ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, July 19, 1996 TAG: 9607190045
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
Del. Randy Forbes, chairman of the state Republican Party, weighed into the battle for control of the Franklin County party Thursday.
In fact, he may have settled the dispute.
Forbes, of Chesapeake, has signed a letter recognizing Carthan Currin - and not Randy Huckaba, who defeated the incumbent Currin at a March mass meeting - as the county's GOP chairman.
Currin won the vote of people who actually attended the meeting, but more than 20 proxy votes allowed that night made Huckaba the winner.
Forbes couldn't be reached for comment Thursday, but the state party's executive director, Chris LaCivita, said the letter is based on the three rulings made by Republican Party general counsels over the years, including a recent one by lawyer Skip Forrest of Buckingham County.
The rulings were all the same: Proxies cannot be used at a mass meeting.
LaCivita said Forbes' decision was based on the rules and not political philosophy.
"They've [members of the state Republican Party] tried to make this into an ideological battle," he said. "But it's not."
The fight over the county chairmanship, which pitted Currin, who was supporting Sen. John Warner in the GOP primary, against Huckaba, who was backing challenger Jim Miller, started at the March mass meeting.
The fallout from Huckaba's win was immediate. Some said Currin was blindsided in cowardly fashion by a small group of Republicans hell-bent on his ouster.
Others said Currin's loss was just part of the rough-and-tumble world of politics.
Either way, Currin didn't swallow his defeat. He spit it out and mounted a relentless effort to get the chairman's post back, something he sees as vindication for moderate-conservative Republicans. cut from the mold of Warner.
Several people who voted against Currin at the mass meeting said they did so because of his support for Warner, who angered some Republicans when he refused to endorse two of his party mates - Oliver North for U.S. Senate in 1994 and Mike Ferris for state lieutenant governor in 1993.
Currin and his lawyers, Clyde Perdue and Bill Davis, argued that the use of the proxies - by a prior ruling of the state's legal counsel, and by wording in the state party plan - is prohibited at a mass meeting.
In April, Currin lost an appeal to the Franklin County Republican Executive Committee, of which he and Huckaba are members.
Currin then appealed to the 5th District Republican Committee. At a meeting in Danville last month, a mediator was able to help fashion a deal between Currin and Huckaba.
The agreement: Huckaba would resign as chairman until another mass meeting could be conducted to decide the issue, and Huckaba would agree that the use of proxies at the March meeting was "inappropriate."
Huckaba and Currin agreed in principle to the deal cut that day, and a mass meeting was set for July 16. But then things fell apart.
Neither side would sign the agreement when it was written because of differences in wording each side wanted to include.
So, Perdue penned a letter to Forbes asking the state chairman to rule in Currin's favor.
Huckaba can appeal Forbes' decision to the state Republican Central Committee at a meeting Saturday in Richmond, LaCivita said. Huckaba confirmed Thursday that he's received a letter, but declined to discuss its specifics.
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