The Dominoes Begin to Fall

RPA moves on Complaints on December 2

The dominoes are starting to fall -- the Republican Party of Arkansas (RPA) is making its moves to solidify its dictatorial control over Party affairs after a massive, multi-year movement by grassroots voters has seemingly broken apart amid various RPA "Rules review" complaints that seek the removal of numerous grassroots Party members.

RPA's Executive Committee (EC) will vote on the outcome of two of those Rules complaints at its meeting on Monday, December 2, to be held via Zoom.

Yes, Zoom. That way RPA Chair Joseph Wood and EC members will avoid any face-to-face encounters with aggrieved, disgusted Party members after what happened when about 100 individuals gathered at Party headquarters on July 25 to protest the EC's outside-the-Rules vote to nullify the 2024 State Convention and lack of action on closing Party primaries.

Moving Against Grassroots

Now that November 5 has come and gone, the RPA is lining up its dominoes against the interlopers who dared think the Party was about the platform and the People, governed by the Rules. We're talking about the massive numbers of grassroots conservative voters who joined or re-joined the Party because, after several years of effort, the "patriots" were gaining the numbers necessary to try and claim a voice in Party affairs.

We're talking about the delegates to the largest State Convention ever held that the RPA blocked at every turn in early 2024 as the June 8 Convention approached, and who then spent 10 hours in Rogers, Arkansas to make historic changes to the Rules and Party platform, including closed primaries and non-partisan judges races. These same delegates were then summarily dismissed and ignored when Wood, the EC and powers-that-be arbitrarily (against the Rules) nullified the Convention's actions on July 25.

Hammer Comes Down

Once Rules complaints are filed, the outcome is not in question; it's only a question of when the hammer comes down. The RPA received complaints from different members of the Saline County Republicans late this fall as a result of infighting within that County Committee, and then a group of mostly District One “patriots” filed a complaint to remove Convention Chair Jennifer Lancaster after she helped organize Convention delegates who filed the federal lawsuit asking the RPA to comply with the State Convention's June 8 votes.

Lancaster put hours into not only her defense for the complaint against her personally as Convention Chair, but also for the defense of the Saline County Republicans' complaint in her role as District 2 Chair. She attended both meetings where the appointed investigators -- including RPA Rules Committee Chair Bilenda Ritter, ran over parliamentary procedure to railroad Saline County members as well as herself.

Sad to say, we've seen it all many times before from the RPA. Once a complaint has been filed -- as happened with the state's Republican Women and Saline County Young Republicans and is happening now in Faulkner County with Jimmie Cavin -- the Party establishment takes control to summarily remove individuals they deem to be troublemakers, with no due process or nod to the Party's own RPA Rules.

Read that to say those deemed to be troublemakers -- individuals who were very active in Party activities -- will always be found guilty of "not acting in the best interests of the Party" because they ask "uncomfortable questions" and recruit "the wrong kind" of members (grassroots "patriots") and so are "embarrassing" the Party.

Same thing here with these two complaints; it's not hard to predict the outcome of EC vote on December 2.

Disband & Remove

We're told the decision on the Saline County complaint is to disband the entire Saline County Republican Committee of over 200 members, including many who filed for office with their county clerk, for at least a two-year election cycle, maybe longer. Separately, Jennifer Lancaster will be removed from the Party as the result of the complaint against her as Convention Chair.

We wonder why the Executive Committee even bothered to hold sham hearings on these two Rules complaints at all, after we've repeatedly seen the RPA run the Party any way it pleases, the Rules be damned. The July 25 nullification of the Convention proved that truth.

Those actions easily resolve many of the RPA's issues with the grassroots, effectively demonstrating what happens when truly conservative voters dare to think their voices matter to the Party.

With the State Committee meeting coming just a few days later on December 7, removing all those individuals on December 2 also removes numerous "troublesome” votes for RPA officers for the next two years as well as a candidate for RPA Secretary, giving the Republican establishment even more autocratic power over the Party.

It’s “the way it’s always been done.”
“Go along to get along” or get removed!