GOP State Committee Meeting to be Held in Secret
No Press No Spouses No Delegates No Transparency
No First Amendment
Late last night I texted one of the members of the legal team asking if the rumor that the State Committee Meeting would be closed to all but the State Committee members, the first such closed meeting in recent memory. One thirty year veteran GOP activist said they had never seen a closed meeting.
The GOP rules are completely silent about any sort of executive meeting, nor is there any GOP rule that would allow a non public meeting. More important is Rule 3 A
“Members: All citizens of Oklahoma are invited to join the Oklahoma Republican Party to perpetuate this Republic. All qualified voters of this state who are registered Republicans are members of the Oklahoma Republican Party, and shall have the right to participate in the official affairs and governance of the Republican Party in accordance with these rules as set forth herein. Such right shall be sacred and inviolate, and the willful disregard or abridgement of such right by an officer or member of any committee of the Party shall be deemed sufficient cause for the removal of such officer or committee member. “
You can do a word search of the GOP Party Rules using keywords. I used the key word “meeting” and found every single use of the word in the Party Rules and one by one read each sentence that had the highlighted word. There is simply no mention of any right to close off a meeting. No executive sessions are allowed, allowing a closed meeting would set a precedent that would be disastrous.
My late night text received a reply a few minutes later; no discussion of a closed meeting had occurred. Following up the next morning I learned that Jonathan Krems issued a ruling that Rule 3A doesn't apply to State Committee Meetings. That is insane, that isn't a ruling that follows what the rules say, that is a ruling of a man that is helping to cover something up.
Even in the case of a non profit like the GOP, they have to follow state statutes on open meetings and if there were a reasonable case for a matter being discussed in executive session they would have to vote to go into session, take care of that business, then go back into open session and allow the public to watch the proceedings.
More importantly there is NO restriction in the GOP Rules covering the minutes of the meeting. Any registered Republican can request a copy of the minutes of this State Committee meeting and within ten days a copy of the minutes MUST be delivered to that person.
We know there are tens of thousands of dollars spent the past couple of years that have been spent on fines, penalties, and interest on late filings for taxes, FEC reports, and Ethics Commission reports. Is this what Bennett's staff is so interested in hiding?
Are they fearful of the abolitionists that have been drumming up people to show up at the meeting? Are they going to make a fuss? Being as these are Bennett supporters can he not simply tell them to behave and stay silent or be removed from the building?
For an administration that ran on the idea of protecting our Constitutional Rights this suppression of the First Amendment is troubling. No good will come by setting a new precedent in the GOP that meetings can be closed to registered Republicans especially as Rule 3A gives all of us a right to participate even if that is just watching what goes on.
