Randy Brogdon issued this statement today. He is a candidate for Republican Party chairman, opposing incumbent Dave Weston. Pam Pollard also is a candidate.
Currently there is pending legislation to opt out of the Super Tuesday primary elections on March 1st and move the Oklahoma primaries as far back as April 5th. At the behest of Chairman Dave Weston, without the approval or acknowledgment of the State Committee, SB 233 was presented and passed in the Senate. Now the bill is waiting to be heard on Wednesday, April 1st, in the Elections and Ethics Committee chaired by Representative Paul Wesselhoft.
If this piece of legislation were to pass, I believe that not only would it diminish Oklahoma’s role in the national debate, but it will also discourage participation and disenfranchise Republican voters. After the Super Tuesday primaries are held, many of the presidential candidates will drop out of the race leaving many Republican voters empty handed.
The claim for the legislation is that we must align Oklahoma with new RNC rules in order to maintain our proportional delegates. Not only is there a better way to comply with the new rules, ironically taking the route Chairman Weston has decided to take would strip Oklahoma of its proportional delegates and turn us into a ‘winner-take-all’ state.
As a candidate for State Party Chairman I wanted to weigh in on the pending legislation and express my concern that Oklahoma primary Republican voters will be losing their voice if this bill passes. Oklahoma is the reddest state in the Union and every Presidential candidate should feel obligated to visit with our voters. However, when we allow attempts to move our primary date as far back as April 5th, we are essentially saying that Oklahoma should not matter to these candidates. If the OKGOP were to consider any primary date change it should be for an earlier primary date, not a later one.
If I were the State Party Chairman today, I would take all of these arguments to the State Committee and ask them to call on the entire Elections & Ethics House Committee to kill this bill. If you agree with me and want to keep Oklahoma relevant in the 2016 Presidential Primaries, please call the members of the Elections & Ethics House Committee by April 1st and ask them to vote no on SB 233.
YAWN….who cares what Brogdon has to say these days?
Well “logician”, there are a whole lot of us who cares about what he says! He is a voice of reason & conservative principles. He cares that Oklahoma Republicans remain relevant in the 2016 Presidential elections! Hope he is our next State Chair who will lead with conviction and conservative principles.
The bill’s House Sponsor is pleading for the committee to pass the bill out of committee before the House deadline of April 8th.
He says that since the OKGOP convention will not have met by then (to get a sense of the party’s position) that prudence would mandate that the 7-member committee not forbid the GOP membership the opportunity to have a voice in this.
Well, Chairman Weston was the man who has denied the GOP members a voice in this.
He refused to call a State Party Committee meeting for several months, and instead, held a conference call of his hand-picked advisory committee (Executive Committee)
But while he controlled the motion and discussion; He had most of the conference call’s participants on mute.
According to former vice chairman, Pam Pollard was finally unmuted for the rollcall and she objected on parliamentary grounds, but her dissent was disregarded, according to a conversation I had with her about it.
The point is, while Weston claims the Executive committee supports his bill, It was not held in a meeting which conforms to Roberts Rules of Order or the OKGOP Rules.