Last weekend, the California Republican Party held its biennial convention at the Hyatt Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco. This particular convention had a lot of aspects to it, and so I will be penning a few different commentaries touching on different aspects of it. Today I will talk a little bit about an important step that the CRP’s Board of Directors took in professionalizing party financial operations, but this week I will also bring you: 1) An in depth look at the race that just took place for Republican National Committeeman. Of course, FR readers know how the story ends, with Shawn Steel’s election, but there’s a lot more to tell! 2) The CRP has adopted a new Platform to take us through the next four years. It is more comprehensive than ever. What does it say? How did it come about? We’ll go into those details! Finally, as more of a hybrid of what used to be our "Winners & Losers of the CRP Convention" that we used to run, we’ll highlight some folks who had a particularly notable convention. Of course notoriety swings two ways… – Flash
The Board of Directors of the California Republican Party is excited about the prospects of Senator John McCain competing strongly here in the Golden State, and winning our state’s electoral votes for our Republican Ticket. I know because I saw it as we all met for over four hours last Friday.
The Board has about twenty members, which include the four party officers, eight regional vice chairmen (I am one of them), the Governor, legislative and congressional leaders, the past chairman and a few assorted others. All in all, there are around twenty of us charged with providing leadership for the party.
Much of our meeting centered around party financials took place in "closed session" due to the strategic necessity to keep that information discrete. One important reform of Party financial operations did take place outside of closed session, however, which is important to share with all California Republicans – applying some common-sense accountability at the Board level to party finances — I will get to that shortly…
Much to-do has been made about the $3 million loan taken out by the California Republican Party in 2006 that was advocated by then-Chairman Duf Sundheim, to keep Arnold Schwarzenegger advertisements on TV through his November double-digit reelection victory. But not talked about much was that around a million and a half dollars in "overspending" took place in that effort, with the CRP ending with a final debt of over $4.5 million dollars!…
CRP leadership announced that with the adoption of a coordinated political plan for winning California (which is well under way now that we have a presumptive Presidential nominee), the big $3 million loan issue will be resolved in less than 30 days, as the adoption of this plan is what the single donor who made this loan has said is what he wants to see before he forgives the loan.
Also, the vast majority of that "over-spending" debt has been paid off. I have no doubt that Past-Chairman Sundheim will sleep much easier once the debt from his administration has been paid off completely. It has certainly made things more challenging for this administration, and for those of us elected to office after all of those spending decisions were made.
Believe it or not, before last Friday, and going back many many years, the only authority that the elected Board of the CRP had with regards to our "Team Cal" account (which traditionally has been the account through which the biennial statewide "Victory" programs have been financed) has been quite broad, with the adoption of a budget, but quite limited beyond that. After adopting a broad plan, the proverbial "ship is launched" and the Board has little say. In fact, what occurred in 2006 is that the board budgeted expenditures based on a certain amount of anticipated income. The income did not reach the levels anticipated, but expenditures did – hence, overspending. At no point was the board reconvened, informed about under-performance of fundraising, and given a chance to reduce budgeted expenditures. Nor did those who were implementing the program at the staff level choose to put the brakes on heading into the final weeks…
Perhaps adding to the perfect-storm for overspending is that those charged with preserving the viability of the institution of the Party, it’s elected officers, due to so-called "reforms" that took place nearly a decade ago, were relegated in large measure to "spectator status" and, to be candid, those whose focus was on electing particular candidates have ZERO incentive NOT to overspend. After all, if they lose, it’s not their debt. It’s the officers of the party who have a fiduciary responsibility to look out for its long-term financial well-being.
Well, thanks to the leadership of the CRP Board, and especially Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman and Assembly Republican Leader Michael Villines, this extremely unprofessional "loophole" in common-sense oversight has been plugged. Our legislative leaders proposed in our meeting, and were strongly backed by our board, to implement a common-sense financial procedure…
Simply put, as with all of our other party accounts, the Treasurer of the party must pre-authorize expenditures from our Team California account (along with the Team-Cal Chairman or his designee). In this way, the Treasurer can ensure that a proposed expenditure is (a) budgeted and (b) covered by available funds in the account.
Our current Treasurer, Keith Carlson, and our new Team Cal Chairman, Tony Russo (of the Irvine Company), will work in concert to ensure both the finance community of donors and the CRP membership that all expenditures are in accordance with the soon-to-be-adopted Coordinated Political Plan.
I know that the direction the Board gave to Carlson was very straight-forward (and repeated here for emphasis), to be sure that funds spent are already in the bank, and are in accordance with the pre-approved budget. This is a huge step towards notching up the professional operations and ensuring that the important principle of not spending more than you have is preserved.
I feel comfortable saying that as we move forward into the election season ahead of us, the leadership of the California Republican Party, the McCain for President Campaign, and our Legislative Leaders have set out on a path to work closely towards a strong coordinated effort for Republican victory.
While no one is suffering from any illusions that making California a "red state" this November will be anything other than a tremendously difficult task, everyone is now focused on achieving that goal!
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