New PAC makes political waves
A newly formed political action committee led by a former Tuolumne County supervisor is backing certain local candidates on the Nov. 3 election ballot in hopes of being able to maintain the long established status quo.
The Constitutional Patriots of Tuolumne County emerged this week with full-page advertisements in The Union Democrat that featured dire warnings of an impending “liberal socialist” and “Marxist” takeover should their favored candidates lose at the polls.
Financial disclosures filed with the California Secretary of State’s Office show that the group has received at least $11,000 from three donors since forming the PAC less than a month ago, though full reports on spending and other contributions won’t be due until next week.
Randy Hanvelt, the former county supervisor for District 2 and current chairman of the Tuolumne County Republican Central Committee, said he was solicited to serve as the committee’s leader.
“A group of people came to me and asked me if I could lead such a thing because they were tired of what they were seeing on the other side,” he said.
The group made waves in the community on Thursday with a full-page advertisement in The Union Democrat imploring people to vote for incumbent County Supervisor Karl Rodefer in the District 5 race, write-in candidate Cody Ritts in the District 1 race, as well as Jim Grinnell and incumbent Ron Kopf for the Tuolumne Utilities District Board of Directors.
However, the ad also generated some uproar by tying District 1 candidate David Goldemberg, District 5 candidate Jaron
Brandon, and TUD candidates Lisa Murphy and incumbent Barbara Balen to a left-leaning political activist group called Tuolumne County Indivisible.
Tuolumne County Indivisible was founded in 2016 as the local chapter of a national organization created by former staffers of President Barack Obama to help promote left-wing advocacy through tactics gleaned from the right-wing Tea Party movement.
The PAC’S ad also promotes a website created by someone or group of people who have remained anonymous, which has become a point of contention in local races.
Hanvelt said he doesn’t know who created or maintains the anonymous website, but he trusts and wants to promote its content because it lines up with screenshots people he knows have obtained from within Tuolumne County Indivisible’s private Facebook discussion group.
“We’re not like the other side that talks about transparency but hides behind a secret website,” he said in reference to the private Facebook group. “Transparency is not their thing, but we think it’s ours because we’re not hiding.”
Hanvelt declined to disclose the identities of the people who approached him about becoming the leader of the Constitutional Patriots of Tuolumne County PAC.
“I’d have to give you a list, and I’m not going to do that,” he said. “There are lots of people who came and said we need something different, and they don’t want progressive agenda in Tuolumne County.”
The available financial disclosures from the PAC showed that it received $1,000 from Thomas Crosby, of Sonora, another $1,000 from TUD Board President Bob Rucker, of Sugarpine, and $9,000 from Jonathan “Jake” Clark, of Sonora.
Crosby, who listed his occupation as “retired,” was also Ritts’ biggest financial donor at $2,000 in the last filing period from July 1 through Sept. 19. Rucker has also donated $1,000 to Rodefer’s campaign through his Merced-based Rucker Construction.
Clark is the owner and co-founder of ArmstrongClark Co., which is based in East Sonora produces oil based stains for decks, siding and fences that it distributes across the United States. He’s also donated $1,000 to Rodefer’s campaign, $500 to Kopf’s campaign, and $1,000 to Hanvelt’s unsuccessful bid for reelection in 2018.
One of the reasons Clark said he helped launch the PAC and provided the seed money to get it off the ground was to help “voice the views of the Republicans and help keep this a Republican county.”
“I love this county to death,” he said. “It’s big enough and small enough both at the same time that you can know the major players if you choose to participate.
“I don’t typically (participate), I’m more of a behindthe-scenes guy. I’ve supported Karl, Ron Kopf and a couple other TUD guys, but other than that I’m in the shadows.”
Clark said he’s from Ohio and moved to the county more than 25 years ago after previously living for brief stints in Carmel-bythe-sea and Laguna Beach.
The ads are not intended to make anyone in the community feel threatened despite language about not letting Indivisible “destroy our American way of life,” according to Clark, who pointed to the Black Lives Matter protest in Courthouse Square on June 3 as an example of why it’s necessary to push back.
“I don’t think there’s a Republican here that doesn’t think Black lives matter, but should they be coming into our community that’s mostly white and making those kinds of points?” he asked. “That was kind of like a mini invasion.”
Clark said the current plan is to continue operating the PAC after the election regardless of the outcome.
However, some residents who are Democrats or identify themselves as leftleaning said the wording of the ads felt like a personal attack even if they’ve never been affiliated with Tuolumne County Indivisible.
Gayle Howey, of Phoenix Lake, is a Democrat and retired U.S. Forest Service employee who has lived in the county for 45 years and said she was offended by the fear-based rhetoric that seems to be worse than in past elections.
“It made me feel like I shouldn’t be in this county and just felt very devaluing, very accusatory, and almost a little bit scary,” she said, though she’s never previously felt that way despite a majority of the county leaning the right politically.
Jessica Williams, 40, of Sonora, is a registered Democrat and one of the leaders of Tuolumne County Indivisible. For a living, she co-owns a fitness gym in East Sonora and gives horseback riding lessons on the side.
Williams said she would consider herself a “moderately progressive, leftleaning person who still likes my guns,” which she believes stems from her upbringing in rural Michigan as the daughter of a union pipefitter.
“It’s always been about the middle class and the fight for the middle class and growing the country from the middle class, not the top down, and making sure workers had protections,” she said.
The recent ads and anonymous website have linked the group to George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist and Democratic Party mega-donor who is at the center of many conspiracy theories pushed by the right wing, due to his support for the national organization.
Williams said the local chapter doesn’t have a bank account, doesn’t collect membership dues, is not registered with the national Indivisible organization, and has never received money from Soros.
“We just have their name as a branding thing,” she said.
The group was not involved with organizing the June 3 Black Lives Matter protest, but held a candlelight vigil for Black victims of police brutality in the same park days earlier. It has also helped organize other vigils, smaller protests and the annual Women’s March over the years.
Williams said the local chapter has never called for defunding the police, as some have claimed, and focuses mainly on providing an outlet. Some of the group’s core local issues include funding for libraries and advocating for transparency in local government.
“In local elections it’s not about partisan issues,” she said. “It’s about library funding, it’s about roads, it’s about knowing where the money from the TCEDA went. None of this is what they want to make it about. That’s the most upsetting part, is bringing those national attacks to local people.”
Jerry Morrow is a lifelong Republican and former chairman of the Tuolumne County Republican Central Committee who is actively supporting both Goldemberg and Brandon because he believes new leadership is needed due to the budgetary issues facing the county.
Morrow said he’s lived in the county for 34 years and never seen the kind of tactics currently being used by the Constitutional Patriots of Tuolumne County PAC, which he referred to as modern-day Mccarthyism.
“To call these people communists in the paper and do this to these red-blooded Americans, I can’t believe it’s happening in this county,” he said. “It’s all about power.”