by Kyle McDaniel
There are a variety of opinions on what is expected of an elected official. At the bare minimum, we expect them to be able to win an election. But more than that, we expect certain things from anybody we elect. Among those are three core functions – showing up, communicating with your constituents, and being honest and transparent. Any elected official, regardless of whether they’re in party office or public office, needs to be able to do all of those things or they are going to end up failing at the getting elected part.
As we approach the 2016 party conventions, we’re going to be choosing a new State Central Committee to oversee the functions of the Republican Party of Virginia. These aren’t sexy positions, but they’re powerful. In the last twelve months, State Central has selected a new party chairman, determined the nomination method for our Presidential candidate and imposed a “statement of affiliation” for voting in our primary. These decisions have had major impacts on the GOP in Virginia.
As our convention delegates come together and decide who will fill these roles, it’s critical that they look at those three core functions of elected officials and judge their current State Central members against them.
Frankly, many members of State Central will get failing marks on those three basic criteria. Many are not showing up, there’s little communication from most of them, and there’s almost no transparency on what they’re doing. This has got to change.
Let’s start with transparency. Want to know how your State Central member voted on the statement of affiliation issue? Good luck. Apparently no roll call vote was taken. If it was, you’ll be hard pressed to find it easily. Despite being asked multiple times, RPV has yet to post more than a year’s worth of meeting minutes on their website. A quick search through RPV’s website shows five sets of minutes posted online, four from 2015 and one in 2014. Were there no State Central minutes prior to 2014?
When you read through those meeting minutes, two things should jump out at your immediately. First, the lack of recorded votes. Second is the prolific use of proxy voting.
The lack of recorded votes is a serious problem, especially for those who want to hold their State Central members accountable. Recorded votes are critical to accountability, and it’s bizarre that State Central does not record votes, especially the most contentious ones. The minutes do reflect that a motion passed or failed, and sometimes a vote count is given. But you’ll rarely find a list of who voted which way. This is unacceptable.
The same goes for secret votes. An elected body should not be permitted to hold secret ballots in any instance. If you are elected, have the backbone to stand for what you believe in and cast a public vote, not hide behind secret ballots or withholding the exact vote in meeting minutes. To this day we still do not know who voted for a Presidential primary or who voted to support the statement of affiliation. Barring each State Central member being asked and then telling how they voted, we won’t ever know. This is also unacceptable.
One glance at the list of meeting minutes will demonstrate that the privilege of proxy voting is being abused. Frankly, I am shocked at how widespread this is. In the five sets of meeting minutes RPV has graciously put online, proxies were used each meeting by anywhere from 15% to 30% of SCC’s membership. What does it say when a third of the elected members of a body don’t show up?
The use of proxies has been abused and needs to be abolished. By running for SCC and accepting the position, you are telling your constituents that you will actually show up. Sending a proxy for whatever reason is not you showing up. Convention goers did not elect a random proxy, they elected a specific person.
It’s also important to note who are carrying these proxies. Many of these names are familiar, and many of them represent GOP members who couldn’t get elected on their own. Yet because of their relationships with an SCC member, they’re able to control a vote on RPV’s governing body?
Sure, missing meetings is sometimes unavoidable. Family emergencies, work, weather – all can conspire to cause people to miss meetings. But nobody is going to miss every meeting, as some State Central members have done over the last year, and if they do, that is evidence that they don’t value the position highly enough and should resign. SCC holds four meetings a year. This is not a tough commitment.
These issues are not isolated to the SCC or RPV. The Congressional District Committees have the same problems. In my home Congressional District, the 11th, there are no minutes online, not a single vote on anything is recorded online, and the District Committee has not sent out a general newsletter update in nearly two years. Don’t get me wrong, I receive email updates when the SCC reps decide they want to run for re-election, but we get nothing else. My home district committee is devoid of transparency, accountability, and communication. Newsletters aren’t difficult and can be used effectively to build the party, but it takes somebody caring enough to write one. This isn’t just the 11th District – try finding any information, minutes or otherwise, from many of our Congressional District Committees. The 3rd District just had elections for a new Chairman, new State Central members and the like a week ago – does anybody know what the results were?
The same goes for putting meeting minutes online and recording votes. How can an elected member of my District Committee campaign for re-election when we don’t even know what they vote on, how they voted, or what has been going on in the last 2 years? This is especially galling considering that some of those elected to the committee positions last campaigned on transparency and honesty.
RPV, the SCC, and in my case the 11th District Committee need reform, and the best way for that reform is to sweep out many of the current members and replace them with new leadership that expects to be held accountable and will be active – both in showing up and in communicating with their constituents. The old way of doing business – secret ballots, loyalty oaths, mass use of proxies, no communication, and no accountability – violates basic, core expectations for people holding elected office. Transparency and accountability are neither difficult, nor controversial. But they do take effort and the will by the elected body to be held accountable.
We cannot be the party of responsibility when our party leaders are violating these basic principles. It’s time for new leadership.
Kyle McDaniel is a small business owner, long-time Republican activist and former staffer at the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. He is a candidate for State Central Committee in the 11th Congressional District.
