Open Letter to Robert Graham
Dear Mr. Chairman:
Many of the AFA members and Republican Precinct Committeemen are asking: why are you using the AZGOP e-mails to campaign for re-election? LDs statewide provided email addresses of their PCs to the AZGOP office trusting they would be used only for AZGOP business.
Since you used the official AZGOP email account in violation of Article II Section 2(10) of the MCRC bylaws which reads:
The PC shall provide the district, county, and state party offices with an email address, if they have one. District, county and state party offices may not allow email addresses to be used for any purpose other than internal party communications and shall not distribute an email address to anyone, including other PCs without the express consent of the affected precinct committeeman. (emphasis added)
to announce your re-election bid for the Chair's job and, since you knew at the time you did that that you would be opposed by at least one other candidate, despite what you have said, and since you used that account at least two more times to send out endorsement announcements, we, and many of our members, believe it is only right that you allow ALL of your challengers to send out at least three campaign notices on that same account.
And then tell us, did you take those same addresses to your new private account? We ask because our PC members who never were on your email list before, are now!
We have other questions our members are asking that we believe are valid and deserve your response, as follows:
- MCRC Chairman LaFaro has been sending out a call for candidates for MCRC positions together with the deadline for Intent to Run letters for over two months, well before he announced he would not stand for re-election. Why is it that you have never sent out such a call for candidates for AZGOP positions and no one can determine when the deadline is for Intent to Run letters?
- You ran on being able to personally raise millions of dollars for AZGOP. Money is needed to help Republican statewide candidates get elected. Because you have not put out any cash flow statements or balance sheets or Financial Reports to the Executive Committee, we took a look at the campaign finance reports. What is revealed there can only be fully discerned with additional knowledge that has not been forthcoming from you to your council of advisors made up of elected LD chairmen and elected members-at-large.
- How much funding on the campaign finance reports came from the RNC and would have come to whoever was chairman?
- Question: why did you spend so much on the Yes on 122 initiative but so little on statewide candidates with Democrat challengers? And where did the funding come from and was it specifically earmarked for that expenditure? We advocated for that initiative, so we are happy that it passed. But the question needs to be answered.
- Why did the party lose hundreds of PCs during the last two years? What have you done to recruit PCs to fill an ever growing number of empty seats?
- Why is Republican voter registration down by 32,830 in the past two years, years when the GOP was on the ascendancy? What have you done to increase Republican voter registrations and voter education? Whatever it was, it was not successful.
- Why was Arizona number 37 out of 48 contiguous states in Republican voter turnout under your watch? Getting Republican voters to the polls is job one for the Chairman.
- Why did we not win Legislative seats in LD4, LD8, LD9, LD10 and LD28 that were very winnable but lacked funds to get across the finish line? We barely kept the majority and did not add a single new seat to the Republican side of the ledger. The Superintendent candidate just squeaked by. There is no entry on your campaign finance reports indicating AZGOP gave any help to Douglas outside of the backside of one mailer with other candidates.
- Why did you show up to speak at campaign events for Doug Ducey in the Primary? Did you do the same for conservative candidates like Andrew Thomas, Frank Riggs, Christine Jones and others?
- Why have you eliminated nearly all volunteers working in the AZGOP office? Without them, when someone calls that office, they are met by an answering machine on which you have to punch in a code for the person you want to speak with. If you don't know the code, a message must be left with a prayer that it will be returned. Many are never returned.
- Why haven’t you held more than a couple of Executive Committee meetings over the past two years when the AZGOP Bylaws mandate a lot more than that?
- Why haven’t you adhered to the AZGOP Bylaws? For example Article IV F(1) “The state chairman shall be the recognized leader of the state party and, in cooperation with the county chairmen, shall coordinate statewide party activities. (emphasis added)
- What is the point of having an Executive Committee if you continue to undermine and ignore?
- And last, why have you ignored State Committeemen who voted overwhelmingly to have closed Primaries? Forming a “Study Committee” after you are elected for a second term is not action!
Mr. Chairman, these are valid questions that go to the heart of the position of AZGOP Chairman and they deserve your response.
Respectfully,
The AFA Team
