What is the
Phoenix Mountains Republican Assembly (PMRA)?
PMRA is a Chartered Unit of the Arizona Republican Assembly (ARA), which is in-turn a Chartered State Member of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA).
PMRA’s territorial boundaries are the boundaries of Legislative Districts LD11, LD14 and LD15 in the central Phoenix area encompassing Shaw Peak and Camelback Mountains (i.e., the Phoenix Mountains). See District Maps.
To explain the answers to these questions, it is necessary to go back to the origins of the Arizona Republican Assembly (ARA) and discuss its “model”, the California Republican Assembly (CRA).
But to begin with, the
purpose of the Republican Assembly movement is to restore the
original intent of the Republican Party as expressed in the ideas of Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison when they reluctantly formed the
Democratic-Republican Party to counter the elitist Federalist Party for the
Presidential Election of 1800 (although it existed more or less informally from
1796). Their ideas included those of
the Declaration of Independence (originally authored by Thomas
Jefferson) and the United
States Constitution (for which
James Madison is considered the father) together with the Bill of Rights.
The current Republican Party, the successor to Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party, was named and reestablished at Beloit, Wisconsin in 1854 in honor of Jefferson’s ideas of “Republicanism”, primarily adding the abolition of slavery to its fundamental principles (see ARA Principles).
The original intent of the Republican Party was to maintain a national government with limited powers defined by the U.S. Constitution with the primary purpose to provide for the defense of the United States and its borders, and to protect and preserve the ideas of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (i.e., Private Property)” presented in the Declaration of Independence.
However, much has taken place to distort and corrupt these original ideas since 1854. More about that later! For now, we’ll move forward to the events in Arizona leading up to the creation of the ARA.
How and Why did
the ARA come into Existence?
The final episode of corruption in Arizona began with the election and impeachment of the people’s Republican choice, Governor Evan Mecham in 1986. Governor Mecham had upset the special interest candidate, “Republican” State Representative Burton Barr, who had gained the reputation as “the most powerful politician in Arizona” by being able to control votes in the Arizona Legislature for any bill promoting the interest of the “good old boy” powerful Arizona corporate interests. Barr had a deal with those interests whereby they gave Barr control over the distribution of all corporate/”good old boy” campaign money. If candidates needed and wanted the campaign money, they had to agree to vote as Barr directed. The corporate interests (at the time, still known to most as the Phoenix 40) used the personal endorsement of their man, John McCain to promote Barr, giving Barr the aurora of “the anointed one”, who was then taken to Washington and introduced nationally by McCain to President Ronald Reagan as “the next Governor of Arizona”.
Unfortunately for Barr and the “good old boys”, Mecham exposed Barr’s partnerships with the “good old boys” in prior land purchases at approximately eight major interchanges that were on the Maricopa County Freeway Plan that was subsequently approved by the Barr controlled State Legislature. Mecham’s campaign plan also called for a complete crackdown on drug traffic in Arizona and a halt to state spending for special interest/”good old boy”, pork barrel corporate welfare projects. Mecham’s goal was to return government to Constitutional rule (his mentor was Cleon Skousen, former number two in the FBI under J.Edgar Hoover, and founder of the National Center for Constitutional Studies [NCCS]). --- Mecham won the Primary by a significant 8% margin and was the odds-on favorite to win the General Election against a very liberal Democrat. This the “good old boy” establishment could not tolerate, so they installed a third/wealthy ”Independent” candidate (much like John Anderson was injected into the 1980 Presidential election in an attempt to stop the Reagan election)! --- The people weren’t buying it! Mecham won the General Election by about 8 percentage points.
The Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette newspapers (the latter since closed), in cooperation with the other “good old boy” corporate interests, almost immediately started a campaign to dump Mecham by whatever means necessary. They found a vehicle in homosexual leader, Ed Buck, promoting Buck’s Recall Petition daily for the next year in both their morning and evening editions (this was like a multimillion dollar media campaign contribution). Mecham had promised to purge homosexual influence from state government.
