9/8/07 State Central Committee Report

Summary of the State Central Committee Meeting – Saturday, Sept. 8, 2007 – Provo

By Ricky Hatch
Legislative District 6 Chair
Weber County Republican Party

Yes, here's an exciting summary of the most recent State Central Committee Meeting. Warning: don't read this while lying in bed, or after 8 PM, unless sleep is your goal.

The new State Party Chairman, Stan Lockhart, reported on the status of the state party. His report was upbeat, especially in the area of finances. With the help of a recent golf fund raiser and Lt. Governor Herbert, the state party has raised almost $200K since June. It is out of debt & keeping very tight controls of expenses. This is good.

The Central Committee confirmed Ivan Dubois as the Executive Director. He acted as the interim Exec. Director under Enid Greene for the past while, and interned with the State Senate before that. We also confirmed Kitty Dunn, a long-time volunteer and campaign professional, as the Political Director. So the State party office is fully staffed with very capable people, including a new in-house Counsel, prominent SLC attorney Mark Crapo.

The Professional Republican Women and the Republican Women (who, I'm sure, are also professional) are creating an endowment for the party, which will donate all interest earned from the endowment to the state party's often-light coffers. This too is good, and received unanimous support of the Committee.

The main purpose of this meeting was the election of three different committees:

1) Executive Committee. It was explained to me that this committee kind of acts like a board of directors to the state party. The committee consists of two individuals from each Congressional District (at the risk of being too obvious, I'll say that Weber County is in the 1st District, under Rep. Rob Bishop). Only two candidates ran for our district, and therefore were elected by acclamation (verbal approval): Ben Horsley and James Evans. Ben is the County Chair of Davis County and James is the County Chair of Salt Lake County. They both wish they were as good as Matt Bell. They're not.

2) The State Audit Committee. This committee...um…well…audits the state party (thank you, Captain Obvious). There were originally seven candidates for the 5-seat committee, but two of the candidates withdrew, and the remaining, five candidates breathed a sigh of relief and were elected by acclamation: Chris Herrod, Ricky Hatch (yeah, that's me – I'm a sucker for punishment), Michael Cragun, Gary Ott, Ted Pierce, and Marco Diaz.

3) The Constitution and Bylaws Committee. This committee of seven members takes suggested changes to the state party constitution and bylaws, reviews them, usually alters them, and then presents them to the Central Committee for approval, sometimes providing recommendations for or against the proposed amendments. Many Central Committee members have felt that this committee has used more influence than it should have. There were 15 candidates for the seven seats, including our own Christie Moore, who gave a great speech (and who does a fantastic job at whatever she touches, I might add). In the end, several incumbents were reelected, and the committee now stands as follows: Ivan Keller, James Evans, Clair Ellis, Duard Pedersen, Wade Farraway (go ahead, have fun with his last name. I did.), Chad Bennion, and Mark Barton.

Chairman Lockhart did a pretty good job at keeping the meeting under control and running smoothly. It didn't last all day, which was nice. It started just after 10 AM and ended around 1 PM. Overall, it was an enjoyable meeting with very little dissent, controversy or drama. Lt. Gov. Herbert gave some nice remarks, including some discussion about the upcoming voucher bills. He stated that both he and the Governor support the Voucher bills AND public schools—that it's OK to support both—they don't have to be mutually exclusive. Attorney General Mark Shurtleff spoke briefly about the upcoming Warren Jeffs trial. Nancy Lord, the National Committeewoman for the Republican Party, spoke about the crazy race to hold early presidential primaries. And Representative Chris Cannon spoke about his recent visit to Kazakhstan, and several other "Stan"s (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, etc.).

The Utah County Republican Party and Parents for Choice in Education provided donuts, bagels, drinks, and plenty of brochures and yard signs (nothing comes free, right?).

The next meeting is in November in SLC—anybody who dares is welcome to attend. If you're like me, you'll learn quite a bit about how the party runs, and you just might get some donuts!