Nearly two-thirds of the Wake GOP's Executive Committee has been unilaterally removed, according to an email sent out by Chairman Steve Bergstrom less than a week before the party convention tonight.
Under the current Wake GOP Plan of Organization, the County Executive Committee has over 60 members, including officers and at-large members elected at the county convention as well as standing committee chairs.
However, the majority of the committee is made up of the chairs and vice-chairs from each of the county's fourteen regions, as well as eleven club and auxiliary presidents. According to Bergstrom's email, these 39 members are removed from the executive committee "effective immediately".
Opinion 2024-001
The basis of this decision is an opinion issued by the NC GOP Plan of Organization Committee on January 29, 2024 in response to the Moore County GOP. According to the state party's Plan of Organization, members of an County Executive Committee must either be elected "by the County Convention", or by the other members of the committee.


The opinion is in response to a question specifically about precinct chairs (elected at precinct meetings) and club presidents (elected by club members). The opinion does not specifically address members of an executive committee who are elected at the county convention by a caucus of the precincts each region comprises, as the current Wake GOP Plan of Organization dictates.
However, the practice of the Wake GOP has apparently been to not follow this aspect of the Plan of Organization, and instead have the region chairs chosen at the precinct meetings, and elected by the County Executive Committee after the convention.
Reaction
I spoke to two region chairs who were blindsided by this decision to remove them from the Wake GOP Executive Committee. According to Raleigh North Region Chair Chad Stall, the timing and optics of this decision are "terrible", and a presidential election year is not the time for a major restructure.
Stall also tells me he is concerned about the demoralizing effect on his fellow region chairs, who put in significant amounts of volunteer work organizing for the party.
More to the Story?
One of the first policy changes after Bergstrom and his slate were elected by the Wake GOP Convention last year was to institute a new "club criteria" and "code of conduct" which the affiliated clubs had to follow to remain "in good standing", and keep their seat on the executive committee. This included a minimum committee attendance of 75% for club presidents (a requirement not applied to other committee members), sharing club membership rolls with the party, and give the party chair or vice chair 5 minutes of speaking time at any club meeting.
At the time, Duane Cutlip, president of the East Wake Republican Club, sent out an email titled "Our Declaration of Independence from Tyranny", declaring the club's disaffiliation. (However, I'm told that despite this declaration, Cutlip was never officially removed from his position on the committee).
Proposed changes
According to Bergstrom's email, his leadership team "exhausted all options" which would not have required an amendment to the county's Plan of Organization.
Bergstrom's proposed changes, which will be voted on at the convention tonight, will remove the following positions from the executive committee: the previous county chair, the two congressional district GOP chairs, the five at-large committee members elected at convention, the region chairs/vice-chairs, and the club/auxiliary presidents.
These positions would be replaced with ten regional at-large members, elected at convention, and one representative of the clubs/auxiliaries, elected by the committee.
Although, the regional at-large members would be required to be a resident of the region they represent, it appears that each regional member would be voted on by the whole convention, not merely their own region. (Compare this to the recent change passed by the NC Legislature in regards to the Wake County Commission, which moved from an at-large vote to a per-district vote for the county's seven districts):
This would be a major change to the Wake GOP Executive Committee, cutting the total size in approximately half. It would also likely reduce the likelihood of dissenting opinions being expressed in the committee, as all members will either be elected by the entire convention, or elected by those committee members who are.
As of the time of publication, Bergstrom has not responded to a number of questions I sent, including when the Wake GOP first found out about the NC GOP opinion, who exactly made the decision, and why the current members of the committee were removed instead of being confirmed by the state party approved subset of the committee. This article will be updated with any answers provided.