City Elders/Abolitionists Trash Young Republicans Convention
and Their Own Reputations
OTU Organization Conducts Slander Campaign in Effort to Elect City Elder Candidate as YR Chairman But Massive Blowback Ensues
The event was presaged Friday afternoon with a Sooner Politic's post exposing a scurrilous attack on one of the candidates for the Young Republicans (YR) leadership. The organization that lost the ballot initiative fight last year on the tax increases, Oklahoma Taxpayers Unite (OTU) had posted an attack on one of the candidates for YR Chairman, Matt Blubaugh , an Oklahoma Army National Guard officer. The OTU attack post claimed that Blumbaugh “embezzled” a significant amount of money.
The reality was that a previous YR chairman, a woman some two terms earlier, had left at the end of her term without turning over banking info, checks, or transferring the account signatories and seemingly dropping off the face of the earth. The incoming Chairman named Green brought it to the attention of the YR board but the amount was paltry, around $250.00 we were told, and there simply wasn't the need or will to take the time to do a board resolution and take it to the bank to recover the money. Meanwhile the usual small service charges added up till after many years the balance was simply eaten up.
Adam Modisette , AKA Moto, had spun this into “embezzlement” and added charges of non existent bookkeeping, inferring that large sums of money had disappeared while Blubaugh had served on the board. No mention of the current YR Chairman, John Roberts. Modisette was intending on running for a slot on the leadership team at YR and had decided to take out a competitor with a bit of creative journalism.
Modisette's fun came to an end when Sandra Meyers cross posted or shared Modisette's post containing the embezzlement allegations on Sooner Politics and blasted him for having a much, much, much, checkered past. Meyers was posting from the Oklahoma County Courthouse, apparently having gone down to read the case files on Modisette:
“I am completely disgusted by Adam Modisette 's lip-smacking savagery! His dishonesty knows no bounds and has no place in the OKGOP He has a criminal record, active warrants and has literally been convicted of embezzling almost $8,000 yet makes absurd accusations about the OKCYR Chairman and his executive board. “
Sources claimed that other board members of OTU removed the slanderous post after talk of a lawsuit surfaced, but the Meyers post remained with the link broken due to the removed post.
And sure enough, a search through Oklahoma Court records showed a bevy of legal problems including an active arrest for illegally carrying a gun in what appears to have been a traffic stop after running a red light.
We encourage anyone with an active open warrant to get the issue settled. There is a surrender program listed at the Oklahoma County Warrant search site, a person could turn themselves in after arranging a bondsman to meet them at the courthouse. That is better than dreading the knock on the door or getting pulled over in a traffic stop. And God help you if you are carrying a concealed weopen while an active warrant is out for your arrest, you could assume room temperature in a few hours if unlucky.
There were numerous other cases including one case dismissed for public intoxication, one 2010 protective order which had been dismissed after a few weeks, and a rather large 2014 insurance company lawsuit for nearly $7400 in what was alleged to have been Modisette forging the signature on a check and defrauding the insurance company. Modisette denied the allegations but after one of the defendants was dismissed from the case Modisette stopped appearing and the insurance company prevailed for nearly $8900.00 including costs and attorney fees.
And it turned out that Modisette had nearly been arrested a few months before on the outstanding active warrant. Some sort of dispute at a political event, Modisette stepped across the road to some Indian property after being informed the police were coming, and due to his being on Indian land the police were unable to arrest him at the time.
We are seeing a pattern with these City Elder/Abolitionists supporters. An history of attacking others when having far worse of a background themselves, a refusal to clean up their own leadership before attacking other candidates and organizations, and a sense of “the ends justify the means” thought process perhaps driven by being “God's chosen ones”.
The backlash was severe enough that Modisette appears to have chosen to arrive late to the convention, late enough that the delegate registration was closed so he wasn't a candidate at the convention.
But the fun was just beginning. Modisette was joined in his lateness by many of the malcontents that helped implode the YR convention. Once you miss the registration period, even if you are a delegate sent from an earlier convention removes your “right” to be seated as a delegate although you can apply for mercy and have the convention of seated delegates vote on the issue.
In all conventions you first register as a delegate, where the organization that is sending you as a delegate to the convention has sent in a list of approved delegates that have done the work and attended the meetings to qualify as a delegate. Once your name is cleared you are issued delegate credentials, a small card hung on a string around your neck. After a few hours the Credential Committee will issue a report on the number of qualified delegates and a vote is held to accept the delgates by those wearing the credentials.
