Saline County Kicked Out

Former RPA Chair evicted the Republican Committee

It was bound to happen. In fact, some members who took control at the Saline County Republican Committee had been expecting it for months and had installed surveillance cameras in their leased space for security. When the cameras alerted them to landlord (and former RPA Chair) Doyle Webb inside the building with a locksmith, the Committee had not yet received any sort of legal eviction notice, which was delivered later that afternoon to be effective July 7.

How can that be?

Well, first just know this latest tit-for-tat comes after ethics complaints Webb and others filed against SCRC and the Saline County Republican Women, who’ve led a grassroots accountability movement within the RPA for a few years now. In return, a dominant faction of the SCRC has aimed at removing Webb and others they call “RINOs” from their County party.

While we may never know many details about the legal entity behind the Republican Party of Arkansas, the nonprofit corporation “Republican Party of Saline County, Inc.,” apparently owns the Republican Headquarters building in downtown Benton.

This corporation is the same crew that sent mailers to local voters during the 2024 Republican primary, trading on the name “Republicans” to make voters think their establishment-endorsed candidates were being pushed by the local Saline Co. Republican Committee.

When the SCRC failed to pay the liability insurance on the premium due date (but still well within the grace period, we’re told), Webb quickly had the Committee removed as lessee of the downtown Republican Headquarters building, leaving the group without meeting and storage space.

In a statement, Webb’s Republican corporation explains:

“Over the past year, the current committee has begun to take a strange turn, for example conducting ‘meetings before the meetings’ behind closed and locked doors, where the decisions of the county Republican committee were orchestrated. It was additionally troublesome that meetings were conducted with no regard to decorum or a sense of ‘fair play’”…  

They referred to two incidents that prompted the decision to request the committee to vacate the property. 

One was the committee’s vote of no confidence in U.S. Senators Tom Cotton and John Boozman and Rep. French Hill. 

The other incident was when “The committee endangered the investment in our property at 125 N. Market St. by its failure to pay the property insurance by the due date, which rendered the building uninsured.” 

SCRC Chair Frank Curtis says the group “has outgrown the building.”

Officers of the “Republican Party of Saline County Inc.” are listed as Webb (12 years as RPA chair!) and former Senator Ann Clemmer, Board of Elections Commissioner Jamie Clemmer, current state Senator Kim Hammer, current state Rep. Lanny Fite, Saline County JP Josh Curtis, Board of Elections Commissioner (Governor’s designee) Jamie Clemmer, and former Saline County Treasurer Larry Davis.