According to Bearing Drift, “resisters” are afoot, and the newly elected Chairwoman of the 6th District committee – representing all the people of the 6th – is “under siege!”
If only the drama — and the danger — were real, we’d have something that could really get people excited, or barring that, at least reading more political blogs.
The facts are far less interesting, yet far more serious.
The 6th District Chairwoman Jennifer Brown made several political missteps before and after her election at the 6th District Republican convention. In her campaign against the incumbent, she and her campaign accused him of financial misdeeds of the highest order. Several of her supporters filed FEC complaints. The Brown campaign worked hard to trace every hiccup during the run-up to the convention — and its election of our next Republican Congressman Ben Cline — back to something former Chairman Scott Sayre did.
Sayre is many things, but he is famous for three very important political crimes. First, Sayre challenged democrat-in-Republican-clothing Senator Emmett Hangar for the nomination in a Senatorial District Convention some years ago and embarrassed Hangar’s supporters. Second, Sayre led the victorious battle against the Virginia Incumbent Protection Act, which has now been declared unconstitutional, angering Bob Goodlatte among others. Third, Sayre defeated the Wendell Walker machine for the Chairmanship of the 6th District in 2016 and immediately began decentralizing “ownership” of voter databases to all of the units.
Contrary to the feverish fiction published by Committee member Craig Storrs, the 2018 campaign for 6th District Chair is now over. It has been over for months.
Jennifer, and her allies, including Craig Storrs and Wendell Walker, have been unable to move on, despite having achieved their goals,
Instead of doing their jobs, or in the case of Jennifer Brown, bothering to learn the bylaws of the Committee she now leads, there has been a never ending series of attacks on imagined enemies on the committee. Brown’s drama club has ceaselessly worried in public about how the majority of elected 6th District GOP leaders are planning to somehow defeat, defame, and marginalize the newly elected Chair.
The reality is very different. The committee has quietly adopted a judicious defensive position vis-à-vis the active FEC complaints that have put the committee and its current members at legal and financial risk. A key requirement of the committee, establishing a working budget, was fulfilled at the very first meeting on June 23rd. Beyond that, the majority of the members have refrained from public commentary, and when they have spoken publicly, the emphasis has been on education, explanation, and reciprocity. They have focused on the facts to correct the record that has been misrepresented, particularly on social media.
We saw this most recently in the September 6th meeting.
First, some background: Chairman Brown held an Executive Committee meeting on August 10th, where her allies hold the majority of votes. At this meeting, while completely outside of the committee’s authorized budget, the Chair determined that two $5,000 committee donations would be sent immediately to our two federal candidates. Rather than directing the Treasurer to write the checks, the Chairman went to the bank herself and had the teller prepare two checks, which she signed and gave to the candidates. One of these was cashed on the 13th of August. The Treasurer discovered that this had happened two weeks after the fact, and not from the Chair.
On the 6th, rather than reprimanding the Chairwoman for her rash action, and her misappropriation of your 6th District Republican Committee funds, the “resistance” passed a motion to retroactively authorize the checks that the Chairwoman wrote and signed on Monday, August 13th.
This committee majority of so-called resisting, ravenous Jennifer Brown haters decided to protect the 6th District GOP Committee, the Cline and Stewart campaigns, and even Jennifer Brown herself from credible allegations of serious financial misconduct. Brown’s allies on the committee angrily opposed to the motion. How dare the “resistance” try and help Chairman Brown?! She doesn’t need their help?!
Last but not least, most everyone at the meeting praised Vice Chairman John Massoud for being fair and impartial. This includes Dan Cullers, the Rockingham GOP Unit Chair who Mr. Massoud defeated for the position.
And there it is.
Chairman Brown and her small coterie of fanatical loyalists have been working all summer to create discord throughout the party, even trying to remove certain targeted Unit Chairs from the committee, through an endless barrage of social media harangues, libel, and transparent lies. Her speech on the convention floor is a faded memory and a dead letter.
It’s getting old, it’s boring as hell, and it doesn’t help get Corey Stewart and Ben Cline elected.
There is a turf war going on, but it‘s not the one Lynn Mitchell is describing. It’s a war that is far less understandable, far more idiotic, and far more harmful to our common goal of keeping the 6th District reliably red. Fortunately for the 6th District, wiser, and kinder heads are prevailing. We’re here to stay, and we’re here to help.
