Kimball Seeks GOP Survival Vote

Promote ideas and appease Idealogues. Make friends and raise money. But the top goal of a party chairman? Win elections.

If he wants to do any of the above, Jack Kimball must first win some parliamentary jujitsu.

Kimball faces a removal vote when the state GOP executive committee holds a special meeting Thursday. He declined to elaborate when Patch asked him to enumerate his steps to keep his seat, but his strategy could dovetail with the efforts of the Strafford County Republican Committee. 

Strafford County GOP, Kimball’s local delegation, has lined up behind a resolution against a “hasty vote” to oust Kimball, a businessman from Dover.

“We believe that a vote to depose Jack Kimball as chairman of the Republican State Committee is unwise, ill-advised, and is not consistent with normal due process,” the resolution reads.

Tess Conroy, Strafford County chairwoman, issued a statement over the weekend calling the special meeting of the state party’s executive a violation of normal due process. She said there are no specific charges levied against Kimball, a reference his supporters made last week to charge that long-time party members were trying to set Kimball up to fail.

The Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire issued a press release of its own on Monday afternoon, asking the executive committee to delay its decision and call the full Republican State Committee to order.

Republican Liberty Caucus Chairman Andrew Hemingway said the current dispute is "putting ongoing party unity at risk." He said he is confident a full state committee meeting "would foster the conditions necessary for a united, strengthened party..."

Kimball said he will fight to the end. "Those who seek to remove me from my duly elected position must recognize that I represent a movement - a political movement - much larger than myself," he said at a news conference last week in Concord. "I plead with them not to pick this fight. It will only damage the party and cause unnecessary division."

The Strafford County resolution also calls for the state committee to refer the vote to the entire membership. It proposes an amendment to state GOP bylaws to identify what makes a removable offense. The Strafford County Republicans are promoting a move to have the entire membership of the state committee, not just the executive committee, be involved in the removal of any officer.

The Strafford County delegation makes up 37 members of the 493 voting members of the Republican State Committee.

Notably missing on the list of Strafford County allies is Republican National Committeewoman Phyllis Woods of Dover. Kimball, a Tea Party candidate who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2010, won the chairmanship last winter. He narrowly beat Juliana Bergeron, who had the support of former Gov. John H. Sununu. Kimball's tenure was stormy from the start, .

As Jon Ward wrote in the Huffington Post last week, the top five elected Republicans in New Hampshire, including U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, have signed onto a letter to remove Kimball.

Conroy, the Strafford County chairwoman, still calls it a rush to judgment.

“At the heart of the resolution and petition is the concept that due process must accompany any effort to remove an officer, as well as the hope that by affording additional time for the entire membership to consider the issue, cooler heads may yet prevail,” she said in her statement.