Millham declines nomination to GOP committee amid criticism of her endorsements of Dems

BELMONT — The rift in Republican ranks between its conservative and moderate wings emerged when the Belknap County Republican Committee met this week as Skip Murphy, co-founder of GraniteGrok, the conservative blog, challenged the nomination of Alida Millham, a current but soon to be retired state representative from Gilford, for election to the party's state committee.

When Millham was nominated, Murphy questioned her eligibility, citing a party bylaw, which he understood to disqualify any Republican who endorsed a candidate of another party in a general election from serving on the state committee.

In letters written to The Daily Sun during the fall election season, Millham endorsed Democrats Kate Miller of Meredith and Lisa DiMartino of Gilford, both of whom ran for four seats the New Hampshire House of Representatives in Belknap County District 2, composed of Meredith and Gilford. DiMartino was elected with the second highest number of votes while Miller finished fifth in a field of nine, which included four Republicans, four Democrats and an Independent.

At the GOP meeting, Millham did not respond immediately .However, later she recalled that conservatives targeted moderates in GOP primaries and, describing herself as "one of the targeted people," urged her listeners "to take a look at how people in the partite are treated. " Quoting economist Paul Romer, she remarked "a crisis s a terrible thing to waste" before taking her seat to scattered applause.

The day after the meeting Millham withdrew her name from nomination to the Republican State Committee. "I want to have some flexibility without having to go through this kind of stuff," she said.

Responding to Murphy, Alan Glassman, the chairman of the county committee, held that the bylaw applied only to the executive committee of the party.

In fact, the reach of the bylaw is narrower than Murphy and broader than Glassman suggested.

The bylaw in question, known as the "Mirski amendment" after Representative Paul Mirski of Enfield, who lost his seat in the general election, was aimed at so-called "RINOS," or "Republicans in Name Only." It was adopted after Democrat John Lynch ousted Craig Benson, the incumbent Republican governor, in the election of 2004, which featured "Republicans for Lynch," a group chaired by Bonnie Newman, who served in the Reagan White House. "Republicans for Lynch" reappeared soon after John Stephen won the GOP gubernatorial nomination in 2010 and contributed to Lynch's reelection to a record fourth term. Ironically, the bylaw was invoked against Jack Kimball, the chairman of the party who was forced to resign in 2011, when among other things he was found to have signed a petition to place Libertarian candidates on the ballot.

The bylaw reads that "any registered Republican who at the same time joins or allows his or her name to be used in support of a political committee or a defined group of individuals, that in title or effect is intended to be understood by the public to be a committee or group comprised in whole or in part of members of the Republican Party endorsing a candidate for elected office from another political party , when there is a candidate nominated by the Republican Party for that office, shall be disqualified during the then present and the next biennium" from holding office on the state, county or city committee as well as from serving on either the executive committee or the state committee.

On the one hand, the bylaw does not explicitly penalize individual Republicans for endorsing individual candidates of another party as Murphy assumed. On the other hand, Republicans who join or identify with a group supporting a candidate from another party are disqualified from holding office in the GOP as well as serving on its committees.