Just weeks after electing a new party chairman, the civil war within the Macomb County Republican Party flared up again, with the former GOP treasurer and the newly elected chair trading fire in lengthy, testy memos sent to the rank and file.
The dysfunctional Macomb GOP hasn’t seen a blowup like this since, well, since 2011.
The most recent battle began when the ousted leadership, associated with the tea party, threw a $5,000 by-invitation-only Christmas party for their supporters before heading toward the exits. That was more than twice the amount spent in assisting local GOP candidates in the final weeks of the fall campaign.
The new party chair, Rob Montilla, criticized the spending, as did other party leaders. The condemnation, outlined in a Macomb Daily news article, incensed the de facto leader of the defeated cabal, Shelby Township Clerk Stan Grot. And it drove former treasurer Ann Brown to come out with guns blazing in a 4-page letter that was mailed to some of the party faithful.
The title of this rant perhaps says it all: “The GOP Mulching Machine.”
Brown claims the old guard that regained control of the party is a corrupt band of power-hungry politicos who were willing to destroy the party in order to save it from the clutches of the newcomers.
A longtime accountant, Brown accused Montilla’s crew of corruption; she asserted that party funds under the old regime in 2009-10, when Harrison Township Deputy Treasurer Jared Maynard was chair, were paid in suspect ways, with favoritism shown toward just a few people for campaign work; she said that the first action taken by the new group was to hold a closed-door party meeting that shut out the undesirables; she alleged that past audits revealed questionable accounting practices by her predecessor, Ron Babin, who is once again the party treasurer; and she claimed that Montilla used the GOP website in 2009-10 in an unethical manner.
“I can guarantee one thing, if these issues aren’t addressed and people aren’t held accountable for their actions, this cycle will continue …” she wrote.
In addition, Brown downplayed the money spent on the fancy party held on Dec. 13 at the Palazzo Grande in Shelby Township, essentially comparing it to the potluck dinners that passed for a Macomb GOP Christmas party in previous years.
Not surprisingly, the Brown letter sparked a heated 10-page response from Montilla, who was elected chair in November and took the reigns last month.
Montilla rebutted Brown’s accusations point-by-point and suggested she was “twisting the facts in an attempt to discredit” those who are now back in charge. Montilla’s memo, including a few sections penned by Babin, laid claim to numerous inaccuracies, misinformation and “outright lies” in the Brown letter. They cited party by-laws and online documentation.
As for the infamous Christmas party, Montilla said “no fiscal conservative can justify this expenditure.”
And he and Babin turned the tables, questioning how well Brown handled the books and whether she is withholding some financial information.
Brown, a political neophyte when she was elected treasurer in the November 2010 tea party coup, seems to be walking away battered by this whole he said/she said incident.
Mrs. Brown may be better known these days as Mrs. Black and Blue.
Obviously outmatched in the political arena, someone should have advised Brown – something about glass houses and throwing stones -- before she set off this internal strife.
(It should be noted that I was a major target of Brown’s memo. She accused me of relying upon “fabrications and untruths” in my news story about the Christmas Party. Brown, who remains the treasurer for the 10th Congressional District GOP, offered no evidence for these claims. What Brown didn’t mention in her letter was that my story was based entirely on the GOP campaign finance report that she submitted to the state Bureau of Elections in Lansing. In fact, Montilla makes a good case that the big bash actually cost about $6,000, when all the expenses are counted.)
The last time the Macomb Republicans experienced an intramural battle like this was in 2011 when then-chairman Mike Ennis resigned after just one year in the top post. As he departed, Ennis issued a scathing letter that blasted several party leaders for improper actions and motivations and “outright hate” for their foes.
Montilla now takes over as the fourth chairman in roughly the past two years. Soap opera-style turmoil has become standard fare. And the Democrats are entertained.
What’s more, the new GOP boss takes the helm after a poor showing by the local party in the November elections. The county Board of Commissioners went from a slight 7-6 edge for the Democrats and a Republican chair to a 9-4 advantage for the Dems and a Democrat chair. Ill-advised tactical decisions by the GOP contributed to that outcome.
In addition, the party again lost all of the “Big Five” elections for countywide offices after nominating an extremely weak field of candidates and, in fact, offering no GOP candidate for public works commissioner.
At one point in her letter Brown argued that she left the party no more “broke” than her predecessors -- the amount of campaign money left behind was $548 with the changing of the guard in January 2011 vs. $542 for the January 2013 changeover. Those two meager figures, which certainly will spark laughter among the Macomb Democrats, speak volumes about a Republican Party that remains unstable, underfunded and outgunned.
“The problem is that rancor like this does not build the party, it weakens it,” Montilla wrote in his response. “Existing and prospective GOP activists working as volunteers do not want to spend their time embroiled in nonsensical internal battles, they want to beat Democrats.”
Montilla will get that chance in November 2014 – if he’s still around.
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