But on Friday the City Elder/Abolitionists were impatient and they attempted to force a vote to adopt their own agenda and special convention rules to replace the ordinary convention rules set by YR permanent bylaws. A few years earlier the positions of “at large” delegates was added to the bylaws but the voting power was limited to five delegate votes to be divided up for any “at large” delegates. Now that would mean maverick delegates, those not belonging to an organized county or chapter of the YR. Once a county organized a permanent YR group they get five votes plus an additional fifteen votes as a reward for organizing and growing the organization and working toward their goals.
The YR permanent bylaws posted below appear to be quite clear. Any at large delegates must be affirmed by the YR Executive Board seven days prior to the convention because candidates running for office are given a list of delegates five days prior to the convention so they can send candidate info and lobby for support and votes. And the Credentials Committee has final say on any disputed delegates.
OKYR Bylaws:SECTION SEVEN:
Attendance and delegation to the State Convention shall be as follow:
a. Chartered chapters shall have the right to determine the delegates and type of delegation sent to OFYR conventions.
b. Delegates to a State Convention must meet the membership requirements of OFYR.
c. Chartered chapters may determine convention delegates by way of an Open Delegation or a Delegate-Alternate Delegation.
d. An Open Delegation is one which allows all qualified delegates that meet the membership requirements established by that club to vote at OFYR conventions. The list of those persons selected as part of an Open Delegation must be submitted to the OFYR Secretary at least seven (7) days prior to the respective convention.
e. A Delegate-Alternate delegation is one in which the number of delegates matches the allocated votes of the chartered club at OFYR conventions. The list of those persons elected as a delegate or alternate must be submitted to the OFYR Secretary at least seven (7) days prior to the respective convention.
f. Young Republicans that meet the requirements of the OFYR as AtLarge members shall be affirmed as At-Large delegates by the OFYR Executive Board at least seven (7) Days before any OFYR Convention.
g. A list of authorized delegates shall be made available to any delegate running for an OFYR Executive Office that requests said information within five (5) days before any OFYR convention from which a list is manufactured. The list of authorized delegates shall be used for convention business only.
h. In the event that there is conflict between a potential delegate that meets membership within the OFYR and their respective club, the Credentials Committee of the respective OFYR Convention shall have the authority to convene and decide the question by a super majority vote.
SECTION EIGHT:
The allocation of votes at the State Convention shall be:
a. At-Large and Chartered counties shall be allotted five (5) base votes
b. Chartered Clubs shall additionally be allotted fifteen (15) votes.
c. Delegates may cast whole votes or fractional votes determined by club delegation. No single delegate may cast more than two (2) votes.
Aside from that, assuming that even if the late, unregistered attendees had been accepted as convention delegates in the At Large block, Section 8 line a. gives the At Large block only five votes. Doesn't say that unorganized counties get five votes each and previous YR conventions the At Large category was used to accommodate a handful of late joiners, not throngs of abolitionists hell bent on packing a convention and bullying their way into control. Indeed we personally know of individuals that were recruiting anyone willing to show up saying that they needed four more people to take control of the convention, people that had zero interest in the YR group but were willing to show up to wrest control from those that had ran the group for years.
And there are only a handful of Oklahoma counties organized with a YR chapter so that left an opening for the City Elder/Abolitionists forces to attempt a coup, the approximately 30 malcontents that wanted to break the rules and ignore the long established bylaws were unwilling to abide by the rules so they tried to bully the others.
As a result those in legitimate control decided to simply shut down the convention as it had violated the bylaws and turn over all the details to the National YR group for adjudication. The abolitionists had a four vote majority but not the 2/3rds super,majority needed to vote to suspend the convention rules to override the credentials committee. Complicating matters were an alleged number of recently switched Democrats attending with a goal of pushing a homosexual policy statement at the convention. And past that, even a super majority couldn't over ride the permanent bylaws of the YR.
Stymied, the malcontents went outside and declared a Rump Convention, declared themselves in charge, ousted former Canadian County GOP Chairman Andrew Lopez as convention chair, rejected the convention rules and the permanent YR bylaws and made their own rules. One slate of leaders was offered for the next year's YR officers, their slate of course. Lopez then gave a sermon about the civic duties of a Christian, they said a prayer and actually sang a hymn, and went home. The “rump” convention was more of a TV pastor tent revival than a political convention. I respect Christians, this wasn't Christian in any sense of the word.
Once again we see the City Elder way of doing business, declaring yourself as the appointed leaders or masters over others, and bullying all that stand in your way that stand with the rules and bylaws. Meanwhile the Party suffers and fragments, gains a reputation for radical positions like prosecuting women who miscarry or wear immodest clothing or perhaps say the wrong thing. There is a reason why the far, far, religious right has earned the name American Taliban.
