Republican Party Chair Unilaterally Removes Over One Hundred Conservative Delegates

Yesterday, we reported how the Republican Party of Minnesota’s chair was on the cusp of removing over one hundred Otter Tail County Republican delegates who were duly elected at their precinct caucuses on February 27th.

We learned late last night that Republican Party Chairman David Hann unilaterally decided to invalidate all delegates from the caucus and allow the ones elected in 2022 to remain in place for another two years. To our knowledge, this has never been done before and the decision was made by Hann himself, without the knowledge of members on the Party’s Executive Committee.

You can read the story behind what happened in Otter Tail County in our article from yesterday, but here’s the summary…

Grassroots, conservative activists organized well and showed up to two locations (Fergus Falls and Perham) for their precinct caucuses. Republican Establishment hacks, at odds with local conservatives, were selected to convene the caucuses, so the conservatives made a motion to remove the temporary chair and install their own. They were successful at this effort in Perham and ignored by the temporary chair in Fergus Falls. They have every right under state statute to select their own chair.

This was not viewed favorably by the Establishment who cried foul. Then, a contentious debate arose at both locations about the Precinct Caucus Registration Forms. Otter Tail County created their own version that differed from the one on the Republican Party of Minnesota’s website. So many people inside their precincts chose to use the one from the Republican Party of Minnesota instead, which created a mixture of registration forms.

Sure, there was some ugliness on caucus night as the conservatives and establishment hacks argued against each other during precinct caucus business. This is politics – it happens! What’s unacceptable though is how Chairman Hann ignored the will of the people in the precincts, who organized and elected who they wanted to be delegates.

In fact, the precinct caucuses are not a function primarily of the Party, but a legal function backed by state law. It’s a beautiful bottom-up process where anyone can organize inside the smallest political unit, the precinct, to change politics in Minnesota and fix a corrupt Party.

But Hann asserted a do-as-I-say, top-down approach against the spirit of the caucus system – and probably against the law. He has a horrible record of working against grassroots, conservatives in the past. This radical move though, is the most extreme measure he has taken yet. He essentially eliminated the voice of over one hundred grassroots, conservatives who took time out of their busy day to attend the local caucus.

Here’s the email Hann sent out last night to people in Otter Tail County: