Russian Roulette: Death of the PA GOP by Its Own Hand

It truly pains me to write this article but it is a necessary evil, if there is any chance of the Republican Party surviving in Pennsylvania.

Two months ago, I had pretty much made up my mind to write a lengthy article about my experience running for the Commonwealth Court and even signaled this in my Campaign’s Faceboook post, stating that in the upcoming days/weeks that I would post “some additional thoughts and insights” regarding the campaign. At the time, my intent was to inform voters about the horrific ways some within the Party treat our candidates, including my own experiences, which included false and malicious statements by (1) a state committeeperson, immediately preceding a vote – so I wouldn’t be made aware of the false allegation until after the vote and thus unable to correct it – that I allegedly falsified an endorsement of a sheriff and (2) the Dauphin County State Committee Chair alleging that I contended I was endorsed by a sitting Justice, who was not up for election (which is ethically impermissible), when I never did anything of the sort. And these examples were just the tip of the iceberg of the dirty politics played by some in the Republican Party in the May Primary judicial races and quite honestly, the “lengthy article” would probably be better described as a book…

But, I decided not to publish the article, because I realized that we, as a Party, were headed into an extremely important election cycle with four major appellate court vacancies on the ballot, including one for the Supreme Court. I recognized that as much as I wanted for people to truly know what occurs – as I, prior to this experience, would have never imagined such would occur, especially in judicial elections – it would only be divisive and result in less likelihood of success for our judicial candidates. And thus, I didn’t for the sake of the Party.

But, unlike myself, others within the Party don’t feel the same. Some believe more divisiveness, the better, because they believe it consolidates their (dwindling) power by removing those who don’t fall in lockstep with their views. Instead of unifying the Party post-Primary, in Chester, Montgomery, and Cumberland Counties, they want to remove duly elected committeepersons because they supported Republican candidates in the Primary that weren’t anointed…err, endorsed. And of course, beyond such action being directly contrary to the State Committee Bylaws (and resultantly, contrary to the law in Pennsylvania), the outlandishly hypocritical nature of these actions are on full display, when one looks to the last November election and whether and to what degree these county chairs supported our Party’s gubernatorial and other candidates. But that isn’t even the most obscene. In Cumberland County, the committeepeople for three consecutive years have refused to adopt a bylaw provision that would allow for removal in such a situation and yet, the chair is moving forward with removal of committeepeople anyway in the absence of such authority…

As a result of my recent campaign and people knowing what I stand for, numerous individuals and groups reached out to me upon learning of these actions and explaining that if these County GOPs move forward with removal of the committeepeople, not only will they not support any Republican candidates in November but they will also switch to the Independent or Constitutional Parties. Not wanting that to occur and understanding what all is on the line this November, on June 28th, I sent a letter to Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Lawrence Tabas imploring him to intervene and unify our Party.

Unfortunately, as of publishing this article, to the best of my knowledge, no action has been taken. And given the communications I’ve received, it sounds like the the County GOPs intend to move forward with removing duly elected committeepeople who supported Republican candidates, merely because those candidates were not the anointed ones. These chairs seem to forget the background leading up to and purpose of the direct primary election, which was first adopted in 1842 by the Democratic Party, due to members feeling disenfranchised by the convention nomination/endorsement process and the need, for the survival of the Party, to find a process by which everyone’s voice would be heard and given equal weight. And facing identical concern in 1860, the Republican Party likewise adopted the direct primary process, with the understanding that if our members were provided a voice and equal say in the primary regarding the candidates, even if one’s particular candidate was not successful, we would all unify, as Republicans, in the general election. Unfortunately, this has been forgotten in the recent past by some in our Party and instead of allowing our members’ voices to be heard and given equal say in the primary, with us unifying in the general, some only care about their power to always have their chosen candidate on the ballot and quashing any other voices. While such works quite well in a dictatorship, it doesn’t work at all in a Republic…

While there’s still time for Chairman Tabas to intervene – and I implore him to do so – before these County GOPs pull the trigger and kill the PA Republican Party, if no action is taken to end the divisiveness and to unify our Party, while November will be bleak, it will be of no comparison as to how bad 2024 and future elections will be…

Read Part 2

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