We Have A Quorum!!! RPLAC Reorganization Meeting December 6th

Saturday December 6th was a great day for Freedom in Los Angeles.

And that matters because L.A. County is a huge chunk of our beloved Republic!

It hasn't been much reported, but in all measure a bloodless "coup" occurred within the Ronald Reagan State Building downtown. And virtually the entire leadership of the LA.GOP was ousted in favor of honest grassroots change.

When I approached the building at 9:30am as a "certified" elected write-in candidate that day
I expected to be turned away and frustrated by armed Sheriffs who were
waiting outside the doors with pens, guns, and clipboards. Why? Because, the night before I had received an email from a fellow Republican
Central Committee member stating, "We got word that Linda Boyd, in a frantic effort to remain in office will
try to use police to barr any write-in candidates who received less than 20 votes from entering the building tomorrow."
But, when I left the building that day, realizing the improbability of what happened,
I honestly felt that a miracle had occurred instead. It was all too improbable to be
happenstance.

I, personally, was prepared. I had my suit and tie on, my certificate of election, with copies, my filing papers, and, my oath of office notarized beside me.
All my papers were in order, but I was still not certain that my election was totally legitimate.
I, along with about a dozen or so write-ins were told
that regardless of how many nominating signatures we garnered, we must have
had 20 people physically write our names down on the ballots to be elected according to the county election rules. I had only received
the unlucky number of 13. But not long after the results of the election were posted I received a certificate of election from the Country-Clerk
Registrar in the mail signed by Clerk Dean Logan. Surprised, I figured that I must somehow legally have been elected to Central Committee. I
just didn't know exactly how. I was ignorant up to December 6th when I submitted my paperwork at the lobby desk of the State building to get my committee badge to enter the
auditorium.

Believe me, I tried every method to get my ultimate 31 signatures months prior. Election
rules require that you solicit 20 valid nomination signatures of registered Republicans in your Assembly District
to be validated by the County Clerk by a certain deadline. I called people I knew on the phone, I
knocked on doors, and even stood in front of Trader Joes...got mocked by Democrats...and ultimately I collected
31 signatures. When I got the letter from the Registrar I was surprised
to find that only 20 of those signatures were valid. In fact, the final valid
one I got from a neighbor just the night before I turned them into Norwalk. She's a nice
old lady in her eighties, whose computer I occasionally fix. She been a Republican all her life.

So who do I represent as a Committee member? The new or the old?

There's an email in my mailbox right now with the Subject line, " L.A. GOP taken over by Ron Paul Supporters."
But that's not the reality. The grassroots change that happened Saturday
was not just the product of die hard Ron Paul revolutionaries.
The fact is that conservative and ethical Republicans in L.A. took us under their wings, write-in
candidates or however else they got elected, and showed us Ron Paul revolutionaries the ropes and taught us what we were up against.
What we are all together against is corruption.

In fact, one day long before the primaries, I was wearing a Presidential campaign t-Shirt while shopping in a food market when an older
gentlemen approached me and said, "That's the man of the hour now isn't he?"
(referring to my Ron Paul t-shirt). And while talking to me
he told me what party Central Committee was and suggested that I run for it. I just
happened to run across the gentleman in a supermarket in a neighborhood I don't usually
go to. But, that chance meeting planted the seed.

See, there has been a concerted effort by many long time elected Republicans to change the
leadership of the L.A. GOP for a while. We Ron Paul supporters did not make
the change happen, we only made the difference.

(Now back to the reorganization meeting)

Fortunately the Sheriff's let me in the front door of the Building that morning even though my name
wasn't on the list. I then stood in line with 2 other of my fellow write-ins and
submitted my paperwork at the front desk. But I then was told that I could
not be seated or credentialed because I had only received 13 votes as stated on a orange piece
of paper they handed to me. There was about 30 copies of this orange sheet on the table. That was true of the other
two men besides me. They were told not to let us in
the auditorium even though we had our papers. We were "illegitimate." So we started to
contest this with Linda Boyd ( L.A. GOP Chair ) at the door of the auditorium. She was
adamant in not letting us in. We argued calmly but to no avail. Eventually, some guy told
me that we could sue anybody we wanted to, but that we were not getting in.
And there was 4 armed and very big Sheriff's deputies
standing behind its glass doors.

So they started the proceeding without us while we waited outside. (I'm not sure how many write-ins were rejected
at the lobby desk, but 7 of us wouldn't leave the building.) Then about half an hour
later (after they elected a temporary chair and somebody brokered on our behalf) they let us in the auditorium without
badges. Then somebody duly handpicked sub-committee members from the audience and
people recessed into groups to effect proper procedure. A female parliamentarian then came over to us and told us gather and prepare because they
would be putting us before a credentials committee to decide our fates. Then the gracious parliamentarian,
who was not a member of Central Committee, took us aside and said that we should
be prepared to be grilled and make our case good.


