July 03, 2011 07:14 PM UTC

Will LCRP have to dissolve?

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• by: Ah Choo

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

There’s a Sunday follow up story by Bob Moore in the Coloradoan on the criminally non-compliant Larimer County Republican Party (where the ex-chair was embezzling its money; at one point withdrawing cash at Black Hawk Casino). One of the big problems was that ex-chair Larry Carillo, probably in a misguided attempt to rectify his previous embezzlement, cut checks to the LCRP from a couple of his LLCs, which is only legal if you include the required paperwork (which he of course didn’t), creating daily fines of $50 for each violation.

Raising money from disaffected donors just before the 2012 election will be increasingly difficult, especially with Bob Moore’s observation that the LCRP–apparently a glorified social club and repository for senile cranks–doesn’t really do much that is relevant to winning elections:

County parties generally work on building party infrastructure, getting out the vote and contributing money to candidates. However, the Larimer GOP has donated little or no money to party candidates in recent years.

Facing the potential of $200,000 in Secretary of State fines now creates the unprecedented prospect that the county party may just have to dissolve, as raised by Larimer County Assessor and benighted temporary LCRP Treasurer Steve Miller:

When asked if there was a way for the Larimer GOP to reorganize itself to eliminate fines and allow a new Republican organization to be formed, Miller said: “I’ve asked and nobody knows that answer.”

The Larimer County party finds itself in unchartered territory because no Colorado party organization has ever approached such huge potential fines. Candidates are personally responsible for fines generated by their campaigns, but there’s no individual liability with other committees and party groups.

“I’m not aware of any committees disbanding to avoid fines,” secretary of state spokesman Rich Coolidge said in an email to the Coloradoan. “However, unlike candidate committees, there is no personal liability associated with other committees (i.e. political committees, small donor committees, political parties, etc).”

SOS spokesman Rich Coolidge seems to implicitly give the LCRP official blessing to simply disappear.  

But this raises some very unhappy issues for local Republican activists: the effect on Larimer Republicans’ ability to officially organize at the precinct level; participation in the state party assembly (since you can’t be elected from a county assembly if there isn’t a county party); and from there the ability to get elected as 2012 Republican National Convention delegates.