Update on NRAAM and 76th director election

Spoiler - I lost (again)

Let’s get the election results out of the way. I was yet again unsuccessful in being elected to the NRA Board of Directors. NRA Secretary John Frazer sent me this a short while ago: “Isaac Demarest has been elected by the members to a one-year term ending in 2023.  Please join me in welcoming Mr. Demarest to the Board.

The final vote tally is as follows: Isaac D. Demarest – 350 Frank C. Tait – 214”

I have no issues with the election process. It is a sad statement that only 564 of the tens of thousands of attendees took the 5 minutes that it took to go to the 3rd floor and cast a vote.

As to the NRAAM, attendance was sparse. Only about 250 were in the room at the start of the meeting, with about 700 people at peak, with around 100 members supporting reform and the majority supporting the status quo.

Jeff Knox (in the lower right) attempted to eliminate the 1 pm end time, provide for member questions and answer periods after each executive report, and moving member resolutions forward in the agenda before officer reports. His efforts were rebuffed by President Cotton.

The Election committee report had these statistics:

Ballots mailed: 2,562,586

Ballots cast: 83,409 - this is only a 3.25% rate! very disappointing

Valid ballots: 81,563

Write in’s: 1,298

After the routine business, it was time for resolutions. There were 12. The first was an obviously staged resolution commending Wayne LaPierre - several board members got up to speak in support of the resolution and almost all were reading from pre-written scripts. After several members got up to challenge the resolution and pointed out the admissions of impropriety from LaPierre’s own depositions, board member Janet Nyce spoke. Janet seems to have taken over the public enorcer role to complement board enforcer Marion Hammer (who I have not seen at a board meeting since the 2019 NRAAM). Nyce berated anyone that was not toeing the party line and supporting LaPierre 100% and told us to leave the organization. The other board enforcer, Jay Prinz, spoke and called Jeff Knox and other reform oriented members “Sons of Bitches.” The motion commending LaPierre was approved.

Scrolling through social media this morning as I was editing this post, I saw the following very appropriate quote on a friend’s facebook page - “An environment that is not safe to disagree is not an environment focused on growth - it’s an environment focused on control” - Wendi Jade.

I didn’t catch the name of the member that submitted most of the resolutions, but the general sense was to call for the settlement of the ongoing lawsuits, reductions in salary, limitations on travel expenses, term limits and the resignations of LaPierre and the board. All of these resolutions were ruled out of order.

Jason Selvig from the Good Liars tried a stunt asking for thoughts and prayers but was mostly ignored.

John Richardson of the Only Guns and Money blog had a resolution calling out the disrepair of the NRA headquarters building in particular roof leaks, noting that the assessed value of the building actually dropped by over $1Million last year and calling for an independent assessment and a remediation plan. The resolution was voted down.

There was a resolution calling for a better system to notify members when events are cancelled (like the concert that was supposed to happen later Saturday). That resolution was voted down.

Jeff Knox attempted a resolution calling out the malfeasance that LaPierre admitted to in his depositions and called for his resignation, but Cotton ruled that you cannot have a motion to censure someone after a motion to commend was passed (that is why there was the scripted effort for the first motion). Jeff withdrew his final resolution.

Steve Gutowski from The Reload noted that only about 100 people remained for the end of the meeting. Steve’s twitter feed has a good step by step from the meeting.

I’ll have an update after the board meeting tomorrow.