Past GOP chairman dumped from Chiabai hearing panel
NWI Times
Jan 23, 2003
nwitimes.com/news/local/past-gop-chairman-dumped-from-chiabai-hearing-panel/article_3b76fc47-26ff-597f-ae39-5297b6948b6c.html
Lake County Republican mavericks seeking to oust Roger Chiabai as party chairman scored a procedural victory Wednesday, though they worry the war is rigged against them.
The Republican State Central Committee decided to remove former state GOP Chairman Gordon Durnil from a panel scheduled to consider a complaint against Chiabai next month.
Republican dissident Peter Thayer is accusing Chiabai of working with Democrats to weaken the Republican Party. In 1986, Thayer led similar efforts to depose former Lake County Republican Chairman Joseph Kotso, also accusing Kotso of working with Democrats.
At that time, Thayer declared victory when the state committee decided it would seriously consider any future allegations that party officials had appointed Democrats to GOP posts.
But Durnil was quoted in a news story, defending Kotso's appointments. "We all know Peter Thayer is a nut," Durnil said. "Whenever he comes back to state headquarters again, he will be thrown out."
Joseph Hero, the St. John Republican chairman who has allied with Thayer and others in seeking to oust Chiabai, expressed only partial satisfaction with the GOP central committee's decision Wednesday.
"We're happy they got rid of Durnil, but we have an uneasy feeling this thing is wired all the way up to the state committee," he said.
Hero said the central committee had not allowed him to address a number of issues concerning the upcoming hearing, including the decision to not hear the complaint against East Chicago Republican Chairman Robert Cantrell.
Luke Messer, executive director of the Indiana Republican Party, said hearing chairman Michael Miner had decided to limit the inquiry's scope simply because "you can't cover everything. It would take months and months and months."
Messer also said the state central committee decided it would be best to have current central committee members on the four-member hearing panel, rather than Durnil.
"Sure, those quotes (regarding Thayer) were raised in the group, but it was 16 years ago, and Gordon is considered to be a very fair guy," Messer said. But he added that the central committee "wanted to make it clear we will be as fair as possible."
Durnil said he volunteered to be removed. "I said this sounds like a 20-year-old issue," he said. "I got more information about it and it sounded not only like the same issue, it's the same people."
He also called the effort to oust Chiabai "silly."
"It's not the way you change party structure. You don't do it by getting somebody on high to take out the guy you don't like," but by winning precinct committeemen races.
Hero and other critics contend that in Lake County party control is rigged in a fashion that prevents a fair fight at election time.
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