The specter of John McCain was present at a recent meeting the Arizona’s Legislative District 2, as Precinct Committeemen moved to pass a resolution to close the Republican primaries. Despite his operatives’ best efforts the resolution vehemently opposed by McCain passed.
LD2 Chair Sergio Arellano, who told the group that he personally supported closed primaries, pleaded with attendees to delay the vote until Arizona GOP head Robert Graham could address the group. According to Arellano, Graham, who was in France, wanted the group to refrain from voting on the resolution until he could talk them out of it.
Arellano entertained a motion by McCain/Graham supporters to delay a vote on the resolution. Arellano’s claim that a voice vote was in favor of the motion was challenged. Ranting that the proxies held by pro-resolution precinct committeemen were illegitimate, the hot-tempered James Kelley insisted, “I want those proxies thrown out. The proxies, don’t count, the proxies don’t count, the proxies don’t count. They were not filled out correctly before the vote,” Kelley ranted in a loud voice while relying on a unidentified technicality. The precinct committeewoman holding the proxies stated, “On my word, these proxies were given to me with instructions to vote for the resolution.”
Arellano made a “chairman’s call” and found that the proxies did count and the motion to table the matter failed.
Arellano did step up for the precinct committeemen when they came under verbal attack by McCain Operative James Kelley. Kelley, known for his erratic behavior and quick temper continued to rant about the proxies claiming, “We’re still in a crisis here.” Observers note that the only one having a crisis was Kelley. “I’m still fighting this,” yelled Kelley. “We’re not moving until this is resolved!” To which one unidentified woman responded, “Who says?”
Arellano ignored Kelley’s tantrum and the resolution to close the primaries. Audio of vote process available below:
At the annual statutory meetings of the Maricopa County Republican Committee (MCRC) and the Arizona Republican Party (AZGOP), precinct committeemen passed by super majorities similar resolutions. Since that time, McCain operatives on all levels of the Party from Graham on down have fought against the grassroots. McCain’s group believes that he cannot win without the Independents’ support.
Currently in Arizona, Independents are allowed to vote in either the Democrat and Republican primaries. The Libertarian Party’s primaries is now closed because they took the matter to court and won.
Because Independents can and do vote in whatever party primary they choose, despite his wide-spread unpopularity with grassroots Republicans, McCain has held his Senate seat with the help of Independents.
A.J LaFaro, a leader of Arizona’s Republican grassroots told supporters in an email: “The issues that support closing our primaries are as real and serious today as they were when the resolution overwhelmingly passed in January 2015, and much more so since Proposition 103 was passed in 1998 that created Arizona’s insane semi-open primary system. A semi-open primary system the Federal courts have ruled unconstitutional and a violation of our First Amendment right to freedom of association.”
In 2010, then Chairman of the AZGOP Randy Pullen asked attorneys to write a request for proposal (RFP) for the purpose “to retain outside counsel to assist it in developing a case in support of the proposition that only registered members of the Party may vote in primary elections”. According to LaFaro, several Arizona attorneys responded optimistic about the prospects for success.
Contrary to Graham’s claim that closing the primaries is cost prohibitive, according to LaFaro, the estimated total costs was a mere $50,000 or less.
LaFaro says that Graham “has attempted from the very beginning to sabotage and obstruct the will of the overwhelming majority of the AZGOP Precinct and State Committeemen.”
LaFaro’s emails read in part:
Starting when the “Resolution in Support of Closed Republican Primaries in Arizona” was initially submitted to the AZGOP Resolutions Committee chaired by Mr. Ray Sweeney, the floor fight to introduce the original resolution at the AZGOP Statutory Meeting on January 24 2015, the April 18 2015 AZGOP ExComm Meeting that Graham unilaterally decided to close and threatened over thirty (30) AZGOP Precinct and State Committeemen with arrest, Mr. Chad Heywood’s, Executive Director of the AZGOP, recent statement at a LD26 Republican Committee Meeting that the AZGOP “paid pretty decent money” for the legal opinions they bought. Mr. Heywood also refers to the 2015 legal opinion they paid Mr. David Hardy for. Please note, Mr. Hardy’s 2010 opinion is much more optimistic and quite different than the one Graham and the AZGOP recently paid for. I wonder why?
Now Graham and his AZGOP minions are attending meetings all over Arizona saying they support closing the primaries out of one side of their mouth while making more lame excuses why they can’t out of the other. One of the meeting attendees described the meeting he attended as “The Robert Graham Excuses Express!”
According to sources, Graham has cancelled his appearance at the next LD2 meeting scheduled in July.
To date, three Legislative Districts have passed resolutions to close the primaries. More are expected to follow suit.
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