Sorry for the delay getting here guys. Always too much to do.
As others have previously posted the link to my Endorsement Article at Ammoland, here's a link to my Author Page where you can see all of my articles going back years, including this year's endorsements and a recent compare and contrast piece on what the "Old Guard" Directors say, and what the jury said.
Jeff Knox
To summarize my thoughts on voting this year, and answer some of the questions that have been posed in this thread, here's my take:
Wayne LaPierre and his pals didn't engage in their chicanery in a vacuum. They had help and the helpful, willful ignorance of a 76-member Board of Directors. For that reason I am very bearish on all incumbents who served during the corruption, and very bullish on most of the new candidates.
The Old Guard made it pretty easy on us this year by purchasing an ad in the ballot issue of the NRA magazines, one page before the ballot package. It's mostly black and white with a list of candidate names in red letters. This is very convenient because most of these folks comprise almost all of my "Don't Vote For" list this year. Just by making sure you don't vote for any of the incumbents listed in that ad, you're 90% of the way to voting for a stronger, more effective NRA.
That's almost everything you need to know to vote this year. The incumbents in that ad were there for the corruption and either were complicit, directly culpable, or culpable by negligence.
They now claim that "they didn't know" and fixed everything as soon as they found out... But they also defended Wayne LaPierre for the next 5 years at a cost of nearly $200 million from NRA coffers. They were part of the problem, and whether they have been part of the solution or not, it's time for them to go.
If you're interested in a deeper dive, read on.
There's another ad in your magazine from the "Reformers" (NRA 2.0, ElectaNewNRA.com). It's a color 2-pager that sandwiches the ballot package.
I mostly support the candidates listed in that ad, just as I mostly oppose the candidates in the other ad.
There are also some (7, I think) unaffiliated candidates that don't appear in either ad, but are included in the Bios before the ballot, including Mark Shuell, who has posted in this thread and who I really like and endorse.
I have no issues with any of the other non-affiliated candidates and urge you to consider them all.
The NRA 2.0 folks have 28 candidates on their list, including two people they're asking you to write-in. Most of the people on that list are NEW candidates who have never been on the NRA Board. I am endorsing ALL of those NEW candidates.
There are also 10 incumbents on the list: Four who were first elected in 2022, so they came in late in the trial and weren't really part of the problems. I endorsed all four: Al Hammond, Cathy Wright, Charles Hiltunen, and Mitzy McCorvey.
Another four have been on the Board a bit more than one term and I'm not endorsing those four: Anthony Collandro, Paul Babaz, Todd Ellis, and Jim Wallace, but I'm not opposing them either. Look them over and you decide.
Finally, there are only two candidates on the list who have been on the board for more than six years: Willes Lee (first elected in 2016 or '17, and Jim Porter, first elected in 1989. Porter is also a past president (as was his father). Since these two were on the Board during the corruption and the cover-up, I can't endorse them and actively oppose their reelection, even though they have both repented their pasts and have been actively working with reformers since 2024. Sorry, too little, too late, in my book, but your mileage may vary.
The ad, from the StrongNRA.com group is headlined by current President Bob Barr, who has been on the Board since 1998. It also includes past Presidents Sandy Froman (first elected in 1992), John Sigler (first elected in 1996), and Ron Schmeits (first elected in 2000). The incumbents are rounded out by Senator Larry Craig (first elected in 1983), Carol Frampton (first elected in 1998), Dwight Van Horn (first elected in 1998) Joel Friedman (first elected in 2005), Tom King (first elected in 2007), and Blaine Wade (first elected in 2016), as well as two short-term incumbents, Danny Stowers, and Isaac Demarest, both first elected in 2022.
I strongly oppose ALL of the long-term incumbents, and am unenthused by the short-term incumbents.
The StrongNRA.com list also includes four new candidates who I'm mostly ambivalent about. I'm a little concerned about the two from Arizona, as there are already 6 or 7 Directors from Arizona, and I tend to think both of these were recruited by Sandy Froman, who is a very nice, very sharp, and very persuasive person, who was all-in for Wayne, and has been on the wrong side of NRA issues pretty consistently for decades. I just worry that the two new candidates from Arizona, Sharon Callan and Jeff Fleetham might be unduly influenced by Sandy. I could be wrong. While I've met both, I know neither one well.
The final two candidates on the StrongNRA.com list are also the last two new candidates, Lawrence Finder and Charles Rowe. Both have impressive credentials and could potentially be excellent additions to the Board. Again, my only concern is whose advice they might be predisposed to listen to, but I urge you to consider all NEW candidates, regardless of who endorses or promotes them.
That's it. That's my recommendation: Vote for the new folks.
