edit 03/26/2016 1:20 PM EDT:

Robert’s Rules also states:

A deliberative assembly has the inherent right to make and enforce its own laws and punish an offender, the extreme penalty, however, being expulsion from its own body. When expelled, if the assembly is a permanent society, it has the right, for its own protection, to give public notice that the person has ceased to be a member of that society.

But it has no right to go beyond what is necessary for self-protection and publish the charges against the member. In a case where a member of a society was expelled, and an officer of the society published, by its order, a statement of the grave charges upon which he had been found guilty, the expelled member recovered damages from the officer in a suit for libel, the court holding that the truth of the charges did not affect the case.

Clearly, someone present at the Central Committee meeting, if not the Committee itself, made the decision to “go beyond what is necessary for self-protection and publish the charges against the member”, contrary to Robert’s Rules.

(end edit)

Which brings us back to the original question:

Did the North Carolina Republican Party Central Committee follow the rules in its censure of Chairman Hasan Harnett?

You decide.

Note:  This is a post from the Webmaster, not Chairman Harnett

Did Scott Cumbie come right out and say “you don’t matter”?  No, he did not.

However, in his haste to malign Chairman Harnett, he might have inadvertently let a but too much truth seep out.  In a recent Facebook Note titled “A Resolution of No Confidence”, Cumbie said the following:

In making his case against Chairman Harnett, he likens the NCGOP Organization to a corporation, and describes the organization as follows:

In summary, if you were to compare the NCGOP organization to a corporation, this would be a rough comparison:
Executive Committee (EC) – Shareholders
Central Committee (CC) – Board of Directors
Chairman – Chairman of the Board
Vice-Chairman – Vice Chairman of the Board
Executive Director (ExDir) – President
Plan of Organization (PoO) – Constitution and By-Laws

Can the reader see what is missing from this?

THE MEMBERSHIP!

It would appear that in Cumbie’s view, (having been designated as “shareholders”) the Executive Committee “owns” NCGOP!

I don’t see how else to read it.  At best, Mr. Cumbie is misinformed regarding corporate structure.  At worst, he confirms what many of us “little people” out here in the grass roots feel – we don’t matter.

Furthermore, the astuste reader will note that Mr. Cumbie places the Central Committee above the Executive Committee.  This is contrary to the Plan of Organization, which says:

The Committee shall formulate and provide for the execution of such plans and measures as it may deem conducive to the best interests of the Republican Party. It shall approve an Auditing Committee of at least 3 Members, 1 of who shall be a Certified Public Accountant, to conduct a yearly review, as described in Article VI, Section E; adopt a budget; and have supreme management of all affairs of the Party within the State. (speaking of Executive Committee on page 19, emphasis by author)

and

It may delegate such duties as it deems proper to the State Central Committee. (ibid)

Clearly, the Plan of Organization doesn’t agree with Mr. Cumbie’s model.

You can find Cumbie’s entire missive here.