CCR Introduces 6 Reform Proposals to CAGOP to Increase Youth Engagement

‍The College Republicans are hoping to revitalize the Party and increase youth engagement, but the effort can’t succeed without a grassroots revolt.

How can the California Republican Party (CAGOP) support the youth and grow the younger ranks of the Party?

One way is for the CAGOP to pass 6 reform proposals (Read them here) just introduced by the California College Republicans, to be voted on at the Party’s Spring Organizing Convention in San Francisco between May 17th and 19th.

These proposals would add a youth representative to the CAGOP Executive Board, or key leadership, that would be in charge of reporting on and helping to grow youth engagement and organizations in the Party. They would also grant the California College Republicans (CCR) a permanent charter.

CCR currently has a "temporary" charter with the CAGOP, which must be renewed every two years. A "permanent" charter will help the College Republicans by decreasing the amount of biennial paperwork required, giving them an extra delegate appointment, and encouraging youth engagement in the Party.

Why don’t the College Republicans already have a permanent charter? The California College Republicans, founded in and having existed continually as a volunteer force for the Party since 1963, had a permanent charter with the Party for many years. In 2019, when the College Republicans briefly split into two groups, the Party decided to make both groups equal by punishing CCR and removing its permanent charter, promising to return the permanent charter upon the groups’ unification — which occurred last year.

The Party has failed to keep its promise to return the charter ever since — and even tabled the idea "indefinitely."

“Increasing youth engagement is common sense if you want to grow the Party, especially when the under 35 demographic is drifting more and more to the Left — reform measures like what we’re proposing can help save the Party among the youth and invest in our next generation of leaders,” said Martin Bertao, Spokesman of the California College Republicans who is also an incoming County Central Committee Member in Alameda.

But CCR doesn’t anticipate any of these measures to pass without outside help. In fact, CAGOP leadership has already officially killed 1 of the 6 proposals by refusing to even consider it — a proposed resolution setting guidelines for how CCR can ever get its permanent charter back.

“The CAGOP doesn’t want to give CCR a permanent charter or encourage youth engagement for the simple reason that they don’t want the youth to have more delegates or a greater say in the party — because they know the youth and the base of the Party disagrees with them and would vote against them,” said Bertao.

“Leadership has told us this, point-blank, on multiple occasions,” continued Bertao, pointing out that leadership was furious with them for voting to support presidential primary delegate rules that benefitted Donald Trump rather than Ron DeSantis, for example.

“Many of them encouraged and supported the split in the College Republicans for those reasons: so that they could remove our permanent charter, hold it over our heads to get us to jump through hoops, and pit the organizations against each other to do more for the party and ‘earn’ the charter,” said Bertao.

And Bertao says whenever the College Republicans have tried to speak up about the way the party was treating them, the Party has acted shocked and appalled at the criticism, and attempted to gaslight the students and public into thinking they cared about them — without, of course, giving the students anything they’ve asked for such as what’s included in the reform proposals.

“When we asked CAGOP leadership what we could do to earn their support on our permanent charter, for example, they ignored us,” said Bertao. “So this is to send a message, stand up for what is right, and force them to come up with an excuse for why they’ll shoot these proposals down — because that’s all their reasons are: an excuse,” said Bertao.

Their first excuse for shooting down the resolution? That the Party only considers resolutions on external issues. However, nowhere is this stated in the Party rules.

Bertao explains that if CAGOP leadership is against a proposal, it’s dead in the water — like the resolution — and average party members do not matter or even usually get a vote on an issue — again, like the axed resolution.

The CAGOP bylaw amendment and resolution processes are geared toward supporting the desires of leadership, rather than average party members. Proposals must go through committees before being voted on by the party as a whole, and these committee members are appointed by the leadership. If a committee recommends against a proposal, it takes over 2/3 of the Party to overrule the committee’s recommendation. But Party leadership controls the votes of over 1/3 of the Party — allowing them to block anything from being overturned.

If this angers you, it should, says Bertao.

That’s why Bertao is calling on the public to fight back and call and email the CAGOP leadership to demand they pass these reform measures at its May convention to make things right and actually support the next generation.

“These measures will send a message but absolutely will not pass without public support — please help us stand up and fight for common-sense change in the face of these odds,” concluded Bertao.

Here is a list of leaders to contact — all contact info can be found publicly:

CAGOP Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson

chairwomanpatterson@cagop.org

CAGOP Executive Director Bryan Watkins

bwatkins@cagop.org

Lindsey Stetson, Chair of Volunteer Organizations Committee

stetson.lindsey@gmail.com

Matt Jacobs, Chair of Rules Committee

info@mattjacobsforcongress.com

CAGOP Office Phone Number: 916-448-9496

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Updated April 10th: This article has been updated to reflect the CAGOP's immediate rejection of CCR's proposed resolution.