As we covered last week, the Tennessee GOP State Executive Committee voted to remove three congressional candidates – Robby Starbuck, Morgan Ortagus, and Baxter Lee – from the primary ballot after their “bona fide Republican” status was challenged. Now, Starbuck and Ortagus are fighting back, and Starbuck’s campaign has sent a pre-litigation demand letter to the Tennessee Republican Party and an evidence preservation notice to the 17 members of the State Executive Committee (SEC) who participated in the April 19 meeting and vote.
Based on information found in the letters from Starbuck, the meeting and vote were held two days before the deadline given to Starbuck’s campaign to present evidence of his bona fides, and at a secret and closed location in violation of Tennessee’s Open Meetings Act, without Starbuck or a representative present. In addition, Starbuck believes that members of the SEC considered false information about his state of residence, party registration history, and voting record in making their decision and that his campaign opponents and their proxies aggressively and improperly lobbied the 17 SEC members participating in advance of the vote.
Starbuck’s campaign has given the Tennessee Republican Party until 5 PM Central Time on Tuesday, April 26 to agree that they will not remove Starbuck’s name from the ballot, or they will file suit.
Robby Starbuck’s representative, I have sent this pre-litigation request notice in order to give you and Tennessee the opportunity to avoid any litigation regarding a violation of Mr. Starbuck’s rights under the Tennessee Constitution. Unless you notify me by 5 pm Central Time on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, that the State will not remove Mr. Starbuck’s name from the ballot for the federal primary election for the 5th Congressional District as directed by the Tennessee Republican Party, Mr. Starbuck will have no choice but to file suit against the state and name you as the responsible official.
These are background facts.
To prevent Democrats from running as Republicans, Tennessee GOP bylaws allow any two Republicans to challenge a Republican candidate to prove that they’re a Republican. The candidate will need to provide proof that they voted in the most recent Tennessee Republican State Primaries.
The section about the “vouching” process is pretty ambiguous, though. The text is:
A person who has been vouched by an officer or member of CEC (to the satisfaction the decision makers) to be a bona-fide Republican in the county and/or district where he resides. It may take additional confirmation that the individual described herein is truly a bona fide Republican to satisfy the decision-makers.
The final decision concerning said individual’s bona fide Republican status shall be determined by a majority vote of the following: the State Chairman and each SEC member who represents any portion of the district covered by said individual’s proposed candidacy.
How much information is required to convince decision-makers that the candidate is truly a Republican?
Since Starbuck hasn’t lived in Tennessee long enough to have voted in three of the last four Republican primaries, he had to go the vouching route. Starbuck provided 14 letters of vouching to the committee. This is according to Scott Golden, TRP Chair.
Starbuck voted for the 2020 General Election as well as in a primary election in 2022, Tennessee. Four county party chairmen requested his California voter records before the April 19th vote. This was to show that Starbuck regularly voted in California’s primaries as well as general elections. He also gave to the two counties Republican parties as well as the state party. Additionally, he organized a rally for support of the Williamson County Republican Party’s 2020 candidates.
Still, at least one influential party member (and wife of one of the SEC members who voted in the April 19 meeting), Scottie Nell Hughes, tweeted that Starbuck had not voted in 2020 and claimed that he was not a Republican before 2016 and that he’d voted in the Democrat presidential primary in California that year.
Hughes may have misunderstood the form. Starbuck’s voter registration card from California shows that when he registered at a new address in August 2016, he registered as a Republican, and that his prior party registration was Republican. Starbuck simply changed his address and moved as per law.
Hughes’ tweet also implies that she has some information about how the SEC meeting went down since she said that, “13 of 16 who voted were Trump delegates in ’16 and ’20.” Perhaps the implication of knowledge of what happened in a secret meeting is part of the reason Starbuck’s attorneys have sent evidence preservation letters to the 17 SEC members in attendance on April 21, requiring them to:
“[I]mmediately take all steps necessary to prevent the destruction, loss, concealment, or alteration of any paper, document, or electronically stored information (“ESI”) and other data or information generated by and/or stored on its computers and storage media (e.g., hard disks, thumb drives, cloud storage, etc.), and e-mail related to (1) its role as the state primary board pursuant to Tennessee Code § 2-13-102(a)-(b) in connection with the primary election in Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District; (2) challenges to any candidate in the 5th Congressional District primary election, by any person, including the standard applied, the evidence considered, the rules, policies, and procedures governing the proceedings, notice of and public access to the proceedings, and any records of the proceedings; (3) the TRP’s April 21, 2022 letter to Mark Goins, Tennessee Coordinator of Elections, instructing him to remove Mr. Starbuck’s name from the primary ballot; and (4) Mr. Starbuck.
Chase Montgomery and Michelle Foreman were among the 17 recipients of evidence preservation letters.
The fact that Tennesee’s new law requires residents to live in Tennessee for at least three years in order for them to run for office is another confusing aspect. Starbuck was not required to have lived in Tennessee for three years, however the Secretary of States has declared that Starbuck is eligible since the law was passed after April 7, which was the qualifying date. Still, SEC member McClanahan has reportedly told people that she considered Robby’s residency in voting whether he’s a bona fide Republican or not.
RedState was told by Starbuck in an exclusive statement:
“This entire process has been an embarrassment to our party. We’re supposed to be the party of individual liberty and freedom. The party of individual liberty and freedom is represented by four county chairmen, two vice chairmen, and the Nashville Republicans chair. Five CEC members and Senator Rand Paul endorsed me along with national endorsements from Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk.
“In secret, with unknown direction and procedures, the SEC voted that all of those people are wrong, and I’m not a bona fide Republican. I put their names on the support letters with my vouchers. The SEC, sadly, wasn’t courageous enough to put their names on their votes. The truth is, it’s very clear they didn’t have the information needed to even make the decision. To get such things right, it is essential to have a public hearing that includes questions and answers.
“To be perfectly honest, I oppose the entire process, because Tennessee Republicans are smart enough to decide for themselves which candidates best represent our party, they don’t need a room of elected officials secretly deciding that for them through an opaque and rigged process. My activism and my voters have been put on trial by this illegal vote and I will aggressively defend both.”
The ball is now in the Tennessee Republican Party’s court.
This post was last modified on April 25, 2022 6:11 pm
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