Republican Central Committee Refuses to Endorse CUSD Trustees
CUSD Recall Committee press release

 The Republican Central Committee met on Mon., July 17, to provide early endorsements to sitting Republican incumbents across Orange County. Generally speaking, all Orange County Republican incumbents in good standing receive the political party’s endorsement in a single, routine, “consent calendar” vote. However, there was nothing routine about the vote regarding three CUSD trustee incumbents. The Republican Central Committee refused to provide an early endorsement to any of the three CUSD trustees who must run for reelection in November (John Casabianca, Crystal Kochendorfer and Sheila Henness).

Prior to calling for the vote, it was disclosed that seven Republican Central Committee members had separately exercised their right to pull the CUSD trustees from consideration. To this remarkable disclosure, Chairman Scott Baugh responded with a wry smile, “…not that this will have anything to do with whether they are endorsed by the party… .”

According to Neil Blais, 71st Assembly District Central Committee member, “The fact that so many members of the Republican Central Committee were unwilling to provide an early endorsement to the three CUSD trustees is indicative that Republicans are concerned with the leadership and administration of the school district.”

CUSD Recall Committee spokesperson Thomas Russell was present and pleased by the actions of the Central Committee. Russell stated, “The CUSD trustees have been badly tarnished by our unprecedented recall campaign, the pending District Attorney investigation and the recent front-page ‘enemies list’ scandals – they have become an embarrassment to the entire community.”

The CUSD trustees face an uphill battle. They can still fight to obtain an endorsement from the Republican Central Committee at a subsequent meeting. However, to succeed they must obtain votes from at least two-thirds of the Central Committee membership, an unlikely prospect given the sentiments generally expressed at the July 17 meeting. 

The CUSD Recall Committee is the organization that led South Orange County residents in the unprecedented campaign to recall all seven elected trustees of the Capistrano Unified School District. More than 177,000 signatures were obtained from south Orange County residents calling for the removal of all seven CUSD trustees. The campaign focused on alleged financial mismanagement and corruption at CUSD.

To learn more about these issues, visit the Web site, here.