Scott will stress Republican unity

Former Ehrlich official elected as party's chief

Friday, Nov. 20, 2009

BOWIE — Maryland Republicans overwhelmingly selected former Ehrlich administration official Audrey Scott to be their chairwoman Saturday in an election that focused more on how votes should be apportioned rather than who they were cast for

Scott, who was planning secretary under Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), pledged to raise more money for the financially strapped GOP. She also said she would work with the party's elected officials, who repeatedly sparred with former chairman Dr. James Pelura.

"We can do for you what you need us to do," said Scott, who served as mayor of Bowie and on the Prince George's County Council, but now lives in Queen Anne's County.

About 300 attended the Maryland Republican Party convention Nov. 14, where central committee members from Baltimore and the state's 23 counties voted on Pelura's replacement.

Pelura, an Anne Arundel County veterinarian, faced growing criticism for the party's meager fundraising and failure to register more GOP voters since he became chairman in 2007. Republicans in the General Assembly also bristled at his attempts to dictate party policy.

Scott faced only nominal opposition from Daniel Vovak, who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2006 wearing a white wig, a symbol from the Colonial era, and called himself "The Wig Man."

He entered the race claiming allegiance to the GOP's forebears, the Whig Party, and renamed himself "The Whig Man."

Vovak received 45 votes to Scott's 610 in a complex weighted vote system the party used.

In previous chairmanship elections, the GOP's voting system favored Maryland's largest counties. After about an hour of debate, the party agreed to a new system that shifted some of the power away from the larger counties and allocated votes more evenly.

The party has about $5,600 in the bank, according to a report released at the convention. The party's executive committee Friday night passed a 2010 budget that anticipates raising $438,000 and spending $339,000. The difference will be put toward outstanding debts, including money that the party owes to Michael Steele's campaign account.

Steele, the current chairman of the Republican National Committee who served as state chairman before becoming Ehrlich's lieutenant governor, asked for legal help when the party challenged a proposal to redraw legislative districts.

Steele paid the $75,000 out of his campaign account and the state Board of Elections ruled the bill must be paid by the party.

Despite its financial problems, party members remained upbeat, certain that their numbers in the General Assembly and Congress will improve in the 2010 elections.

"It was hard last election to register voters," Joyce Lyons Terhes, a former party chairwoman, told the audience. "How the mood has changed now."

"Our citizens don't want socialism," Scott said. "They don't want the government running health care. And they don't want the secularization of our society."

Charles County Republican Central Committee Chairman Bruce Wesbury, who attended the convention, is confident that Scott will be able to stabilize the party's operations and energize the grass roots for next year's statewide elections.

"She will do a great job of starting to rebuild the enthusiasm of the state party and she did it from day one," he said, noting that a single donor who approached Scott on Saturday offered to write a check at Saturday's convention, which prompted dozens of others to follow suit and raise a total of $4,500 for the state party.

Pelura, who presided over the convention until Scott was elected, said politics would remain in his bloodstream.

"The people in Annapolis and the people in Washington, they have too much control over our lives," Pelura said.

Staff writer Alan Brody contributed to this report.