Epic Fail

Fiscal Responsibility

This is embarrassing.

The Minnesota Republican Party, struggling with financial problems in recent months, is now facing eviction from its headquarters. Though for the moment, the party is assuring the public that it will be able to negotiate a settlement without being thrown out.

Last year, the party replaced its previous chairman Tony Sutton due to mounting debt of nearly $2 million — including over $700,000 from the 2010 gubernatorial recount, which most observers thought the party never had any significant chance of winning — bringing in the new chairman Pat Shortridge to clean up. As Politics in Minnesota now reports, the party sent a notice to activists late last week, informing them of a new problem.

“When I was elected on December 31, 2011, the rent had not been paid since August 2011 and as part of our continuing financial issues and our effort to re-negotiate the lease, no lease payments have been made in 2012 to date,” Shortridge wrote in the letter.

The quick math says the Minnesota Republican party has not paid their rent in nine months, and in the midst of this error in responsibility, the Minnesota Republican party caused a government shutdown for a not-insignificant period of time, costing the state tens of millions of dollars in revenue and other costs. Because they were more concerned with spending on social programs than their own finances.