Rules
By ddepledge
The internal fight among Hawaii Republicans over the Republican National Committeeman slot continues to play out.
Several Republicans have challenged a close vote in January to elect Ted Liu, the former director of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, over Willes Lee, a former party chairman. The challenges allege that the party improperly allowed proxy voting, among other things.
But the deeper issue is the private resentment among several Republicans to what they see as an effort by former Gov. Linda Lingle and her allies to control all aspects of the minority party.
Liu had the full backing of the Lingle camp. He also received testimonials from former Lt. Gov. James “Duke” Aiona, former party chairman and state transportation director Brennon Morioka, former congresswoman Patricia Saiki, and former party executive director Dylan Nonaka.
Despite the clear support from the Lingle camp and other influential Republicans, Liu only won by one vote.
Adrienne King, an attorney who ran unsuccessfully in the GOP primary for lieutenant governor in 2010, said the dispute is about honoring the party’s rules.
From King:
I have been asked to withdraw my challenge. I am not the only one who has been asked to do this. We are told that it is we who are dividing the Party and we should just all get along and ignore all these unpleasant issues that just get in the way of progress, or someone else’s agenda, or a perceived higher order of importance. I do not accept their blame for dividing the Party. I am not the one ignoring the Rules. I do not have it on my conscience.
David Chang, the party’s chairman, said he expects to hear a recommendation from Terry Thomason, the party’s rules chief, on how to resolve the challenges by the end of the week.
Chang, who will make the final call, said he hopes to have an announcement by early next week.
Political Radar
February 16th, 2012 at 5:03 am
Wasn’t Dylan Nonaka Jonah Kaauwai’s Exec Director? Hardly the “Lingle camp” . It seems that the “Lingle camp” storyline is a gross oversimplification spun by the losers eager to justify themselves and by reporters looking for a simple narrative.
February 16th, 2012 at 9:16 am
Lingle has historically used the Republican Party as her own personal campaign organization. The questionable, possibly fraudulent, vote to elect her old DBEDT head as the National Committeeman is par for the course. To push back on people who are just trying to keep things fair as trying to “split the party,” is insulting. The real split is between actual Republicans and Lingleites.
February 16th, 2012 at 11:29 am
I know Adrienne King personally (go to the same church) and I believe her without question. She’s a fine person.
February 16th, 2012 at 12:17 pm
Every Hawaii Republican should be eternally grateful. Linda Lingle built the Hawaii Republican Party into a powerful force during her chairmanship and her two terms as governor. The fact that we now have so many elected Republicans at all levels of government in Hawaii and an informed electorate which understands how badly Hawaii taxpayers were ripped off by 60 years of Democrat domination of the state legislature means that Lingle really made the transformation of Hawaii politics a top priority . . . always sacrificing her own interests for the good of the whole. As a most unselfish person, Lingle never used her influence to put her pawns in party leadership positions. Instead, she stepped back and innocently marveled at the will of the people unfolding before her eyes, so that she could take heed from the rank and file. Like Pat Saiki before her, Linda Lingle has left a legacy of more Republicans elected than when she took office. The only way we can repay her unselfish, bold leadership is to drop everything we are doing to help her become the next U.S. Senator. She may not want the post, but perhaps we can convince her to help lead us to even greater heights, by becoming our party’s own Dan Inouye who controls or at least greatly influences our party for decades to come. My fellow Republicans, just look at how Linda Lingle has devoted herself to creating a genuine two-party system. The least we can do is make electing Lingle our single focus for the next eight and a half months. Don’t worry, we have so many elected Republicans in Hawaii that we can afford to lose a few in order to put everything we’ve got into LINGLE, LINGLE, LINGLE, LINGLE, LINGLE.
February 16th, 2012 at 1:06 pm
As i understand the dispute is over whether it was proper to count an emailed vote. I also saw mention of proxies in one article. here is what I found on the FAQ of a professional parliamentarian organization. It includes a link to the relevant section of Roberts’ Rules:
Are mail-in or telephone votes okay?
No, not unless authorized by the bylaws. For more information, refer to RONR 10th ed. pp. 469-470.
The Bylaws (Rules) of the Hawaii Republican Party are available on their website. There is NO provision for emailed votes nor and an explicit bar against proxies.
I can see why the party leaders want Adrienne King to withdraw her challenge. I doubt they are willing to give up on Ted Liu’s election, but they prefer to NOT break their Rules so obviously and so publicly. The Lingle group wants to avoid an open conflict with the dissident groups: the “movement conservatives around Sam Slom and the Grassroot Institute, the religious conservatives and the Ron Paul supporters. But neither are they willing to share power with them, even if it means, to put it indelicately, cheating.