We literally had 30 minutes to find a rule that stated that we were legally elected. Perhaps nobody
in that building knew why we were duly elected. We had
spent the previous time outside on an Internet connected MacBook looking through election code to know avail.
Either the answer was not on the Internet or we couldn't find it.

So astutely, one of us borrowed an Elections Rule book and fortuitously, within 5 minutes, he found
out why exactly why we had been issued certificates! Because, we didn't need 20 votes at all.
All we needed was to run a "successful" write-in campaign, meaning
that we get 20 valid nominating signatures and somebody actually show up to the poll
and vote for us. As long as the seats was uncontested in our district, we had
all ran successful campaigns!

To make a long story short, we calmly argued our case before 7 credential committee members
showing them election code. But it was obvious that the head of the committee was hell
bent on keeping us out. In the face of logic and the actual election rules in black and white in front of him, he basically said that
the Republican party by-laws supercede county election code and that getting member status
was at the sole discretion of the GOP hierarchy regardless of our certificates of election. Then he stated that
the party removes people who support other people than the Republican nominees even though he had
no indication whom we voted for. Then he flat out indicated that we weren't going to be part of the day's proceedings, regardless of our certification and the election rules, but promised as consolation that in the future we would have an official role in our district committees. The corruption was just spewing forth from him and two other of the committee members. Three of them definitely
didn't like us and they didn't want us inside voting.

The book also clearly states that there was a statue of limitations on contesting our certificates.
We didn't even bother to mention that.

We arguing for a while outside was holding up the proceedings inside, which had commenced in lieu
of the decision of the credentials committee, so somebody came out and implored that the credential
committee come to a conclusion. So the head of the credentials committee took a rush vote and 3 members immediately voted not to certify us and 4 members (probably because the corruption
was so blatant) raised their hands in approval and the matter was settled. We were in. But it was a 4 to 3 vote!

So we went back into the auditorium without badges and sat together in the side aisles. At this point I was not sure if we
would get to vote or not, or how it was to be done, since everybody eligible to vote was in the middle aisles. And obviously we had been
disfranchised from nearly 1/2 the proceedings so we all thrown off guard. We settled down.

Then out of nowhere seven people sitting right next to us in the middle aisles stood up in unison and stormed off in protest, one
guy shouting, "We in the 53rd district object to the way these proceedings are being conducted. We are leaving."
And on the way out he exclaimed to the audience, "Leave! If you guys leave they wont have enough people for a quorum and
this meeting will be void."

But Nobody else left. Nobody. I was absolutely shocked and dumbfounded at what I saw and had no idea why they left. Either they were
upset at us getting seated or felt that the whole proceeding was too corrupt for their liking. I still
don't know what the point was. But our being seated and them leaving caused a 14 person swing in the vote. There was approximately 100
people in the auditorium.

Then it came down to the actual vote of
ayes and nays for the leadership. I must state positively that nobody at all told us who to vote for prior to the meeting.
We only knew the names and faces of certain people who had been on our side through the process as write-ins.
We were in an awkward position having returned to the proceeding 2/3rds in.

Now here's the kicker. Seven people left in protest. Other people were sent away for various reasons etc. It was like a random dice throw.
So did we have enough people for a quorum? Without a quorum nothing gets done or undone. We would come back and do it again, and the result
could be totally different. Everything would be pointless if their weren't enough
people for the vote to count.

Then each person was told to start form the back and count themselves in. "1"," 2", "3" etc. We were in the
right front side of the auditorium at the terminus so when it came to me I called "64." Then the other 6 write-ins counted subsequently to 70. Nobody
seated was left to count. But there was on person standing up in front facing audience who called 71 and a final person standing next to the podium
counted 72! 70 PEOPLE WAS EXACTLY THE QUORUM!!!

We had a QUORUM!!!

Somebody exclaimed from the audience, "Way to go L.A. County!"

Then we voted. There was rumored to be a "slate of candidates" our side was supposed to vote for, but we were never told who they were.
Had they even been nominated during the proceeding? It happened so fast. And just like that. Bam! One by one people I recognized started winning the votes with
the aide of our ayes. Every time I didn't know who to vote for I looked back at the lips of the gentlemen who I had meet
at the supermarket. I echoed his vote to the write-ins sitting in front of me.

In a flash it was over. One by one a slate of candidates whom I recognized started getting the majority of aye votes. The powers that be tried
all their tricks and it just wasn't in the cards that day. The old corrupt bulwark had been routed and you could sense their spirits depart from the building in shame and surprise.
The people who stopped at nothing to win lost. A truly bloodless coup had worked
out perfectly in the most improbable of ways. When it was over, I got up and started to congratulate people, many of whom I
had met before, and who were on OUR side. Republicans who instead of shunning change welcomed it.

A change back to a more principled GOP that plays by the rules.

(Come to think of it, if the credentials committee had been on their toes, they could have demanded that we show proof that the seats in our districts were uncontested. We could not have proven that to them; they never asked. )