OKGOP Conflict Crossroads
State Committee Votes Saturday
Updated: The Oklahoma Republican Party (OKGOP) is facing a crisis of leadership. The good news is that the State Committee is the supreme authority of the organization between conventions and they have an opportunity this Saturday to resolve all disputes, but like pulling a bandage, it may be briefly painful for participants.
The OKGOP could not be more divided. This writer has opined that there are two types of people typically drawn to political activity, those that want to be something and those that want to do something. Current Chairman Nathan Dahm now appears to be the exception that proves that rule: in service as a State Senator Dahm has advocated for very important policy, but in service as the OKGOP Chairman, Dahm acts as if he was elected dictator by interpreting rules like a Democrat and enforcing his will in highly questionable activity. Thus both a do-er and a be-er.
During an exclusive interview, Budget Committee Chairman Leon Farris was asked, “Is the OKGOP both elected and staff currently operating in an effective and efficient way?”
Farris said, “This is a voluntary organization and you can always wish for the people you have in positions to be more skilled. Over the years, I have discussed how we could organize better. There are some states that run their party with an elected chief officer, elected council and full-time professional staff with a manager that runs the operation. The elected officials pass rules and the staff executes policy as directed. Oklahoma has never done that, but we are edging more towards that type of approach.
“State Chairmen with administrative skills like Gary Jones, Dave Weston and others earned a salary, but they had to raise the money to pay themselves and staff. Pam Pollard and I are friends, but she is short on administrative skills and did not raise the money needed.
“All donations are important, but small donations don’t fund the Republican Party. The folks with checkbooks that can write, $1,000, 5,000 or 10,000 are the people that really fund the party. They don’t necessarily run the party, but they fund it. Those folks are not interested in funding a [contentious] circus and we have been a circus since Randy Brogdon was elected chairman,” Farris said.
Budget Chairman Farris also answered critics and, will in this story be quoted further, but first a statement provided by Budget Committee Member Vince Scoufos.
Statement on the Current State of the OKGOP Budget Committee
By Vince Scoufos
No discussion of the OKGOP Budget Committee can be understood without recognizing the factionalism that exists in Oklahoma Republican Party and in the Party throughout the Nation. Words like Establishment and Grassroots have been used to the extent they have nearly lost their meaning. I will give you my definitions and examples of both.
The factions on the current OKGOP Budget Committee are:
1. Establishment. Those who tend to support their favored State Party Chairmen by rubber-stamping the financial activities of those with whom they agree, and vigorously thwarting the activities of Party Chairmen with whom they disagree. This group generally believes in top-down control and opposes attempts to vet candidates, to support one Republican against another, and hold elected officials accountable to the Party Platform.
2. Grassroots/Rank and File. Those who view their role on the Committee as that of a gatekeeper who is charged with overseeing financial activities on an objective basis, and reporting their recommendations to the State Committee, which has ultimate authority under the Rules. This group, while less experienced in Party Politics, says: 1.) Rules make us a bottom-up organization, 2.) Is adamant that our Rules must be followed, and 3.) Our candidates and elected officials must support the Party Platform.
Examples include the aggressive stance the Budget Committee took to control the spending of the John Bennett Administration, versus the fact that those same Budget Committee members failed to ever call a meeting during the A.J Ferate Administration. Further, when Nathan Dahm took office many of those same Members refused to support a call for a Budget Committee meeting until Nathan was finally forced to call one himself.
NOTE: Despite large amounts of money being raised during the McLain Administration, there was no money left in the coffers when Bennett took office. Salaries and travel expenses constituted the bulk of McLain’s expenditures. Apart from a few months paying a Communications Director, the Bennett Administration operated successfully using motivated unpaid volunteers. Paid versus unpaid workers is another ongoing debate.
You recall that John Bennett committed the ultimate sin in the eyes of Group #1 by personally endorsing Jackson Lahmeyer against James Lankford.
During the one-year Bennett Administration the Budget Committee, dominated by those in Group #1 above, held three meetings during which they successfully thwarted expenditures for a Communications Director. However, in the twenty-two months between the last Bennett meeting and the first Dahm meeting no Committee meetings were held at all.
When the first meeting was finally convened the Committee allowed Dahm to hire an Executive Director with the condition that those duties would be approved by the Committee. The Executive Director has now been in place for eight months with no meeting ever held to approve those duties. Refusing to hold meetings has become a favorite tactic.
Fundraising is directly affected by transparency, or the lack thereof. Rank and File Republicans generally refuse to contribute to the Party if they do not like the direction, or do not understand how the money is being spent. During the Bennet Administration most of the funding from the donor or elected official class dried up. However, small donors gave enough to support the Party to average $13,400 per month in income; tight but sufficient.
In contrast, Ferate raised large amounts from the “Glass Building People” who saw him as their gatekeeper in holding the conservative rank and file “Grassroots” in check.