With the GOP presidential nomination uncertain at this point, the election of the national committee man gains greater importance, as this person will be a voting delegate to the GOP National Convention. The Hawaii Republican establishment decided early on to support Mitt Romney. If we look across the country, we can see the GOP establishment in several states bending or breaking the Rules to stave off challenges from the dissidents. In Iowa, they falsely presented the victory to Romney, even though it was clear AT THE TIME that some numbers were in error. In the Maine caucuses, pro-Ron Paul caucus results were reported as zeros in many cases and many county chairs have called for the resignation of the pro-Romney state chair for his role in rigging the results.
The Lingle group would be wise to listen to their “better angels” before this whole thing blows up in their faces. When you cheat, it just makes things worse. Heck, most of us learned that in nursery school!
February 16th, 2012 at 1:52 pm
“Auto De Fe” was just one Google search away from avoiding the ill-informed comment made before his/her coffee kicked in at 5:03am this morning. If “Auto De Fe” used easily available news accounts to subsitute for lack of personal knowledge, he/she would have known that Nonaka has been a Lingle-ite since Day One: http://archives.starbulletin.com/2005/04/28/news/story6.html
February 16th, 2012 at 2:10 pm
In addition to the back room shenanigans, LIngle’s camp is also asking Republicans to “look the other way” on: her pro-choice stand, anti-school voucher position, promotion of the Akaka Bill, abandonment of the Taxpayer’s Protection Pledge, and enabling of the rail tax. It’s starting to add up to a lot to have to overlook.
The bi-partisan wishy-washyness of Lingle’s advertising message may play well in a general election, but should cause serious concern in the Republican primary, where many of the voters are not “pledged to support President Obama’s plan.”
Disclosure: I’m working with John Carroll, Lingle’s opponent in the Republican primary, who , not coincidently, represents the opposite view on all those issues.
February 16th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
So many names for a republican. Neocon, rhino (republican Hawaii in name only), rino, Tea Party, few more. Left wing, right wing, conservative, liberal, radical. No wonder no one can unite in One Party but are divided as we are Divided in States. I forgot Mainland thinking and Hawaii thinking.
Why not text vote? Seems without a smartphone, those not smart are just a phone owner. American Idol in the Next Election for office. Seems the most popular win.
Only if Politicians noses grew longer when they lie. Only when they get real when strings are cut.
February 16th, 2012 at 6:10 pm
As one of the challengers to the January 21 election, those in control appeared to want a certain result, and (in my opinion), bent the rules to make it happen. Challenges were received on January 30th, and those that filed in the 10 days following the election (following the rules), were to expect a resolution to those challenges within 5 days. On February 11th, I had not even gotten a response that my challenge had been received, and wrote to HRP Chair, David Chang. He did not respond, but at that point from my email, Terry Thomason, Chair of Rules Committee, chose to respond by telling me he was too busy to have made any decisions, and hoped to have dealt with them by end of this week. Following the rules? I think not!
February 17th, 2012 at 3:10 am
@Keith Rollman,
You wrote:
“The real split is between actual Republicans and Lingleites.”
I understand you are a professional public relations guy, but surely you have some shame? Don’t you find it kinda awkward to be accusing Lingle supporters of not being “actual Republicans?” Are you an “actual Republican” yourself? Last I heard, you were a card-carrying Democrat. Or was that only when you were trying to convince primary voters Mufi was “an actual Democrat”?
February 17th, 2012 at 12:54 pm
No ethics.
February 17th, 2012 at 5:55 pm
RINO? NEOCON? Seems what is seems is not what it seems.
“I know what I am but what are you?”
February 21st, 2012 at 11:45 pm
The HRP failed when it let Dylan Nonaka run off with all the cash. Where was the board that controls such spending? Surely they could see what was happening? They are equal partners in the HRP debt.
The challenges at the NCM vote are to be answered within 5 days, per rules. So why are they sitting here 3-4 weeks later and have no response? There is none!
Other challenges are out there regarding David Chang as ‘acting’ Chair. Rules say that a vote is required a the convention but the HRP is doding that one too.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:10 pm
Again, as one of the challengers to election taking place on January 21st, I have heard 3rd or 4th hand that the drafts to answering our challenges are being worked on, and hold high priority by David Chang, but we are all still waiting. . .
Still expect proper rules to be followed. Below is a copy of what was sent out yesterday by David Chang! But I didn’t get this directly, was blind copied on an email that was addressed to County Chairs. Why? I don’t know.
• We are currently working through the challenges to the National Committeeman election. Please be patient with us as Terry, our rules chair has to go through each of the 8 challenges and also work his day job as an attorney. We are trying to expedite this as soon as we can. He knows this is a priority of mine and as soon as I am able to resolve the issue I will do so. Thanks.