I have been called names and asked to resign by all the following people in our local REC. The Chairman, Treasurer, new Secretary, hospitality person, and also a close friend of Steve's. A total of five times in all. I have always been a hardcore conservative Republican but never realized I wouldn't fit into the Republican party. I along with a bunch of other people, have been labeled as troublemakers. Steve, our local chairman tries to portray our group as a very small group. There are many more of us than he wants to acknowledge. We were previously referred to as the Cabal. Lately, he refers to our group as Mutineers, like mutiny on a boat. I won't go into all the details of nasty emails, and posts on FB and the comments that followed but I will say I think Steve wants to run the REC like a dictator and anyone who questions him is a troublemaker. I am looking for ideas so if you have one please get in touch with me. Our group is a bunch of very nice people who I consider to be TRUE REPUBLICANS. I say that because we all believe in the values set by the Republican party. We know we don't live in a perfect world but we do expect the Chairman to know the RPOF and Robert's rules and follow them. When I joined in early 2022 Manatee county REC was a small group with many open seats. New members were recruited. In the first six months of 2022, I think the membership either doubled or came very close to it. Most of the new members joined because, like myself, we realized the direction our country was heading and wanted to do anything we could to help it get back on course. Within a few months, Steve realized the new members weren't going to sit back and watch the Chit-chow that went on at every meeting. The hospitality person was in some kind of conflict at every meeting. At the first meeting I attended there was a conflict involving the hospitality person and another member. The member ended up on the floor. In the following meetings, things didn't get any better. There was a conflict with an elderly lady who wanted to bring Hurricane awareness pamphlets to hand out to people. She was cornered, told she couldn't bring them in, and treated very rudely.This happened one week before the hurricane hit our local area. It was all caught on video and made public so quite a few people got to see the real Manatee county REC in action. By the way, Steve corrected that problem. He put an end to anyone ever exposing how badly certain members are being treated. At the last meeting, a new set of so-called Rules of conduct was passed. I will say it was passed by a group of members I call the "Good old boys club". One section of the new rule state anyone caught videotaping anywhere on the property will be charged with a felony. Yes, a felony! The rules also stated no one was allowed hand out any papers anywhere, including the parking lot. When questioned if he had the authority to make that rule he informed everyone that it was his name on the rental agreement and that he could do what he wanted. Steve likes to boast about winning the election to keep his seat as chairman and getting his group of hand-picked people elected to fill the rest of the seats on the board. Everything seems fair because he did have the most votes, right? Let's look at all the facts. before calling it fair. After a few months of the new members getting elected, Steve realized he had a problem. The election of the board members was coming up in December. After attending a few meetings, most of the new members were not going to vote for him. So what did he do, he stopped taking new member applications. I think I am correct in saying the last time any new applications were taken was at the meeting in June. We are now into February and I am not sure if they started taking new applications or not. Anyone who wanted to join was deprived of the opportunity for the past seven or eight months. The story he tells people is they need to stop the wrong people from joining. I think what he means by that is people who won't sit down and shut up and go along with everything he does. Also at the last meeting, a motion was passed to form a committee requiring all new applicants to be screened. Who do you think gets to select the screening committee?? Not the members I can tell you that much! After seeing how the meeting was run and realizing how unwelcome the new members felt, quite a few got disgusted and stopped showing up for the meetings. Steve got what he wanted. The "Good old boys club had enough members to control the election and more recently any votes that are brought to the floor. If you are like me and want to help get our country back on track, what can we do? I have seen where people quit the Republican party and changed their voter registration to Independent or NPA. The problem I see with that is once you do that you can't vote in the primaries for any Republican candidates. And if the right people don't win the primaries we are stuck backing RINOs in the general election. It is sad to say but I think there are very few candidates that stand a chance of winning unless they are either on the Democrat or Republican ticket. This is where I would like some suggestions. I know politicians don't care about what a small group of people think, But if there is a group of several hundred or thousand they stand up and pay attention. I would like to figure out a way to get a large group of people, regardless of party, to commit to sticking together and all agree to vote for the same candidates. We would have what I will call a primary election within our group. If everyone would agree to vote for whichever candidate the majority of people in the group voted for we would have a very powerful group. There is Power in numbers. We see it with Democrats in congress. Unlike the Republicans, they can almost always count on every one of them to vote the same on any bill. I think one of the main problems with Republicans is we are very divided when we vote. I know everyone has the right to vote for whomever they want to but I feel it would be more beneficial to consolidate our votes and take advantage of the power we can gain by doing it. Here is an example of what I am trying to say: In every election, there are what I consider wasted votes. What I mean by that is people voting for a candidate that has no chance of winning. I have heard people saying their candidate had no chance of winning but they were voting for them anyway. Sometimes I think it is better to vote for your second or even third choice. When our vote is split between several candidates it results in a terrible candidate getting elected. So we shot ourselves in the foot by voting for someone who had no chance. If we could form a group, I wouldn't want it to be affiliated with any party. Although I am and have been registered as a Republican, I am often very disappointed in some of the elected officials who are supposed to represent us and don't. I don't know if the group would ever get enough people to get an independent candidate elected but I would love to try to get a group that large. Please give me your thoughts.
Bob
I can witness that everything the RINO Hunter said is true. This REC insists on making up their own rules as they along. Because of this I do not see how we American First Republicans who go by the Constitution will ever be able to get this REC back on track.