State GOP, NCGA Leaders Unite Behind New Fundraising Committees | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: This article was created by the CJ Staff of the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher. Carolina Journal Managing Editor Rick Henderson and Associate Editor Barry Smith contributed reporting to this story.

Changes in committee leadership assuage grass-roots concerns

    RALEIGH     State Republican legislative leaders, along with state GOP chairman Hasan Harnett and incoming party executive director Dallas Woodhouse, announced on Tuesday that new provisions in a law allowing legislative caucuses to establish separate fundraising committees would not be exercised during the 2016 primary season.

    The move came after conservative grass-roots activists, some GOP lawmakers, and left-leaning political watchdogs issued warnings about the last-minute addition of the affiliated committees — one each for the Democratic and Republican caucuses in the House and Senate — to House Bill 373, a bill scheduling all of North Carolina's 2016 primary elections on March 15.

    At a brief press conference in the Legislative Building Tuesday, House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, and Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, stood alongside Harnett and Woodhouse.

    Harnett said, "The grass-roots have been listened to ... Today, we have a unified party."

    Moore said the affiliated committees give the legislative caucuses "another tool we can use in campaigns at the same time we can work closely with the state party."

    The last-minute changes, as part of a "technical corrections" measure, include:

• Creating an affiliated fundraising committee for the Democratic and Republican Council of State members, allowing each committee to raise money from donors in addition to funds from their parties or their regular campaign committees.
• Requiring the leaders of the affiliated committees in the General Assembly to be elected by a majority of the members of the House and Senate caucuses from each party. Grass-roots activists feared that, if legislative leaders controlled the funding, they might use the money to pick favorites in contested party primaries.

    Last weekend, the state GOP executive committee voted to forgo a winner-take-all presidential preference primary and award its 72 delegates proportionately, based on the share of votes candidates receive in the March primary.

    "Everybody involved in this has the same goal, to greatly increase participation among North Carolina voters in the presidential process," said Woodhouse, who became the state party's executive director this week. "My sense was that perhaps there would be more candidates that would come here in a proportional primary. We hope that is the case."

    Woodhouse said that during the Saturday meeting in Greensboro, committee members had a vigorous debate over assigning delegates to the national convention.

    Traditionally, North Carolina's presidential preference primary has been set up to award delegates to party conventions proportionately. However, H.B. 373 provided for the winner-take-all format, unless those provisions conflicted with national party rules.

    Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, who is also one of North Carolina's members to the Republican National Committee, said state law cannot force parties — which are private organizations — to award delegates according to a specific formula.

    "N.C. law can't bind the proportionality question," Lewis said in a text message. "That's an internal, national party issue. It's not really a state statute issue."

    H.B. 373 includes the presidential preference primary and the general statewide and local primaries.

    At Tuesday's press briefing, Woodhouse said he was "excited" that the 2016 campaign is already under way. "We are wrapping up a great legislative session with these leaders," he said, "and the campaign apparatus is being put forward as we need to do."