House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is currently the leading candidate to become the next speaker of the House — but some Republicans in his home state of California are concerned that the congressman could be more of a divider than a unifier.
Those critics point to McCarthy’s curious 2010 intervention in the affairs of two youth Republican groups in the state, when the lawmaker dove in to block the merger of the California Young Republicans and the Young Republican Federation of California.
That merger was supposed to be the conclusion of a longtime standoff between the two groups.
Up until 1993, California had only one state Young Republican organization. According to one source, a credentialing dispute during elections of officers led to the organization splitting into two separate groups that year.
McCarthy was elected chairman of the smaller group organized in then-Rep. Bill Thomas’ district of Bakersfield in Kern County. This group, which was the more moderate of the two, became known as the California Young Republicans. The other group called themselves the Young Republican Federation of California.
McCarthy eventually became Bakersfield district director for Rep. Bill Thomas and ran for Thomas’ seat in 2007.
Two years later, both state Young Republican groups decided it was time to put aside their differences and merge into one state Young Republican organization.
But McCarthy, for unknown reasons, opposed the merger. With the help of California political consultant Mark Abernathy and others, the congressman supported the arbitration process, started in March 2010, which intended to block the two groups from becoming one.
The move left observers puzzled, who wondered why a powerful congressman bothered to involve himself in the affairs of an organization he led many years ago and appeared unwilling to give up.
“It never really ended,”one source told The Daily Caller. “Kevin carried those grudges with him to this day. He would deny it now. It was very personal for people on both sides in ‘93 because a lot of personal stuff happened that went back and forth. He just never really let it go. And his group was the runt group going forward. Fast-forward, and the two groups continued to jockey for position within the state.”
“As time went on, people kind of aged out of the Young Republicans that were involved in the ‘93 schism. They either didn’t care or didn’t get it.”
McCarthy’s office did not return an inquiry in response to why McCarthy wanted to keep both groups separated.
Another source told TheDC that the Young Republican issue in California at the time is a sensitive one for McCarthy, and he would become visibly angry anytime people asked him why he bothered to support the effort to keep both organizations separate.
During the drawn-out arbitration process, then-California Young Republican officers Jennifer Rodriguez and Rohit Joy were named in the arbitration suit slapped against their organization. Both Rodriguez and Joy filed a complaint before the California Republican Party against McCarthy’s allies in Kern County — Abernathy, Andy Stanley, and Zack Scrivner, among others — citing online defamation claims as well as accusations that the group posted both YR officers’ checking account numbers, along with their bank routing information, on the cyr.org website.
Following the Republican House takeover in 2010, the soon-to-be-merged California Young Republican organizations wrote a scathing resolution about McCarthy that ended in both groups endorsing Texas Republican Pete Sessions over McCarthy for majority whip. The resolution stated in part:
WHEREAS, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California has declared his intention to also seek election as House Majority Whip in the next Congress; and
WHEREAS, Congressman McCarthy has consistently engaged in and encouraged destructive actions to Republican unity and activism in California; and
WHEREAS, Congressman McCarthy has used threats, intimidation and outbursts of anger against his fellow California Republicans in efforts to silence, sabotage and quash Conservative opposition to his Moderate goals within the California Republican Party; and
WHEREAS, Congressman McCarthy has been a central instigator in ongoing and distracting intra-party battles and litigation to cause discord, confusion and ultimately a chilling effect upon Republican activism in California; and
WHEREAS, to the contrary, Congressman Sessions has exhibited an extraordinary ability to further conservative principles while obtaining consensus and unity within the Party
Despite McCarthy’s efforts, the merger of both organizations occurred in March of 2011 after 18 years of separation. The four-year-old organization is officially known as the California Young Republican Federation (CYRF), and the group is officially recognized by the California Republican Party.
The CYRF organization, according to its current chairman, Matt DeCarlo, does not have a contentious relationship with McCarthy, but the majority of individuals involved in the conflict, DeCarlo pointed out, are no longer Young Republicans themselves.
“There’s a lot of things that happened a long time ago and those people are no longer part of the organization. They aged out. When I ran as chair that was never an issue. I’m excited about having [McCarthy] part of the leadership in the Congress,” DeCarlo said.
“If Kevin McCarthy had his way, there would be no California Young Republican Federation,” Joy told TheDC in an e-mail statement. “Instead, the former very small YR group led almost exclusively by people from his Kern County political machine, would still be recognized by the state party and the YRNF as California’s official YR organization.”
Ken Mettler, former president of the California Republican Assembly — a volunteer political activist group — watched McCarthy rise through the ranks for thirty years. Mettler was a candidate for the state assembly in 2010. Like the Young Republicans, Mettler also clashed with McCarthy’s retained political consultant Mark Abernathy, when Abernathy’s employee, Martin Bertram, was investigated for hacking into Mettler’s computer during Mettler’s 2010 campaign. Bertram eventually took a plea bargain in 2011.
“I was on the Republican Central committee for probably 30 years,” Mettler said, “and I knew Kevin when he was working first for Bill Thomas. Over the years, though, I came to become aware our local representation is not truly conservative, and their actions speak louder than words. Their actions behind the scenes undermine the conservative cause within the Republican Party, so I became very disillusioned with Kevin McCarthy.”
He added, “I have watched Kevin McCarthy over the years cut the legs out from under many good conservatives in the state of California repeatedly. I do not believe for a moment that he will truly embrace a conservative Republican agenda. I think he is very beholden to the chamber of commerce types.”
McCarthy, who announced his bid for speaker on Monday said in a statement following current Speaker John Boehner’s resignation, “Now is the time for our conference to focus on healing and unifying to face the challenges ahead and always do what is best for the American people.”
John Blythe, head of the Kern County River Valley Republican Assembly told TheDC in an email statement that McCarthy’s 23rd Congressional District is divided between conservatives and moderates — and the conservatives in his district are not necessarily pleased with the congressman’s current record.
“I think if he gets elected House speaker,” Blythe said, “he will absolutely need to figure out a way to unify all Republicans and likely distance himself away from the legislation he supported under Speaker Boehner. How this could be accomplished is by simply changing course and getting more focused on what the conservative base is thinking and asking for.”
Blythe continued, “Unfortunately, it seems that the 23rd Congressional District in California is somewhat divided among fellow Republicans. The ‘old guard Republicans’ (as I call them) including the moderates in this part of the central valley are very happy he is running for the speaker position, however I have been noticing the emergence of more conservative/tea party members and young Republicans alike including conservative-libertarians in the valley that are not too thrilled with his track record thus far on both domestic and foreign policy issues.”