Every four years, a window opens in California politics. There is a little known opportunity to shake up the status quo and to change the leadership and direction of the state’s political parties.
Maybe it’s time for that to happen in the California Republican Party.
There are 5,236,952 registered Republican voters in California, according to the secretary of state’s latest report of voter registration. That’s a dismal 23.8% of the registered voters in the state, but it’s still a lot of people. Probably 600 of them, organized in small groups statewide, could take control of the California Republican Party.
The legislative session that just ended saw an unchecked Democratic political machine with supermajority control of the Legislature ram through a wish-list of destructive political priorities, including a double-barreled attack on the taxpayer protections in Proposition 13. Democrats who had presented themselves to voters as “moderate” voted in lockstep with far-left “progressives” who would be on anyone’s short list for president of the Karl Marx fan club.
The remains of the California Republican Party in the Legislature mostly watched from the sidelines. The GOP holds just eight seats of 40 in the state Senate, and only 18 of 80 in the Assembly.
This may be due in part to Proposition 14, the 2010 measure that abolished party primaries in state legislative and congressional races. Since 2012, all candidates for these offices are on the same ballot. The two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation or lack thereof. This led to a decline in fundraising for Republican candidates as big donors and political action committees calculated that supporting “moderate” Democrats was a sophisticated chess move that would protect their pieces on the board.
The California Republican Party gradually grew weaker and more irrelevant. And that had consequences for the entire state.
“The weakness of the Republican Party has let the Democratic Party, I think, go get further out than I think the majority of people want,” Gov. Jerry Brown observed in an 2018 interview with NPR. He wasn’t wrong. So many people moved out of the state that after the 2020 Census and redistricting, California lost a congressional seat for the first time in its history.
Brown told NPR he sees “plenty of opportunity for Republicans.” But many Republicans who are active in California politics will tell you that the California Republican Party never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
While the party puts little or no effort into winning elections for statewide and state legislative offices, a great deal of effort is put into winning various votes at the state party conventions, like the one that opens Friday in Anaheim. Frenetic efforts to collect proxies and wrangle delegates keep consultants very busy, all in the service of maintaining control of the party’s machinery, endorsements and money.
A momentary threat to this control emerged about 10 years ago, when supporters of presidential candidate Ron Paul very nearly took over the Republican Party of Los Angeles County. In the end, those who held the reins of power eked out a victory by promising to pay off the county party’s $1 million debt, but only if the current establishment kept control through the election of its preferred candidate for chairman. That’s what happened.
What would happen if the playbook of the self-described Liberty Caucus was deployed statewide by frustrated California Republicans, the people who hang up on the CAGOP’s fundraising calls, but not before yelling that the party isn’t going to see another dime until it starts trying to win elections in this state.
What’s in that playbook?
The Liberty Caucus targeted seats on the Republican Party Central Committee. These offices are on the ballot only during the primary election in presidential election years, because that’s now the only time voters receive a party-specific ballot. Only registered Republicans can vote or run for the Republican Central Committee seats. By law, candidates cannot have been registered with any other political party in the previous 12 months.
To try to take over the L.A. County party, the Liberty Caucus leaders persuaded supporters to run for Central Committee seats and then campaigned for their “slate” of candidates. There are seven seats in each Assembly district. All the candidates’ names appear on a page in the primary ballot and voters are asked to “vote for any seven.”
Some central committees are elected within the county supervisorial districts and some in the Assembly districts. Some have seven seats and some have six. But they all have one thing in common: the filing period opens on Friday, Sept. 29, and it closes on Friday, Dec. 8.
To run for a Central Committee seat, contact your county elections office to “pull papers,” collect about 40 valid signatures of registered voters eligible to vote in that election, file the papers back with the county, and that’s it. There is no filing fee, because there is no salary. And as long as you raise or spend less than $2,000 on your campaign, you are not required to file any campaign reports or statements.
Central Committee members attend monthly meetings and state conventions, and they determine whether party resources will be used to help Republican candidates win in California, or not.
“Not” has been the prevailing choice for quite a while. The result has been the total loss of checks and balances in California government. One party has absolute power. And you know what they say about that.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley
