6/24/06 State Central Committee Meeting Notes

By Terry L. Thompson
Legislative District 6 Chair

THIS CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEETING HAD ALL OF THE MAKINGS OF THE EXCITEMENT OF WATCHING PAINT DRY. BUT I HAVE SAID BEFORE "STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEETINGS NEVER LET YOU DOWN" AND AS MY FELLOW BROTHER IN REPUBLICAN PARTY ARMS TOM FEENY SAID "YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS UP" HOW TRUE INDEED! STAY TUNED PEOPLE YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS! "ANYWHERE ELSE YOU WOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR THIS ENTERTAINMENT" COMPLETE WITH ENID POUNDING ON THE PULPIT WITH HER FIST (I THINK SHE SNAPPED HER GAVEL IN TWO AT THE STATE NOMINATING CONVENTION)

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Saturday, June 24, 2006 dawned a crisp, clear, beautiful summer day with bright blue cloudless skies and a pending scorcher of a day in the making. Due to the lackluster events planned for the State Central Committee meeting in SLC, I opted to ride my motorcycle to add some enjoyment to an otherwise lazy day. I discovered a shredded tweety bird under my motorcycle our cats left behind, that a day earlier had been tweeting "I tawt I taw a puddy tat. I did, I did taw a puddy tat." I mistakenly thought that would be the highlight of my day, after all the only thing out of the ordinary on the State agenda was a resolution for "Impartiality in the Conduct of Party Business" That can't be all that exciting...now can it?

Suffice it to say that the meeting outside of the following went more or less as planned with no additional knock-down / drag-outs.

Resolution for Impartiality in the Conduct of Party Business
I mentioned in my prior summary of the State Nominating Convention that there was sure to be some fallout from the circus surrounding how State Delegates would be elected and the handling of the discussion by Enid Green (gavel pounding on the podium, etc.) Well, this is partly from that and the fact that the State resources (your resources) were allegedly used to send out mailers prior to the nominating convention taking one side of that issue over another.

The resolution was offered and it created a lengthy and detailed discussion on the specific language down to adding an "S" to the end of words to signify plural rather than single. This seemed unnecessary since the resolution was only to require the B&C committee to research a by-law amendment to present to the Central Committee in September to consider adding to the party by-laws (as if without a plural "s" we would only accept one proposal) Some treated it as if we were voting on the by-law amendment itself. But, so goes the debate that raged on to include penalties for violations of ethical impartiality. These are important topics that need to be addressed but the time needs to be spent to research it in detail. Surely, in the past it has been largely ignored which makes the by-laws meaningless without due penalties and enforcement of the penalties. It just seems that so often at the State level we beat that horse beyond all recognition. By the time it's over you can't remember what the horse was to begin with and worse don't care at that point.

So, here we go and don't quote me on details because the events become somewhat of a blur after a fracas. Someone questioned whether who had said what and while attempting to recall what was said it was pointed out that there was a person video taping the proceedings in the far back corner. Enid began to ask appropriate questions of the video taper such as...Who are you? Why are you video taping the proceedings? This person explained that he is just interested in the proceedings as an outsider thinking about becoming involved in the Party and of course Enid said that was fine until someone who knew him said that he was a member of the Party. When caught in the lie he began a verbal rampage about an atrocity dealt upon a member of the Salt Lake County Republican Party and how due to this personal atrocity he was video taping the proceedings for this purpose. Enid was now attempting to deal with a video taping person who had clearly lied, was clearly taping for a subjective purpose, and who was now arguing with her in an open State Central Committee meeting.

This is where the entertainment really began to heat up. Many of the Central Committee members were hollering that he could tape the proceedings while many others were hollering that he could not. Then there were others hollering that he had to erase the tape and others hollering that he did not have to. Further, there were others irate that he did not have written permission from them to have their picture taken and by this point Enid is pounding on the podium with her fist screaming for order (because she did not have her gavel) I know this is sick and twisted but Tom Feeny and I were in stitches with Tom saying "You can't make this up" and me saying "Anywhere else you would have to pay for this entertainment" Meanwhile, the video taper in question disappears and we find out he was jerked out of the meeting by Salt Lake County Deputy Sheriffs who have an office in the building just outside the door. So much for a lazy, quiet meeting. I'm sure glad that I didn't miss this one.

As you might guess there was plenty of discussion between Central Committee members after the meeting. I am not going to tell you how the situation should have or could have been handled. I am not here to discredit or disparage anyone. I will remind all that the issue of disrupting the course of the meeting by arguing with the meeting Chair (in this case Enid Green) is out of order and out of line. This is a separate issue from the issue of video taping the meeting. That being said you will undoubtedly hear more about this through the (always objective) view, NOT, of our local media who will undoubtedly jump at the opportunity to disparage the Republican Party. Truly the tragedy of the whole entertaining affair is the slanted bias of the media and subsequent criticizing of the party in general. I sincerely hope they prove me wrong.

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Ed. Note: Mike Ridgway goes into his version of the "fracus story" this morning on his blog.

You can also read this morning's Deseret News story here.

Reader comments are invited, as always.