As a practical matter, I suggest going through the bio's in the ballot package and marking them in accordance with which ad they're in or one of my endorsement articles. I think I've identified all of the incumbents, just in case they don't tell you in their bio's. Then number your choices working up to 28, remembering that the two write-in candidates won't be listed in the bio's. Whatever you do, DO NOT VOTE for MORE THAN 28!!!
That will result in your entire ballot being thrown out.
Other matters:
Several have asked about the size of the NRA Board. The argument opponents of reducing the Board keep putting forward is that a smaller Board would make it impossible to do all of the critical committee work that Board members currently do. Some have also argued that having a large board is important because there will always be celebrities, politicians, and big donors who will seek and win seats on the Board, but who aren't interested in rolling up their sleeves and doing the work, so a bigger board is needed to make sure there are always enough worker bees to get the jobs done.
The last argument I've heard is that a smaller board would be easier for a small faction to take over and rape the NRA.
I think all of these arguments are idiotic and myopic.
My proposal for years has been a Managing Board of about 9 members, combined with an "Advisory Board" or "Advisory Committee" of 50 to 75 members, predominately elected from states or regions by NRA members in those states or regions. These delegates would handle most of the committee work and advise the Managing Board on all issues. They would also serve as the Search Committee for executive positions and for candidates to serve on the Managing Board. I also think this body should appoint or elect the Managing Board members, rather than leaving it to a easily manipulated popularity contest among the membership.
The final component of my plan is an "Honorary Board" (call it whatever you want) that is populated by celebrities, politicians, and big donors. It gives them a place of honor and respect, without being mixed up in the work of making the sausage.
I also saw questions about Directors being compensated. No Director is currently being paid by the NRA. We all serve as volunteers. Only a few ever received payments for consulting, personal appearances, speeches, and things like that, and there's non of that going on now. We've instituted a stricter conflict of interest and related transaction policy that covers almost any questionable activity you could think of. I think some folks go a bit too far in wanting to forbid any sort of financial transaction between the NRA and a Director. There are some transactions that might be beneficial to the NRA and fair to the Director, but all of them should be carefully scrutinized and approved in advance, then duly reported to the membership. For instance, if I wrote a review of a new gun for American Rifleman at normal rate (same as they pay their other writers), got some ammo donated from an ammo company, and was able to purchase the now-used gun at a discount, as is often offered to writers, would that be a corrupt deal? I've pledged not to take pay for any article for NRA publications, just to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, but Bart Skelton, Jeff Cooper, and Neal Knox were paid for articles while they were Directors, and I don't think there was any undue influence involved in any of those cases. Scrutiny and transparency are the keys.
As to the rantings of SethHaan, it's apparent to me that he/she has not actually read very much of what I've written about the NRA, instead relying on what others, who also don't actually read my articles, have said about me.
The one thing I will call him/her out on is the nonsense about wanting to "fire our lawyers while we were still in litigation."
While I advocated for replacing the Brewer law firm, probably as far back as 2019, the only vote on anything close to that was a vote calling for the dissolution of the Special Litigation Committee at the September 2024 Board meeting. At that point, the trial was over, and we were just negotiating the remedies to put before the judge as he prepared to issue his final order. In fact, the Board voted on most of those remedies and the judge eventually accepted all of them, I think. Had we prevailed in our effort to dissolve the SLC, that would have returned the authority for hiring and firing lawyers back to the Executive Vice President and CEO, Doug Hamlin. I think he would have as rapidly as prudently possible, severed ties with Brewer, and either brought in new counsel to handle those last few filings, or more likely, turned it over to the NRA's in-house General Counsel and the officers to manage. Doing this would have ended up with the exact same results, but would have saved several million dollars over the following three months. But it should be pointed out that this would have been at the discretion of Doug Hamlin. If he saw a problem with removing Brewer, he wouldn't have taken that step.
Finally, I would challenge Seth Haan to provide any specific instance of anything I've written that is demonstrably false, twisted, misleading, or even mean-spirited.
I've written almost weekly columns for over twenty years now, only slowing down my pace a little for the past two or three years. All of that writing represents a very wide swath of my brain laid out on paper or pixels. I dare anyone to actually read that body of work, or even just my articles discussing the NRA, and conclude that I'm a "bitter old man" just grinding an axe over an old grudge. There's occasional anger, and a whole lot of frustration, but you won't find pettiness or bitterness anywhere, at least not more than a small pinch here and there when things got personal, but hey, I'm only human.
Sorry for the long rant guys, and my absence.
I'll try to keep this tab open on my machine and check-in here regularly for a while, in case there are any other questions or concerns.
Oh, one last thing. We've finally gotten a system for Board members to be able to review NRA documents online, and we're working toward a forum site where members can get regular reports, access documents like our Bylaws, and interact with directors in a forum-type structure. I don't expect this to happen soon, but we are working on it.
Thanks for caring. Please VOTE!
Onward --
Jeff