Ferate’s supporters generally opposed vetting Republican candidates, supporting one Republican against another in a primary election, and holding Republican elected officials accountable for adhering to our Platform. It is widely speculated that, when it became obvious Ferate would not be re-elected, Nathan Dahm became the vessel for Ferate supporters to retain control over the “Grassroots”.
Dahm’s fundraising has suffered from lack of small donor support, while failing to garner the amount from large donors that Ferate had brought in. Thus, when State Convention Delegate fees were raised by 41% in one-year, Dahm was criticized by the Rank and File for using the Convention as a fundraising tool. The increased Convention fees in the past two years have resulted in a decrease in Convention attendance of approximately 19%.
To be clear, the Budget Committee was never given a chance to review State Convention fees and expenses, nor the large amounts our National Convention delegates are forced to pay for fees, lodging and required clothing. Despite agreeing to provide details to the State Committee on Convention fees and expenses within 30 days of the last meeting, those figures have not been forthcoming from the Committee Chairman, Treasurer or Dahm.
Prior to our first Budget Committee meeting last September I sent an email asking for unity in doing the job we are supposed to do under Party Rules. I asked the members to consider the following question. “To whom does the money belong? Does it belong to the State Chairman, or to the State Committee?” To me the answer is obvious. The State Committee is the supreme authority for whom the State Chairman works. The money belongs to the State Committee, which represents rank and file Republicans. The Budget Committee is the only watchdog to assure proper handling of our money.
If the Budget Committee is denied regular meetings, and access to the details of our expenditures, we cannot perform our role in representing the interests of the people.
My hope is that whichever group has a majority on the Budget Committee, we will do our jobs on an objective basis, and avoid using the Committee as a weapon against those with whom we disagree on certain issues. We must assure our Party is financially viable if we intend to defeat the real enemy that seeks to destroy us.
Budget Chairman Farris, in our interview, said, “Strict approval of expenditures is not in the rules nor has it been done in the past by the Budget Committee. Our rules are a lot like the Bible, they can be interpreted differently and you must take it as a whole. Good people may disagree and on the Budget Committee, all of our members are well-meaning.
“In my opinion, the Budget Committee has performed its basic duty of recommending to the State Committee a budget for the year and that budget has been adopted by the Committee and our Treasurer and Chairman have that as a guideline for future operations.
“I will note that when we had our January meeting and reviewed expenditures, they fell well within the parameters of the budget that had been approved. We didn’t see any expenditures that were coloring outside the lines,” Farris said.
“One of the issues that was brought up when we were talking about salaried subcontractors was the executive director paid on a contract basis. As such, he has a job description that outlines his duties and responsibilities. One of the requirements of the Budget Committee was that the Chairman was to provide us with an outline of the duties and responsibilities for the position to be filled.
“We had authorized three different spots: an executive director, a communications director, and campaign strategist. Once we get past the national convention and Donald J. Trump is nominated the strategist will work closely with the national campaign. [The Budget Committee] got the outline for the executive director but not for the other two positions but neither of those have been filled at this point. We don’t need them yet but we are getting close.
“Some of our members were happy with the way the outline was put together and some of our members were less than happy. It is an operational issue and the Chairman agreed to that. The Executive Director chosen by Chairman Nathan Dahm is Stan Stevens,” Farris continued.
“There are members of the Budget Committee and State Committee that have been unhappy with previous executive directors that, they believed, leveraged more authority than what they should have had and those members wanted the outlines to clearly detail what the authorities and limits of authorities were. Staff are hired guns, not elected positions so duties and responsibilities should be clearly defined. They should also be held to account for what is done or not in their various roles.”
Question: How detailed are the accounting records provided to the Budget Committee?
“We have been provided with a standard balance sheet and profit/loss statements and have access for detail on any line item. Those details have been made available to us in our meetings,” Farris said.
Question: Details provided to all? Some have said details are not available.
“I have the details and it was available to anyone that wanted to look at it during the meetings.
“There has been some concern by the Chairman and Vice Chairman that those details do not leave the office. We don’t want those details in the hands of the enemy. I think there has been some hesitancy on the part of the treasurer about sending that detail to anyone who asks for it. However, those details are mostly provided on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports. Each expenditure is listed and each contributor and those reports are public records anyone can review.
“There is a little bit of playground squabbling with the treasurer referencing the FEC reports and some members saying, ‘we want you to provide it directly to us.’ That’s the way I see it. The detail is there for anyone what wants to look at it,” Farris said.
“One of the allegations I saw was those items on the FEC report changed. This is what I know. The OKGOP has a vendor that helps them file FEC reports because the OKGOP got into trouble under the administration of then-chairman David McClain when his treasurer passed away and the ball got dropped with reports not being filed on time. That has been an outstanding issue and we have not gotten a ruling from the FEC on what amount of fine, if any, they may require the OKGOP to pay. Prior to McClain, we had a national vendor to make sure reports were filed properly and on time. In the following administrations, that contract was reestablished.
