Hillsborough County GOP: The Tip of the Spear
America First Republicans brawl with Status Quo Establishment
Backstory: June 11, there was a change to the Republican Party of Florida Loyalty Oath. There was a delay in its amended publication as it had to be approved by State Party attorney, Ben Gibson, who was on vacation at the time. Potential members would have to wait until the revised oath was approved by Gibson before they would be allowed to be voted upon to join the Hillsborough County Republican Executive Committee (HCREC). The revised oath was not approved for distribution until the following Monday after the HCREC July 14th monthly meeting. This would delay new members from joining until August. The HCREC leadership confirmed this with the RPOF leadership to verify that this was correct the afternoon of the July meeting and the RPOF confirmed this was the case. Otherwise, if the new members had signed the old Party Loyalty Oath, their application would have been thrown out.
Why is having the Party Loyalty Oath and the Candidate Oath correct so important?
Because new members are duly ELECTED as described in Florida Statute 103.091. Their Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) Party Loyalty Oath is filed with the RPOF and their Candidate Oath is filed with the county Supervisor of Elections.
Shortly after, allegations were made that fifteen grievances were filed against Chairman Waurishuk because the new member process was intentionally delaying Republicans from becoming new HCREC members.
Party of Rules?
After these allegations were made, was RPOF due process followed by the State Grievance Committee Chairman, Richard DeNapoli? You decide:
The grievances filed against Chair Waurishuk were not sent to him for his response. To this day he has NOT seen any of them. Waurishuk first heard of the grievances filed against him on September 9th. The 10-day time period to respond with his defense was never allowed.
The RPOF met in Executive Session on Sept 10th and decided his fate. The required hearing, after a written response from Chairman Waurishuk, was never held.
The RPOF directives were sent on September 13th addressing the perceived (one-side-only) issues.
This RPOF directive appears to violate the current membership processes, mandating how the HCREC was to operate through December with new members have only two requirements to join: complete the necessary paperwork, attend the October monthly meeting, making new members eligible to run for a board position and vote in the HCREC December Board Elections.
Recruitment, Recruitment, Recruitment!
Florida News Report received a forwarded email sent out by Hillsborough County State Committeewoman, April Schiff. Her email, dated 9/12, appears to be an attempt to recruit folks to join the HCREC just so they could vote in the December election for Chairman and Board:
If Schiff has other earlier emails during 2022 recruiting new members to join the HCREC, please forward them to FloridaNewsReport@gmail.com and we will gladly publish them and issue an apology for getting her intent wrong. Until then, this is the only proof FNR has seen that State Committeewoman Schiff operated a membership drive - not for the August Republican Primary nor for the November General Election - only the December HCREC election of the Chairman and the Board.
In response to Schiff’s actions, HCREC member, Jason Kimball, sent an email to the membership Wednesday 10/12, the date of the October HCREC monthly meeting. Kimball’s email suggested Schiff was recruiting membership solely for the December election. He also included the names of Schiff’s membership candidates recruited. FNR contacted one of the candidates personally known to one of our FNR family on the day of the meeting, who was listed as a Schiff recruit. The conversation was as follows:
FNR: Hi! Are you attending the HREC meeting this evening?
Recruit: I am. I’m going with ________. We aren’t really joining. We are only becoming members to vote in December. We will not become precinct committee people. It’s just a temporary situation.
That’s not really “growing the county Party”--- that’s AstroTurf.
The Meeting
First, according to surprise guest, RPOF Chair Gruters, 160 membership applicants were to be voted on. HCREC board discussed with key RPOF leadership that the only viable way to vote on 160 new members was by listing all candidates with a "yes" or "no" option on a single ballot.
Kimball and three other HCREC members provided this breakdown of the October 12th meeting to vote on new members: Gruters began:
Jim has been my friend ever since (Trump). I have been trying to help him as Chairman. Sometimes, successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully, but what happened is about two years ago, there was a grievance filed. What happens in the Party if a grievance filed by one of the members, it goes before the state, through a committee. There’s about ten members, ten different chairmen, and state committeewomen, and all sit around and discuss and the question they ask they ask themselves is “Is the grievance legit, is it not legit” and what is the recommendation if someone did violate one of the rules of the Party. So the first question you have to ask yourself is are we a Party of rules? And we are. We have to be (CROWD GRUMBLED. Shouting over Gruters as he continued to speak).
Tonight’s process is going to be a little different from what the Hillsborough County Board originally thought. They were gonna give you a ballot with 160 names plus or minus - (CROWD GRUMBLED) - and we are gonna vote yes or no. The problem is that it’s against the Republican Party of Florida rules. (NOTE: According to the County Model Constitution, Article 4: Organizational meeting and election of officers, Section 3 states that “no ballot shall be pre-printed with the name of any candidate.” This rule is only in regard to the election of officers, not the election of Precinct Committeemen and women to fill vacancies).
(CROWD GRUMBLED). Someone from the crowd yells, “SINCE WHEN?!” (CROWD GREW LOUDER).....Gruters: Don’t forget, we’re all fighting for the same thing. CROWD: “We are? I don’t think we are!” (CROWD CONTINUES TO CHALLENGE GRUTERS).
