The latest on the squabbles inside the MassGOP
It remains unclear whether party Chairman Jim Lyons will run again to keep his seat.
Whether MassGOP Chairman Jim Lyons will seek to keep his seat come January is still up in the air as the state party leader has yet to say if he will.
But Lyons is apparently roping in a potential challenger to his ongoing lawsuit against his party’s treasurer, according to Politico.
Amy Carnevale, a state committee member, received a deposition request on Wednesday in the case at Lyons’ request, the outlet reports. Lyons and David Carr, the party’s legal counsel, are asking Carnevale to answer questions next month in the lawsuit against party Treasurer Patrick Crowley.
Politico reports the roots of the case stretch back to January, when whether Lyons had a quorum during a committee meeting to pass the party’s budget came into question.
Since then, the party in-fighting has focused on depositions, financial records access, and who exactly can authorize payments on behalf of the party.
And earlier this month, Lyons threatened other committee members with subpoenas if they did not assist him in the lawsuit.
Carnevale says Lyons is making “an outrageous attempt to try to silence dissension” from committee members ahead of January’s chair vote, according to Politico. Some members are also concerned Lyons is using the state’s limited funds to pay for the lawsuit.
Lyons and Crowley could not be reached by Politico for comment on Sunday.
The MassGOP suffered some notable losses in the general election earlier this month, including the race for governor as moderate Republican Gov. Charlie Baker leaves the job next year.
Suffolk University Political Research Center director David Paleologos told WBZ-TV on Sunday that 41 percent of people who voted for GOP gubernatorial nominee Geoff Diehl in the primary election voted across the aisle for Democrat Maura Healey in the general. Only 35 percent of Republican primary voters stuck with Diehl this month.
Paleologos said he has never seen anything like that before.
“And the independent [candidate] was getting like 20 percent of those voters, which shows total dissatisfaction and a division within the Republican Party — an issue that Republicans are going to have to deal with on a serious level,” Paleologos said.