4 North Carolina Republicans disciplined for ‘disloyalty’ to party
Four North Carolina members of the GOP have been effectively excommunicated by their party over accusations of disloyalty.
Four Haywood County GOP members were accused of working against Republican candidates in the 2016 election while serving in an official capacity with the party, The Mountaineer reported.
The four are now prohibited from holding office within the party for three to five years, after a hearing by the state Republican Party’s executive committee in Raleigh on Saturday, the newspaper reported. The hearing was not open to the public.
The four were members of the “Haywood Five,” leaders of a splinter group of the Haywood County GOP. Accusations were made against the fifth member of the group but only four were upheld, according to The Mountaineer.
According to the NCGOP’s website, the state party’s Plan of Organization provides for removal of an official for “party disloyalty,” which is defined as “actively supporting a candidate of another Party or independent candidate running in opposition to a candidate of the Republican Party or a Republican endorsed by the appropriate Executive Committee in a non-partisan election.”
The plan lays out how “charges” against a party official are handled: “Any Republican against whom charges are brought shall be furnished with 2 weeks notice of said charges and be given an opportunity to present a defense. Removal by a vote of the respective Committee shall be confined to gross inefficiency, Party disloyalty (as defined herein) or failure to comply with the County, District, or State Party Plans of Organization.”
Ken Henson, chairman of the Haywood County GOP, said the Haywood Five faction created a rift in the local party, bullying and ridiculing those who didn’t fall in line with them. The group started its own political action committee called the “Haywood Republican Alliance.”
“I will not stand for it no more,” Henson told The Mountaineer. “You can come and say what you want to without feeling somebody is going to jump on you and be mean to you.”
The faction defended itself, saying it was upholding traditional conservative principles by “calling out Republicans who are corrupt.”
“We are going to continue to do what we have been doing which is to support conservative candidates, to educate and animate the public, and do the job the Republican Party should be doing but isn’t,” Jeremy Davis, a member of the Haywood Five, told The Mountaineer.
Accusations against the Haywood Five included doctoring GOP voter guides to support Democratic candidates, writing emails criticizing Republicans, authoring blog posts to support Democrats and sharing pro-Libertarian or pro-Democrat posts on Facebook, according to The Mountaineer and The Smoky Mountain News.
The Haywood County GOP held an unannounced closed session during a special meeting in May to accuse the Haywood Five of party disloyalty, according to allegations reported by The Smoky Mountain News.
“I have never campaigned for no Democrat and they didn’t even accuse me of that. It was for badmouthing a RINO,” said Eddie Cabe, a member of the Haywood Five, using an acronym for Republican In Name Only.
In addition to Davis and Cabe, the Haywood Five also includes Monroe Miller, Richard West and Paul Yeager.
This story was originally published November 15, 2017 at 4:10 PM with the headline "4 North Carolina Republicans disciplined for ‘disloyalty’ to party."