The Michigan Republican Party invalidated the Hillsdale County Republican Party’s Aug. 11 convention after county leadership barred dozens of delegates from the meeting.
“It’s Hillsdale GOP vs. everybody,” HCRP Chairman Daren Wiseley said.
The HCRP disavowed delegates including state Rep. Andrew Fink, state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, former state Rep. Steve Vear, and Hillsdale College Professor of Economics and Public Policy Gary Wolfram.
Wiseley held the county convention at Sozo Church, where party members barred delegates from entry. At the same time, County Commissioner Brent Leininger led an alternate convention of more than 61 delegates in a downtown parking lot.
According to the state party’s Aug. 19 credentials committee ruling, Wiseley and Leininger each submitted a slate of 13 delegates to the Aug. 27 state convention in Lansing.
Just five of Wiseley’s 13 delegates were precinct delegates, which the ruling said violates the party’s “hard working Republican” rule. The HCRP executive board also broke party rules by banning delegates elected on Aug. 2 from the county convention, according to the ruling.
“I have never seen anything like this before in a county party,” Leininger said.
According to HCRP Secretary Jon Smith, officials disavowed leaders they believe lost touch with the party and its values in recent years.
“They never attend, have never really been part of the party in the last few years,” Smith said. “But all of a sudden, they somehow want to have a voice.”
Hillsdale County Clerk Marney Kast sent Wolfram a notice that voters elected him as a delegate to the county convention. Then the HCRP Executive Committee, which consists of Wiseley, Smith, Lance Lashaway, Josh Gritzmaker, and Jon-Paul Rutan, sent him a letter.
“The party was infiltrated in the early 1970s by neoconservatives that practice, overtly and covertly, Trochkey [sic] International Socialism,” the letter read. “Gary Wolfram is herby [sic] disavowed.”
The letter asserted the party’s duty to protect its values from “a hostile takeover,” and said the HCRP no longer recognizes recipients as Republicans. Smith also warned disavowed delegates that if they appeared at the convention, they would be guilty of criminal trespass, according to emails The Collegian obtained.
“I had never seen anything like that,” Wolfram said. “I was astonished.”
Wolfram said he had often served in Republican politics at the state level. He worked under former Republican Gov. John Engler as deputy state treasurer in the early 1990s, and said he offered economic consulting for Republican legislators. He is running for Hillsdale City Council in November.
“I was hardly doing a hostile takeover,” Wolfram said.
Vear, who said officials committed a “coup d’état,” served as a Republican in the state house, and as both HCRP chairman and treasurer.
“I’m not a Trotsky Marxist as the disavowment claims,” Vear said.
Recipients, however, could undergo an appeals process, according to emails. Smith said the party intended this to preserve fairness.
Bud Vear, founder of Hillsdale County Right to Life and Steve Vear’s father, said he attempted to enter the convention after the party disavowed him. He showed up shortly before the meeting, he said, and met two men at the entrance.
“I presented my official documentation as an officially elected delegate. They checked their list and told me my name was not on it, so I could not be admitted,” Vear said. “They and I were very polite during this exchange, but it was a disturbing encounter.”
Party officials also sent some members secret codes to enter the convention, according to emails The Collegian obtained.
Leininger said disavowed delegates carried out the voters’ will at the alternate convention.
“We were tasked with selecting delegates from Hillsdale County to represent the citizens,” Leininger said. “Other people didn’t want to let us into a building where they decided to eventually nominate individuals. We felt it was still our civic responsibility.”
Wolfram said the meeting went smoothly, and that county delegates voted unanimously to nominate their 13 state convention delegates.
“Our convention can be judged an illegal convention, but theirs was as well. They secretly planned,” the HCRP executive board said in an email to the state party. “They say we did not let their delegates into our convention, but in the same token, we were never invited to theirs. We maintained media silence as to not dishonor or defame the party. The other side conducted a public circus.”
Smith said the party took these measures to expose what he called a “Boss Hogg” mentality among local leaders, and what he called “election fraud.”
“The people that are disenfranchised aren’t the people that were left out of this stupid convention,” Smith said. “The people that have been disenfranchised are the people that have been left off the ballot.”
Kast denied election fraud.
“Election fraud? My question is where? All precincts were in balance, the Board of Canvassers certified the election,” Kast said.
Leininger said disagreement within a party is natural, but that unity in purpose must come first.
“Disagreement is good amongst us, because our Creator gave us free will and gave us a mind,” he said. “But we have to be able to put those differences behind us for the good of our community, our state, and our country.”
