CRA Needs to Clean House

The endorsing process has become contentious within the California Republican Assembly. Two opposing sides comprise a small percentage of CRA’s members, with the vast majority watching from a distance.

CRA’s endorsements, according to accusations from both sides, have been sold. For those not involved in the alleged sales, endorsements are merely a blood sport. One of the warring groups calls itself “Restore CRA.” According to allegations, what it wants to restore is money from campaigns flowing to a few in the group’s hierarchy. The Restorers lost badly in the April 17 CRA board election, and they’re so mad they can’t stop talking about it.

In Orange County, the Restore group leader is Scott Voigts, who lost his reelection bid as a CRA vice president. Supporting Voigts is a bomb-throwing blogger, Geoff Willis. Although Willis isn’t a CRA member, he’s a co-worker of another of Voigts’ supporters, Greg Woodard. Voigts, a Lake Forest resident, is grooming Woodard for a Mission Viejo council seat. Woodard and Willis’ business have developers as clients, and both opposed Measure D, the citizens’ right-to-vote on zone changes. Willis and Woodard frequently embarrass themselves by posting misinformation on blogs, and Woodard gets caught in lies. When local CRA units hold meetings, their members find nasty flyers on windshields of their cars about the April 17 election winners.

A contentious issue is the creation of phony (“paper”) units – those that don’t have meetings or other activity to legitimize their existence. They do, however, send delegates to endorsing conventions. The purpose instantly becomes clear with the allegation that endorsements have been sold. The primary promoter of paper units in OC is Voigts.

Phony units in OC emerged when Voigts created quite a few in 2006, with the appearance he was doing it for 71st Assembly District seat candidate Neil Blais. Blais was running against Jeff Miller of Riverside County. In response to Voigts creating phony units in OC, Miller’s campaign manager was involved in creating units of about the same caliber in Riverside County, beating Voigts at his own game. Miller received CRA’s endorsement, which he probably didn’t need in an election that wasn’t even close.

Voigts started the paper-unit contest, but the losers complained about the Riverside units. Miller’s campaign manager responded, saying paper units didn’t seem out of order. And if the practice were disallowed, why was Voigts doing it without any repercussions?

When it comes to housecleaning in a literal sense, stuff that’s broken should be repaired or thrown away. In CRA, regardless of who broke the rules, the new board led by Celeste Greig is determined to stop the practice of paper units. It leaves a few folks in OC in a snit and without a well-traveled road to money and power. However, CRA’s choice is either to clean house or have its endorsement process under a cloud.