Jerry Lathan of Mobile, a longtime Republican leader and vice chairman of the Alabama Republican Executive Committee for the 1st and 2nd congressional districts, has written to his fellow committee members urging them to call for the resignation of Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.
The letter is a notable public break by a senior figure in south Alabama Republican circles with the national leadership of his own party, seven months before an election Republicans expect to win.
‘This is unconscionable’
“I very rarely make a public statement of this type,” Lathan wrote, “but I believe circumstances require me to share a concern I have with our Republican National Committee.”
The concern is money — specifically, how the RNC has been spending it. Lathan cited federal disclosure records showing the committee spent $17,514 on private aircraft in the month of February alone, along with $12,691 on limousines in the same period. News reports of a February RNC trip to California, he noted, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel and $6,596 at the Four Seasons.
He also pointed out that several months into Steele’s tenure, the committee’s spending had already prompted a resolution requiring checks to be signed by at least two RNC officers and contracts over $100,000 to go out for competitive bidding — an extraordinary internal check on a sitting chairman.
“This exhibits poor leadership in the most prosperous of times,” Lathan wrote. “In this tough economy with news of 10% unemployment, and ever increasing taxes from the Democrats, this is unconscionable.”
The Alabama angle
Lathan said he had spoken with Alabama’s three representatives on the RNC — state party chairman Mike Hubbard, Paul Reynolds and Bettye Fine Collins — and that each shares his concerns. He asked committee members to contact them and press them to ask Steele to step aside.
“I hope you will join me in asking them to ask Chairman Steele to resign for the good of our Party, for the good of our campaigns this November and for the good of our country,” he wrote.
The argument he makes is practical rather than ideological. “Donors are expressing reluctance to give to our Party because they are concerned the money may not be used properly,” Lathan wrote. “We cannot allow a distraction like this to cost us momentum, and ultimately seats in Congress.”
The timing
Lathan urged action before the RNC’s meeting in June. “If Chairman Steele steps aside now, a new Chairman can have plenty of time to right our ship and win a great victory for America in November,” he wrote.
He was careful to keep the criticism away from the personal. “I am sure Mr. Steele is a good man,” Lathan wrote, “but his conduct and lack of firm control is costing our Party and our Nation.”
Why it matters locally
Lathan is not a peripheral figure in Alabama Republican politics. He is running unopposed for Place 1 on the state Republican Executive Committee from Mobile County in the June 1 primary, and members of his family hold other seats on the same committee — a measure of how deeply the Lathan name is woven into the party’s organizational structure on the coast.
Alabama Republicans in 2010 are pouring resources into legislative races with the explicit goal of taking control of the State House for the first time since Reconstruction. Money raised nationally does not fund those races directly, but a national committee mired in spending controversies makes the fundraising climate harder for everyone — which is precisely the argument Lathan is making to his colleagues.