“The OKGOP office uses the Excell program which allows accounting formulas to be duplicated. If you grab a corner of a cell and drag it down it will duplicate the result and sequentially number the results. In the FEC report, it showed a contribution plus one penny, and the next with two pennies and so on. The vendor employee had accidentally made that mistake and it was corrected when called to their attention,” Farris said.
Question: It is my understanding that contributions were made in people’s names and when contacted said they did not make the donation. How does that reconcile?
“The numbers got repeated on lines where people had made small donations. The amounts listed were incorrect. It was an incorrect report when first filed but corrected as soon as the mistake was discovered. There was one large donation spread over seven or eight names as I understand. It was a stupid error that should have been caught. It was not an attempt to falsify anything. It was an error that got fixed,” Farris added.
Budget Committee Member, Mike Bichard (CD 2) said in part, “Nathan Dahm has not even lived up to his own commitments to the Budget Committee from the first meeting to provide a job description for the executive director/political strategist. A review of that position’s scope of work and duties is required in the party rules to be approved by the budget committee before any expenditures are made. However, we have now had several months of this expenditure without review. Our committee cannot advise and consent without detailed information on the topic. I believe a seat on the budget committee requires members to press harder to obtain details.
“It is also my obligation to inform OKGOP members in my congressional district that the leadership of the OKGOP are obstructing accurate oversight. Chairman Dahm is being purposeful in obstruction. What is being hidden? We are being forced to spend time and energy on things that should have been resolved at the first meeting. It’s not just Oklahoma. There are similar problems in Nebraska, Illinois, and Texas. Recently in Illinois, the State Chairman resigned over the same type of issues,” Bichard added.
Budget Committee Member Joe Vaden (CD-3) said, “I thought very very highly of Nathan Dahm and, even while campaigning (2022) for myself, I would find myself stumping for him during his campaign to win a US Senate seat. I met him occasionally but never knew the guy personally, I just liked his positions promoting conservative values.
“Once on the Budget Committee, I saw that all OKGOP expenses require the ‘advice and consent’ of the committee which, to me, means we have the final say on how money is spent,” Vaden added. He also spoke about how all information, including but not limited to contact information of other committee members is not forthcoming from Nathan Dahm.
Budget Committee Member Cheryl Wilburg (CD1) said, “The Budget Committee has been hampered from doing its job because we can’t get information. It is like we don’t exist. Nathan Dahm doesn’t facilitate meetings, he rules over them.”
It is important to note that this writer reached out to Chairman Dahm multiple times for comment specifically for this story and, in the past for others, but he ignores those requests. Apparently, Nathan Dahm only wants to talk to people that agree with him. What he is apparently too blind to notice is that my involvement in politics is not personal. I talk to people who disagree with me all the time. I disagree with myself sometimes so why should it bother me when others do the same thing? I engage in politics and media only in the hope that I may help build a free, secure, and prosperous future in Oklahoma for my child, grandchildren, and future generations. Otherwise, I would be working in my gardens or playing music today.
The person who has taken the most criticism for dispute with Chairman Dahm and from his supporters is OKGOP Vice Chairman Wayne Hill who takes a grassroots approach to politics. The grassroots have become increasingly vocal in demanding that both the OKGOP and Republican elected officials follow OKGOP rules, platform and conservative principles.
Vice Chairman Hill said, “As a party, we can never out raise or out spend the dark money crowd, but we have numbers on the ground – volunteers ready and willing to make a difference in elections statewide. If the rules or platform need to change, then let us meet and work out our differences in open debate. The grassroots will no longer tolerate betrayal. If the in-office performance of elected officials betrays us, then they should expect Republicans to call them to account or censor them and not endorse their reelection.”
If the word “betrayal” seems too strong, this writer asks, “How can Republicans hold a super-majority in the Oklahoma Legislature and be denied the right to a public vote on the Oklahoma Judicial Nominating Committee which many believe to be the epicenter of judicial corruption in Oklahoma?”
This Saturday’s meetings (two have been called) of the OKGOP State Committee will decide the future and maybe the survival of the OKGOP. Only those members will vote. If you have strong feelings one way or another, please discuss them with the State Committee members from your county prior to those meetings. Both the grassroots and grass-tops must work together for Oklahoma and America. Between them, the stem or backbone of the party must operate well for both to flourish.
For more information click here for the OKGOP website and click here for the OK Grassroots web site.
May God Bless Oklahoma and His Divine Grace guide the OKGOP.
Agree or disagree you may use the comment feature below for public response or email Arnett@substack.com for private communication.
Thank you for an insightful article.