Turmoil at the Broward GOP, Again
The highly anticipated fireworks at Monday night’s Broward Republican Executive Committee started off with a bang, but ended with a dud. The first order of business was the Chairman and Vice Chairman’s election to the Committee. Many in the room, including myself, have been 
doubtful about how fairly the election would be conducted. That doubt turned out to be rightly justified during the process of electing the new Chairman, when now former Chairman Chip LaMarca did not acknowledge a motion from floor to table the election. The motion in question was then seconded, and LaMarca immediately addressed another motion rather than dealing with the first motion to table the election. The motion to table the election was within the rules, so it is a mystery as to why it was ignored. Be that as it may, the motion to table the election was recinded by the member who called for it in the first place. After about 10-15 minutes of bickering back and forth with both sides pleading their case, the election took place.
Later on, Vice Chairman Cindy Guerra won the Chairman position over BREC member Tim McClellan by an overwhelming majority. From what I understand, several conference calls were conducted between ‘the powers that be’ in the BREC, and several other prospective candidates for the positions were voted on last night. So one could say that the fix could have been in, or maybe not. At any rate, the candidates that the poobahs wanted to win, wound up winning.
As always, many candidates like Allen West, Karen Harrington, Robert Lowry, David Maymon, Yomin Postelink, and Brian Reilly were in attendance. Brian Reilly, candidate for Congress is District 20, announced the support he received from New Media guru from BigGovernment.com and Big Journalism.com, Andrew Breitbart.
Hopefully, the new Committee will embrace the new members that were read on last night, as well as the future members that will be read on. These new members will have a vital role to play in shaping the party’s future, and they will be key to winning Republican seats in Broward County and across the state.
Not that I want to dignify your blog, Javier…but as a BREC Member I take issue with your accusations. Your ignorance of party procedure and rules is obvious. The rules were followed appropriately. Everyone knows the efforts to table the election were only to “stack the deck” in your candidates’ favor with new members.
Why is it that whenever your side loses fair and square, you allude to a conspiracy?
I think I heard 17 new members and alternates read on…including yourself as an alternate. hhhmmmmm. You say above that “Many in the room, including myself, have been doubtful about how fairly the election would be conducted. That doubt turned out to be rightly justified during the process of electing the new Chairman.” You’ve also alluded to a conspiracy on the BREC.
Three words: Party Loyalty Oath.
Why did BREC wait until after the vote to read the new members? If they read them before the vote would they have not been able to participate in the vote? These new members include individuals that have been waiting since August 2009 to have their memberships processed. This is strangely familiar process, something like a Pelosi/Obama strategy. Why did Chip “threaten” to stay on another six months?
The loyalty oath pertains to supporting Republican candidates against non-Republican challengers. It has nothing to do with the reporting of party meetings. That said, we have a new team in place for the next seven months so let’s move forward and win.
I Also attended and having some awareness of the desire of many to see “fresh blood” at work in leadership of BREC, I had a somewhat different view of what took place. I did not see it as chaos or even ill tempered.
A few BREC members wanted to see the process delayed to allow other candidates to become available for the position and to have those choices fairly considered. The ruckus, if one could even call it that, was Charmian LaMarca refused to allow the Motion to Table which was seconded to go to vote. He side barred for a parliamentarian discussion on “Robert’s Rules” vs. the County Constitution.
Chairman LaMarca now advised, moved on with the election for Chairman.
The outcome was pre determined and it went as planned with a little dust up in between. This is the price all Republican’s must pay for ignoring the relevancy of BREC for all too long.
The existing power clan has allowed BREC to fall to having less than half of the County precincts with out any Committee persons. This is not an accident it is purposeful. Republicans need to ask why? That is the real story here, why has this leadership clan allowed its political structure to decay.
Hi, It saddens me that any Republican would enlist the Saul Alinsky tactics to take power. That is what I have been seeing at these BREC meetings.Moderate is not a bad thing. We need to elects as many R’s as we can because even moderates can pull this socialist agenda back more toward center-maybe even center right. Right now you are seeing the leftist takeover of the Congress because the Republican party likes to beat up on itself and it’s leaders.If we would have hung tough on Iraq which ,by the way, turned out to be a huge historial success we would not have lost in 2006 when the dems took over .We have just dumped a Senatorial candidate who was ahead of the dem opponent by 30 points.The dems, as much as I do not like their politics, have enough brains only to replace a loser. And by the way, Chip is a dedicated Republican who deserves our thanks.
I was at the meeting and what I don’t understand is why Cindy just didn’t move up to the leadership position. Why is there a Vice-chair if not to take over if something happens to the Chairman. It would have made things much easier with no problems.
We must elect Republicans to office to stop what is going on.
