Earlier in the week, Dallas Heard, the chairman of the Oregon Republican Party, resigned? Why? He cited "evil" inside his own party. The 37 year old state Senator who represents the Roseburg area, wrote in a letter to the GOP that his "physical and spiritual health can no longer survive exposure to the toxicity that can be found in this community. We truly have an equal if not greater evil than the Democrats walking among us."
He's been party chair for a year and his resignation goes into effect Friday. Read the whole letter. It's pretty hilarious.
Don't get the idea that Heard is some kind of a progressive. He's a right wing freak who was ejected from the state legislature twice for refusing to follow mask mandates. He has been participating in committee meetings virtually since then.
This afternoon, the News-Review reported Heard told them "that a small group within the organization, including Republican National Committeeman for Oregon Solomon Yue, had been conspiring against him. He accused Yue and others of wickedly intending to destroy him, and of using 'communist psychological warfare tactics.' But Yue, who immigrated to America from communist China, said in an email Thursday that he survived that country's cultural revolution and escaped its tyranny. He said his parents were told by the Chinese government that if he couldn't keep his mouth shut they would make him disappear in the night, and his parents would pay for the bullet. 'Calling me a communist is like calling a Jew who survived Auschwitz a Nazi,' he said."
As for Heard's dispute with the ORP, he said that stems from a disagreement over a state platform issue.
Yue said he and Heard differed about a proposal to open the Republican party primaries to allow people who aren't Republicans to vote on it.
Heard has said this would allow unaffiliated voters to participate in the primary. He thought it would be a positive change.
Yue doesn't think so, and said most party members agreed with him.
Yue said he persuaded ORP State Central Committee members to defeat Heard's proposal by a vote of 69 to 42.
It instead adopted platform principle 13.7, which states, "Primary elections shall be bound to party membership."
"It is sad that Sen. Heard lost the vote and took it personally," Yue said.
