Tale of Two Parties: Unity Be Damned

RPA old guard establishment seeks to overturn 2024 State Convention

We've reported on many details of one side of intense infighting being aimed at patriot members of the Republican Party of Arkansas but after the June 8 State Convention the RPA / establishment old guard Republicans had fallen totally silent. Now we know why.

The establishment elites tried every way possible to block the State Convention from exerting its will regarding properly and timely submitted Rules and platform changes and now they are refusing to see this party has changed; the Convention was going to happen and it did.

Now we learn that Benton County Chair Tillman (watch her on the video below from June 8) filed a Rules Review complaint per RPA Rules, Article VII, using bogus circular arguments to try to overturn the State Convention’s actions that brought the People’s power more in line with the power historically wielded within the party solely by GOP elected officials.

The RPA Executive Committee meets Thursday at noon at RPA headquarters to deal with those pesky grassroots conservative Republican voters, all in the name of unity -- just about one week after the RPA Chair so enthusiastically celebrated President Donald Trump’s "party unity” message so prevalent at the RNC Convention!

At Thursday’s meeting, the RPA Executive Committee will “review” the rigged Rules Committee Advisory Opinion written by Rules Chair Bilenda Harris-Ritter — released yesterday by the RPA — that (surprise!) backs Tillman’s inapproriate, derisory Complaint that is frankly unsupported by the facts.

As Conduit News so adeptly points out today:

… since the Rules clearly state in Article I that the State Convention is the final authority in all party matters, it stands to reason that a person or lower body such as the State Party Chair or the Executive Committee are not empowered with jurisdiction to make a determination whether a State Convention acted improperly in its actions and decisions much less in declaring it officially ended. 

Therefore, this Advisory Opinion appears ill conceived, self-serving, and without merit or authority.  It is recommended that the Executive Committee work with the State Convention in executing the matters decided by the Convention delegates during the biennial State Convention rather than continuing to find ways to thwart the will of an overwhelming number of grassroots Arkansas’ Republican state delegates who make up this 2024 State Convention.

Make no mistake, the RPA Rules clearly state in Article I - General Provisions, Section 1 (Party Membership & Authority) (B.):

The final authority in all party matters shall rest in the biennial Republican State Convention, which shall be deemed to have delegated such interim authority to the State Committee and Executive Committee as is necessary to carry out the purposes and objectives of the party.

Chairman Joseph Wood once again demonstrated his blatant disrespect for the Party’s base as well as his apparent lack of knowledge of the RPA Rules when he accepted this bogus Complaint in the first place; he should have rejected it altogether per Article I!

The RPA staff, including the elected RPA Chair and the Executive Committee, are DELEGATED their power by grassroots voters — We the People at our State Convention. We the People will make it so. We won’t back down. This party is now about the People -- NOT the old guard establishment elites.

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At the State Convention in Rogers on June 8, Benton County Chair Barbara Tillman convened a “county caucus” as she and her County Committee members desperately plotted in the Convention Center hallway on how to stop the State Convention from carrying on its business:

Video from KeepArkansasLegal