Minnehaha Co. GOP screws up National Delegate Meeting in violation of bylaws, loses choice on who goes to national convention

@SoDakCampaigns

If you’re looking for some insider baseball for the South Dakota GOP, there’s some big things happening behind the scenes.   And – try not to be shocked – but it involves the Minnehaha County Republican Party screwing up. Again.

No, it doesn’t involve them doing nothing when it comes to local candidates (again).  Or working against incumbent elected officials (again).  This time, it looks like R. Shawn Tornow botched up the National Convention Delegate Selection process to send people from Minnehaha County to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July to nominate the GOP’s Candidate for the fall presidential election.

So what happened?

In Wednesday April 3rd’s Argus Leader an ad was placed by the Minnehaha County GOP announcing the meeting to select delegates would take place on April 23 at Grace Baptist Church in Renner, SD:

And accordingly, the meeting was held, and Minnehaha County selected their delegates to attend the regional and national delegate selection process taking place tomorrow (in Pierre, I believe).   So what’s the problem?

It appears that there was a reading comprehension issue on the part of the chairman, ex-attorney R. Shawn Tornow, where he skipped over part of the South Dakota Republican Party bylaws, which reads as follows:

2. The county chairman in each county shall cause to be held at the county seat a special County National Convention Delegate Selection meeting on a date and time on or between April 15 and April 25 in the year for which a National Convention of the Republican Party is to be held for the purpose of nominating a candidate for President and Vice President. Such county meeting shall be open to all registered Republicans residing in the county; public notice, including publication in the official county newspaper, of such a meeting must be given at least 15 days in advance, and all appropriate means of providing notice of such meeting shall be used. It shall be the responsibility of the county chairman to notify the state secretary of the State Central Committee at least 15 days prior to the meeting. If the County GOP organization fails to hold the required County National Convention Delegate Selection meeting, the state chairman may authorize some other method of selecting delegates from that county subject to the approval of the State Executive Board.

By way of further explanation, the bylaws specifically note that the county chairman is to call a meeting in the Minnehaha County Seat. So of course, for Minnehaha County, R. Shawn Tornow called for the meeting to be held in Renner, SD.   Last we all knew, that big town of Sioux Falls would be considered the County seat of Minnehaha. Not Renner.

And that’s a problem.  Because it invalidated the vote for Minnehaha County, and rendered their delegates all outside of compliance with the SDGOP bylaws.   You would think an ex-attorney might have familiarized himself with the rules. But, no.

What were the consequences? What I am hearing is that SDGOP Chairman John Wiik, with the support of the SDGOP Executive Board, has publicly disclosed that the exec board members present on an emergency exec board meeting on Friday voted unanimously (with one abstention) to decertify Minnehaha’s delegate selection meeting to send people to the National Convention.

Even better – don’t forget that bylaw. If the County GOP organization fails to hold the required County National Convention Delegate Selection meeting, the state chairman may authorize some other method of selecting delegates from that county subject to the approval of the State Executive Board.

So, subject to the approval of the exec board, it has now become the State Party Chairman’s choice.

But that’s not all..  There’s a part II that you need to keep in mind. That the group had already called a meeting before this major cock up.

Minnehaha Meeting by Pat Powers on Scribd

Scheduled for a week from tomorrow on May 9th, the Minnehaha County GOP Central Committee Members called a meeting by petition, because Chairman Tornow had not held a meeting for an election to fill the vacant position of Treasurer, as demanded in the bylaws, after 6 months have gone by, according to the petition circulated.  Obviously, at least some members of the Minnehaha County Central Committee were already mad with the County Party’s (lack of) leadership team.

This meeting was called even before the Minnehaha National Convention Delegate meeting was decertified.

And now, right before an already unhappy meeting calling county leadership into question, Minnehaha GOP County Chair R. Shawn Tornow just screwed up the National Convention Delegate selection process in such an epic manner that in my 35 or so years of being involved,  I’ve never heard of it happening before.

What are the chances that someone might bring a motion to vacate the Minnehaha GOP county chair position after nothing but problems with how the county party has been run?

We don’t know if they’ll add a motion to vacate the chair or not…. but there are rumors circulating that they will.

Stay tuned. Because things are going to get very interesting when it comes to the Minnehaha County GOP

15 thoughts on “Minnehaha Co. GOP screws up National Delegate Meeting in violation of bylaws, loses choice on who goes to national convention”

    1. Is it really a mistake when one’s career is defined by similar decisions?

        1. Walking the line and pandering to the wrong crowd never helps anyone.

        2. It’s not Barranco’s decision — it’s Wiik’s. Wiik is appointing the delegates since the meeting was decertified.

    1. simple:,Monae Johnson’s insane clown posse of Precinct committee people did it.
      They were recruited to vote for her at the convention , but that made them members of the county central committee and they were allowed to vote for the county party leadership.

      This is another reason to stop nominating constitutional officers at conventions. They recruit crazies, caring only about securing a nomination for themselves, and walk away from the mess. She’s probably sitting in her office, oblivious to the disaster she unleashed in Minnehaha County

      1. You’re certainly correct on all points HOWEVER, the whole crazy Watertown convention debacle was not created by Monae. She was definitely the beneficiary of the whole mess but she didn’t start it nor do all the Minnehaha recruiting. And yes, that whole lot of crazy has stayed with Minnehaha GOP which has sadly caused NUMEROUS years-long-true-water-carrying R’s to disengage from them. It’s truly a sad thing to watch.

        1. Monae’s team recruited a whole lot of election-denying crazies from Minnehaha County in particular, as well as in places like Yankton County, where those recruits also voted out the long time party leadership.
          She rode into that convention on a tsunami of sewage, and it’s going to take years to clean up the mess.

          The best thing we could ever do is elect her the next party chair and make her reap what she sowed.

  4. That church is a Sioux Falls addressed church, not Renner. Seems the public notice listing Renner was wrong, but not the actual vote being held in the county seat. It would be unfortunate that the Minnehaha delegation selectees wouldn’t be honored.

    1. What’s more unfortunate is that the Minnehaha Co GOP is lead by room-temp IQs that believe themselves above reproach.

    2. If that’s the case, then Tornow violated the proper notification requirements. Either way, Tornow broke the bylaws.

  5. All of these pesky rules and regulations just get in the way. The wackadoodles will soldier on. Follow Monae.

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