Washington swamp unlawfully attempts to usurp historic 55 year-old California College Republicans

On Friday, July 12th, Chairman Chandler Thornton of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC) met with Chairman Gandall of the California College Republicans (CCR) to discuss mediation with a pro-CRNC separatist faction in California, the California Federation of College Republicans (CFCR). CRNC Arbitrator Goldstein informed California during these mediations that CCR would be required to dissolve their judicial board, and hire him or his friends, or have it “counted against them.” The CRNC also demanded that CCR change their name and hold special elections by October.

On Saturday, July 13th, despite Gandall agreeing to many of the terms for mediation, the CRNC ruled that CCR was to be “dechartered.” Goldstein, on behalf of the CRNC, disregarded the thorough 40-plus page CCR petition and gave only two verbal reasons: first, that the California Republican Party (CRP), according to people such as prior CCR Chairman Leesa Danzek and Southern RVC Robert Petrosyan, favored CFCR. Second, he found that schools such as UC Berkeley were more important than private universities, such as Stanford, or the Cal State University system, such as Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Gandall strongly objected to these terms, as the CRP has nearly unanimously dissented from dechartering CCR, but his appeals were rejected without reason.

“Despite my objections in Committee under my right to a point of order , the arbitrator illegally awarded CFCR the charter. But this isn’t allowed in the Bylaws,” said Kimo Gandall, Chairman of the California College Republicans. “CRNC has a secret constitution that is not public,” continued Gandall, “and once I leaked it, I found that there were deep discrepancies. §2(5)(b) of the CRNC constitution asserts that only a state chairman may protest delegates, with the intended purpose of showing that the auditing firm in question misappropriated delegates within the region: “ A state chairman may allege that the number of delegates… should be adjusted on the grounds… of such determination was fraudulent or mistaken or… [the] firm has misallocated the number of votes the state deserves… ” My opponent was not a state chair prior to the ruling, nor was his appeal properly adjudicated. Furthermore, if any CR could be a ‘state chair’, Chandler could decharter any state, unilaterally. This is not the case. While the CRNC bylaws make no such distinction as to overthrowing a state’s delegation, CRNC’s parliamentary authority, RONR, does. This authority requires it be sent to the floor to be voted on by the delegation of all the states pursuant to RONR (11th ed.), p. 614, ll. 26 – 31. Of course, instead of the matter being given to the states to decide, my delegation was thrown out. All of this is even more suspicious, as CCR’s opposition, Matt Ronnau, was then unilaterally given a seat on the Credentials Committee, displacing Wyoming, a supporter of Chairman Thornton’s opposition, and effectively giving credence to Thornton’s threats.”

“In short, Thornton and the CRNC violated the rules, and illegally usurped CCR to symbolically issue a threat to the rest of the nation’s delegates: get in line or we will destroy you . California, along with states such as Wyoming who supported opposition candidates, were arbitrarily punished for not falling in line. RONR and the CRNC constitution establishes checks and balances to prevent this behavior, which Thornton violated. The question begs to be asked: which state will do something next that displeases him, and how will they be made an example of?”

We defy this unlawful coup and will continue in our mission to elect Republicans, oppose the left, and call out the corrupt establishment. CCR continues to operate, under State Committee ID 1359694, as a chartered volunteer organization of the CRP, and to receive CRNC resources. For chapters, it will be business as usual. We will appeal this unlawful usurpation. We will survive.

This article was released by the California College Republicans.