Eventually, the “good old boys” got Mecham impeached and thrown-out of office by their “bought and paid for” legislature on trumped-up charges of misuse of campaign finances, a charge for which Mecham was subsequently exonerated in a criminal court trial!
This outrage resulted in the ouster of some 9 legislative incumbent RINO (Republican In Name Only) leaders in the 1988 legislative election. Several others were expelled in the 1990 AZSCAM Sting, wherein legislators were caught on videotape accepting bribes to support a gambling bill purportedly being offered by organized crime (some legislators getting up to 5-years in prison).
In the 1990 election, the grassroots constitutional-conservative Republicans mobilized, taking control of the State Party. --- This didn’t please the “good old boy, fatcat” RINOs who have traditionally funded the State Republican Party! They cutoff State Party funding and consequently regained complete control of the State Republican Party in January, 1993.
Having been relegated to a position tantamount to expulsion from the Republican Party in Arizona, a key group of approximately 15 constitutional-conservative Republicans* met over a period of time from February to May 1993 to define a path for the restoration of the Republican Party in Arizona. The suggestion was made to explore the California Republican Assembly, which was formed in 1935 and had been responsible for California’s Proposition 13 to control the explosion of Property Taxes in California, and the election of Ronald Reagan as Governor of California and subsequent promotion to President of the United States.
A delegation was sent to contact the CRA and attend the CRA Convention in San Diego. Their report was very favorable in regard to the Constitutional nature and principles of the CRA. --- It was decided to form an Arizona Republican Assembly (ARA) and an association with the CRA.
Organization of the ARA began with gusto! By May 1993, ARA initial membership had grown to the point where a formal chartering of the ARA was needed.
Formal ARA objectives and a set of founding principles were drawn up (see ARA Principles, revised for clarity in 2002). On May 15, 1993, the ARA was chartered at a meeting in Mesa with formal swearing-in by the past two CRA Presidents, Steve Franks and Mrs. “Mike” Evans overseeing and conducting the chartering. The formal chartering was accompanied by a letter of congratulations from former U.S. President, Ronald Reagan, a longtime CRA member (see Reagan letter).
*This founding group included Gerry Davis (Republican State Chairman 1991-1992), Charlotte Reed, Barbara Blewster, John Acer and Vern Springer (Phoenix); Leo Mahoney and Barbara Worman (Mesa); Chuck Josephson, Joyce Oldfather and Helen Seader (Tucson); Jay Platt (Apache Co.); Jack and June Choate (Yuma); and David Kurr (Prescott).
The NFRA is
Founded in 1995 and the Republican Assembly Movement is Off & Running
With the creation of the ARA, the Republican Assembly movement was off and running! In 1995, constitutional-conservative Republicans from some 8 states met in Las Vegas, Nevada to explore the possibility of forming a national organization. It seems that the corruptions and usurpations of the original Republican Party principles was not confined to Arizona alone.
The result was the creation of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) that was organized as a federation of otherwise independent State Republican Assemblies, along the lines of the American Articles of Confederation. The National Committee of the NFRA is made up of elected National and Regional Officers and the President, National Committeeman and Committeewoman from each of the various State Republican Assemblies. Currently, there are Republican Assemblies in nearly every State in the Union.
In 2005, the NFRA National Convention was held in Scottsdale, Arizona. The theme of the convention, “Turning Up The Heat On The Left”, was a 3-day event with over 20 speakers from across the nation speaking on a wide variety of social and politically conservative subjects. The featured speakers were Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus and long time advocate for protecting our borders against illegal aliens and terrorists, and former Representative Bob Barr (R-GA), Board Member of the NRA, former Member of the House Judiciary Committee and one of the House Impeachment Managers at the Senate Clinton Impeachment Trial in January, 1999.
The 2006 NFRA Convention will be in St. Louis, Missouri.