Just as former Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) influenced who would replace him as House Speaker, sources in Butler County, Ohio – part of Boehner’s district – are telling Breitbart News that he’s trying to do the same with his congressional seat – even sending his staff to work for County Auditor Roger Reynold’s campaign for Ohio’s 8th Congressional District.
Butler County Republican Central Committee members learned through a letter that they would be meeting on Tuesday “to consider individuals to be appointed to the Executive Committee.”
The Executive Committee members vote on December 1st and 8th to endorse various candidates for elected office – one being who will take Boehner’s congressional seat.
According to a source inside the Butler County GOP Central Committee, but who requested to speak on the condition of anonymity, there are roughly 109 individuals who could potentially join the Executive Committee, pending Tuesday’s vote of approval.
The source told Breitbart News that out of those 109 individuals “about 60 to 70 percent of the votes are from West Chester and Liberty Townships and some of the people even work for Roger Reynolds, some of them are relatives of Roger Reynolds and they’re all Reynolds votes.”
Roger Reynolds is reportedly Boehner’s top pick to replace him in Congress, as reported by Cincinnati.com.
The 46-year-old accountant, now serving his third term as auditor, recently hired Boehner’s former field director, Alex Scharfetter, to run his campaign. And Reynolds is considered a good friend of “Boehner-land,” the veteran congressman’s circle of loyal friends and advisers, in part because he has been active in the Butler County GOP’s get-out-the-vote efforts in recent elections.
“It is pretty clear that Boehner is behind Roger Reynolds,” said Lori Viars, a board member of the Conservative Republican Leadership Committee who also serves on the central and executive committees of the Warren County Republican Party.
Viars said Boehner has been making phone calls to rustle up support for Reynolds. “It’s no secret within the party,” she said of Boehner’s support for Reynolds.
“When [Reynolds] announced, we all heard within the party that John had essentially sent his staff down here to get on board with Roger [and] his campaign,” the insider source confided to Breitbart News. “The worse thing that can be known about Roger Reynolds would be that he’s sort of going to be “Boehner Part Two” because the feelings about John, you know, more than half of the county now is very disillusioned about John and I don’t think that would work in Roger’s favor.”
The fact that new members will be placed onto the Executive Committee just one to two weeks prior to the endorsement vote is also a new move by the Butler County GOP.
“We always endorsed in November…normally, we never put any new members on after August 15th because it looked like you were packing the votes,” the source added. “I feel like the whole nation is watching Butler County to make sure we’re doing the right thing and it’s more corrupt than ever.”
Former Central Committee woman – who was pushed out by a candidate supported by Boehner – and President of the Cincinnati Tea Party Ann Becker told Breitbart News that “it’s a blood sport down here in Butler County,” explaining that “it’s very contentious here in Butler County for those seats,” referencing positions on the Executive Committee.
“The issue that we face here in Butler County is the Republican Party in Butler County is trying to circumvent the process of the elected representatives of the people making the decision who is endorsed by creating this second level of people that get to make the endorsement – that’s called the Executive committee,” Becker explained. “These Executive Committee members are hand picked by the party.”
Becker told Breitbart News the Executive Committee Chairman and the Central Committee Chairman is in charge of selecting who is placed on the Executive Committee.
“It’s a small little group of people that are stuffing the ballot box with people that are their friends to get the people they want endorsed by the party,” she added.
Becker said the Central Committee Chairman Chris Wunnenberg is a friend of Boehner’s. Another source told Breitbart News they have dinner together almost weekly and he’s “totally in John Boehner’s pocket.”
There are five other GOP candidates vying for Boehner’s seat in addition to Reynolds: Ohio state Rep. Tim Derickson, Ohio state Sen. Bill Beagle, former teacher J.D. Winteregg, West Chester Township Trustee Lee Wong and Todd Parnell, a member on the Lakota Board of Education.
When Winteregg discovered the news of the Tuesday meeting regarding the Executive Committee members, he said only one candidate could benefit from this scheme, and “to nobody’s surprise, he is the candidate former Speaker Boehner is attempting to anoint as his successor.”
“The Establishment within the party apparatus is fighting to keep control of who is endorsed, and with the risk of no endorsement of their favorite candidate, they realize that this scheme is the only way for them to preserve their power. Principled people within the Butler County Republican Party are fed up with these antics. It’s time to allow the elected Central Committee members—the representatives chosen by the people—to decide the endorsement, not the hand-picked committee chosen by the Establishment in an effort to stack the vote.“
GOP presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich set the special election for Ohio’s eighth district for a March 15, 2016 primary and June 7th for the general election.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.