GRUTERS: So what we’re going to do, we’re going to take up each individual person, one-by-one, and you are going to be able to vote “yes” or “no.” If there’s an objection to somebody, because the original intent was to have a consent agenda where all 160 names had a motion to approve. Since there’s objection to that - already - what we’re going to do is go one-by-one and I would encourage everybody to accept anybody that wants to participate. CROWD: We’re not going to use ballots?
GRUTERS: We’re not going to use ballots because it’s against the Republican Party rules.
CROWD: That’s ****. How are you going to know how we voted? No, this is garbage! Moving the goalpost is what you’re doing. You change the rules every time.
GRUTERS: Order, order. We are a party of rules.
CROWD: Then why are you changing the rules?
GRUTERS (looking at Waurishuk): do you want me to run the program?
CROWD: NO!
GRUTERS: I’m going to hand this over to Jim. Remember, we are all in this together. We want more participation. We want participation, everyone should be voted yes, I don’t care what side of the aisle you are on.
CROWD: NO - now you get to choose!
GRUTERS: You should want the maximum participation.
CROWD: We will get to do that by voting! Other comments.
GRUTERS: Now I will tell you…over the last 24 months, I have been Jim’s biggest defender. (disparaging crowd comments.) Everything we’ve done has been transparent and open to the benefit of everyone. I have no problems with Jim and I hope he serves as long as he wants as long as he’s doing everything right. Now, let me tell you what’s going to happen. Let’s say Jim gets re-elected. If there continues to be problems in this county party, I told Jim this, Jim won’t be around for four months. Everybody has to follow the rules. We have to do things right.
CROWD: Point of order: I’d like to make a motion to open discussion on the RPOF Chairman’s directive; motion seconded.
JASON KIMBALL: I’d like to make a motion to open discussion on the RPOF Chairman’s directive and the statements he just made. Three minutes to discuss. The motion was seconded to open discussion. All in favor: Aye. Opposed (a few people)
JASON KIMBALL: The one thing I want to say is that this is not just about bringing on new members. The RPOF Chairman’s directive specifically said that everyone sworn in here today even if they have never attended any REC meetings, is going to be allowed to vote in December. We want and welcome all these great people here today, but we don’t want someone to manipulate our December board election. (CROWD CHEERS) We’re not trying to create an adversarial divisive situation. Unfortunately, we’re responding to a very divisive person and somebody who has created grievance after grievance after grievance (crowd applause). And I hope that we respond correctly and I hope that everyone on this side of the room (pointing to new recruits) knows that we love and are so happy they are here. We want you to join and we urge you to come to our next meeting and join the HCREC.
APRIL SCHIFF: I just want to say this. It is so awesome to see so many people in this room tonight(CROWD GETS LOUD). You all are acting like a bunch of Democrats. (CROWD YELLS: “Ironic, coming from you!”) Jason Kimball has never met me and neither have a whole bunch of you. He just called me divisive. Here’s what I’m going to say: If you have a complaint about me, have the decency to meet me and talk with me and get to know me.
CROWD YELLS: “Did you do that with the Chairman?”
WAURISHUK: I need a motion to close discussion. Motion made and seconded. All in favor: Aye. Discussion closed. Since we won’t be using a ballot, we will be calling on each person individually. If that person is not here, they won’t be voted on.
After discussion, Waurishuk called for the vote in favor to approve everyone by show of hands, Gruters and the Polk Chair were among those counting. Then he called the vote for approving everyone. During the count I walked up to Chairman Jim and asked if there was any fast way to approve everyone one by one and he told me, "No." The motion failed by 45-72. This is when the mood in the room began to change, a few of the prospective members began to walk out, and it felt like a great victory for the America First Republicans in the HCREC.
Gruters then said they would only be accepting motions to reject everyone or vote everyone one by one. A member tried to make a motion stipulating that all prospective members all be voted in today, but not allowed to vote in our December elections. Gruters refused to allow the motion to the floor. Someone made a motion to reject all members, and it was seconded. Votes in favor and against were counted, and the motion passed, all prospects were rejected. Someone made a motion to adjourn, which was seconded and passed.
Chaos erupted near the middle of the room, apparently between an HCREC member and a prospect, we thought it would devolve into a fight. But there were no punches thrown.
The St. Johns county REC is experiencing similar issues. The REC board is full of do nothing corrupt establishment RINO's funded by the Hutson developers. The people want real America First effort, while we still have a country, and they just want the status quo and to retain their perceived power, which they're rapidly losing.
The pathetic chairman recently admitted that he failed to implement the correct REC bi-laws so he's trying to go back and operate under the old ones. Makes one wonder if his failure was intentional.
The election is in December and there are currently 25 people that have been waiting for months to be inducted. The REC appears to be intentionally delaying it. Roy Alaimo is even closing/gaveling meetings without even a motion instead of just letting people speak and resolving issues, like a true leader. It's embarrassing.
The establishment is destroying the Republican party with their uniparty tactics. This won't end well for anyone and establishment Republicans will only have themselves to blame because they're cowards!
I sent you an email. Hillsborough County uses Konnech.