ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 10, 1996 TAG: 9604100090
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
Randy Huckaba won round two of the fight for control of the Franklin County Republican Party Tuesday night, despite a possible conflict with state party rules.
Gov. George Allen The new Republican chairman was backed by a majority of the party's executive committee after it heard an appeal from former chairman Carthan Currin Tuesday night.
Huckaba also won round one when he ousted Currin at a tumultuous mass meeting March 16.
Currin appealed the results of the vote that night, saying the more than 20 proxy votes used were invalid. Currin believes he should be reinstated as chairman because he won the vote of the people who attended the meeting.
The executive committee denied the appeal on a 4-2 vote Tuesday following a three-hour closed session at the Golden Corral Restaurant on Virginia 40.
Currin and Huckaba, both members of the committee, did not vote on the appeal.
And though there wasn't a shootout at the Golden Corral, there was high-powered politicking aplenty.
Presenting Currin's case were two well-known Rocky Mount lawyers, Clyde Perdue and Bill Davis, who provided services free of charge.
Sitting in to listen to the argument were Donivan Edwards, the 5th District Republican chairman, and Rod Berry, a state central committee member, both from Martinsville. Edwards and Berry are likely to become actively involved in the Franklin County situation because Currin plans to appeal to the 5th District committee and then the state committee if necessary.
Perdue's and Davis' presentations and the committee's discussion were closed to the media Tuesday.
However, Perdue and Davis carried a letter into the meeting from Bob Brame, a Richmond attorney who serves as counsel to the state Republican Party. In the letter, Brame says proxy votes at mass meetings are invalid. He based his opinion on a 1980 ruling by Jeff Stafford, a former state delegate who was the party's counsel at the time.
Stafford is now deceased.
Franklin County's Republican Party bylaws say state Republican Party rules take priority over local guidelines.
A plan to remove Currin as chairman - using the proxies - was developed days before the mass meeting, according to party officials.
Currin says he was blindsided by an unethical tactic used by a faction "that didn't have the guts" to take him on face-to-face.
He vows to get the chairmanship back as a matter of principle for moderate Republicans.
Huckaba says he won because Currin and a couple of other Franklin County Republicans were running the show without input from all views within the party.
Currin also supports U.S. Sen. John Warner, who is being openly criticized by many Republicans for not supporting two of his party's nominees - Mike Farris for lieutenant governor in 1993 and Oliver North for U.S. Senate in 1994.
Huckaba said last month that Currin's support of Warner had a lot to do with the move to oust him.
Harris Warner, a member of the county executive committee, was also asked to remove himself from participation, according to Currin's lawyers. Harris Warner, a Roanoke attorney who lives in Franklin County, served as parliamentarian at the March mass meeting and ruled that the proxies were valid.
Harris Warner stayed at the table and voted to deny Currin's appeal. He left after the meeting without comment.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB