Dear Patriots,
You have may recently heard a rumor that Oregon Tea Party is under new management. Let us assure you that is not the case.
OTP is the same as it has been. Nothing has changed. In 2010, the Oregon Tea Party Board of Directors (which at the time included Geoff Ludt) unanimously elected John Kuzmanich as the new OTP Chair. That decision still stands, and we are proud to continue to have Mr. Kuzmanich serve as our democratically elected chair.
The board and chair of Oregon Tea Party (527 PAC) are disappointed that former board member Geoff Ludt has apparently decided to start a new business using the Tea Party brand. Since we do not own the business trademark and do not believe the Tea Party is a business, we really can’t do much to stop an entirely new and unrelated business venture.
We are very disappointed that Geoff has reneged on his written commitment to transfer the “oregonteaparty.org” domain when he resigned from Oregon Tea Party and will investigate our options. In the meantime, you can find our official website at www.oregonteapartypac.org.
We do regret any confusion this may be causing our longtime supporters and members. We want to reiterate that the Oregon Tea Party PAC, a lawfully licensed 527, is doing fine and gearing up for a very important 2014 election season.
We believe that as a grassroots movement the Tea Party should belong to everyone. But in order to be able to support the large events and activities of the Oregon Tea Party, a collection of early tea party leaders in Oregon voted to establish the Oregon Tea Party PAC – a group that included current Chair John Kuzmanich as well as Geoff Ludt.
Although a necessary evil, establishing an official leadership as required for a PAC gives the enemies of the Tea Party movement what they value most – a target to attack and try to distract from the issues that matter via the politics of personal destruction. We are seeing this at the national level with attacks on Senator Ted Cruz as well as well as locally by progressives and certain elements in the Republican establishment against the Oregon Tea Party PAC Chair John Kuzmanich. You can learn more about these recent attacks here.
Oregon Tea Party denounces these types of attacks as divisive and a distraction from the real grassroots movement that continues to stay laser focused on Constitutional first principles, smaller government and fiscal responsibility.
We look forward to continuing to working with dedicated patriots across Oregon in the defense of liberty.