Let not your hearts be burdened my fellow Republicans. Rubio will still be nominated and it will be our job to put him over the top in the general election no matter how “moderate” our BREC leadership is.
Frankly, it is nice to see a “Latina” made the new County GOP Chair. We need diversity in our ranks, especially as Obama schemes to make the national Hispanic vote entirely Democratic.
Let’s focus on winning the U.S. Senate seat for Rubio!!!
Believe in yourself my fellow conservatives !!! We must win in November !!!
Viva Rubio and the Florida GOP!!!
Actually the BREC meeting was mild compared to some! Opening the Sun-Sentinel this morning, on page 15A, I saw a picture of aids using an umbrella as a shield from opposition lawmakers throwing eggs at the Parliament Speaker in Kiev, Ukraine. Now, that’s “rawkus”… and a waste of eggs. The only thing I saw thrown at the BREC meeting was a few heated words of frustration. Hmmmm…why weren’t names that had applied months before for membership read on at earlier meetings? Hmmmm…why wouldn’t the vice-chair just automatically step into the Chairmanship role? Maybe the by-laws don’t allow it? AND to avoid misunderstandings where to sit, upon signing in, BREC could have been explained, with a slip of paper, sign, etc., that only BREC members can sit in the front of the room to facilitate the voting procedure. But we lick our wounds and move forward from here and get conservative Republicans elected. — Rose Marie Rauschkolb
@BREC Member I.E Richard
I had a candidate in that election? I did not have any stake in this election because this election does not matter in the big scope of politics. BREC is insignificant and everyone knows it, so I don’t care who won last night. Mickey Mouse could have won and I still would’nt care.
As for the conspiracy, it was proven to me with a phone call and 3 members involved in this so called conspiracy:P
I was at the meeting Monday and I was upset with the whole thing. The whole issue that a person who I know who she is wanted to run for chairmanship the problem is simple she needed to be a member of BREC to run. She is not as at the time of the meeting. To table the elections in time to give her a chance to join brec would be like delaying the election in Novmember to allow more people to register to vote. you need to follow the rules if you wish to run or vote you need to be registered by a certain time the election should not be delayed because you have not been registered. As all know Governor Crist needs to decide and register by Friday if he wishes to run as an independent. If by Friday he does not decide do we change the date to May 31 if not to June 30 and so on
“Saul Alinsky” tactics? That is ridiculous. Members were angry over many things- lack of proper notice, inaccessibility of BREC rosters for BREC members, the heavy-handed tactics of past administrations still pulling the strings at BREC, the dismissal of parts of the BREC/RPOF rules, and the “come on guys…” metality that says contested elections are a bad thing. I do not condone people yelling for the sake of it. I do, however, feel that it is appropriate to bring a “point of order” to the Chair’s attention. And Robert’s Rules do as well. Unfortunately, the election was not handled as well as it should have been. If a letter had gone out with explicit instructions- as it has in many past elections- and ballots were distributed at sign-in, the doors closed, voting members prevented from leaving unless they relinquished their ballots, and tellers submitted by both /all “sides”, then the cries of foul play or dissatisfaction could be dismissed. That wasn’t the case- no matter what you have heard.
And it wasn’t moderates vs. conservatives, either. There were both on each side. I liked one candidate from each “ticket”. The issue with many was the politics as usual/ staus quo vs many of the grassroots people who are tired of doing the work year after year only to see our importance to the committee and the party being ignored. I’ve been there for almost 20 years. Believe me, I know that of which I speak.
For those of you who so completely and blindly defend the status quo, when is Lincoln Day? Why is the BREC website not updated? Where are the minutes of past meetings? Where is a Treasurer’s Report? Even with an election as the “First order of business” there should have been the normal procedure of the meeting.
I wish Chairman Guerra only the best, but please know that any and all Chairs and Officers should be able to address these questions.
Such a shady group. No wonder movements like the Tea Party (and Crist) have begun to abandon the Republican party. Shouldn’t we be the party of transparency and not about backroom deals? Pathetic.
What has been occuring is right out of the Alinsky playbook. Read it and then tell me these tactics are not being employed. Fact is the Republican leadership in Florida in 2006 and 2008 kept Florida Republican with a virtual hurricane, not a wind in their face.Now the wind is blowing in our backs and with these tactics when the rest of the country goes Republican, we may just send Dems to Congress.
If you still think my idea is ridiculous read Tim Caines’ statement about the corrosiveness of this in-fighting. The Dems love it.Also, yes they know who their leaders are and stand behind them even if they are corrupt ,incompetent clowns, whereas we are constantly betraying competent leadership.What an insult not allowing our President to speak at our convention.We may be triumphant in the end, but this divisive behavior will not help.