Opinion
Tombstone, Arizona – The process of selecting candidates for the 2025 National Rifle Association Board of Directors election has already begun, and the window is closing fast.
A call for candidates was published in the July issue of NRA magazines. It asked members to submit nomination forms for qualified candidates to be considered by the Nominating Committee. The nomination forms must be received by the Nominating Committee by August 4, 2024.
For years, the Nominating Committee was a closed system with Wayne LaPierre loyalists picking the candidates.
Occasionally, an independent thinker would slip into the mix, but they were rare exceptions and were usually sent packing in short order. The current Nominating Committee appears to be a bit more balanced but still leans toward the Old Guard establishment, meaning getting reform-minded candidates nominated won’t be a cakewalk.
If you know someone who would be a good Leader/Director, particularly people with extensive experience in business and/or nonprofit boards and who have been Life Members of the NRA for at least five years, first talk to them and encourage them to run. If they agree, fill out a nominating form and submit it to the Nominating Committee. Forms were published in the July issue of the NRA magazine and are available electronically at www.nrapublications.org/nomination. Multiple nominations for the same person are not necessary and add no weight to a nomination.
Nominate A Director for NRA Here!
I also encourage serious candidates to reach out to the NRA Secretary’s office to request a Petition Candidate package so they can begin collecting signatures on nominating petitions, just in case the Nominating Committee chooses not to nominate them. Even if a candidate is nominated by the Nominating Committee, there is some benefit to being able to say a candidate was “double nominated” both by the Nominating Committee and by petition of the members. This year’s signature requirement for petitions is around 400, which means the target should be to collect 500 to 600 qualified signatures and Member Numbers from Life Members and Annual Members with at least five consecutive years of membership.
That’s a pretty high bar, so the signature gathering should start immediately.
In addition to getting good candidates on the ballot, collecting signatures generates name recognition and a voter base. Not only do we need candidates, we need voting members who are ready to support their candidate. In the last election, we were hugely successful in electing four reform candidates. All four of us were nominated by petition, and I can tell you that several of us barely got enough signatures to qualify, but three of us came in among the top five. This is not an easy task.
NRA Board Qualifications & Responsibilities
Several people have asked me about the qualifications and responsibilities of Directors. Along with the basic knowledge, understanding, and love for the Second Amendment and experience that a good candidate should possess, there is one statutory requirement spelled out in the Association’s Bylaws. Any candidate must be a Life Member of the Association and must have been a Life Member for at least five (5) years at the time of nomination. In previous years, the five-year requirement could be waived. That is no longer the case. The five-year Life Membership is a must-have.
As to responsibilities, the Board meets three times per year. The first Board meeting always directly follows the Annual Meeting of Members. The other two meetings are usually held in September and January at a meeting site near NRA headquarters in Virginia. Directors’ travel and lodging expenses for meetings are covered by NRA. The President assigns Directors to various committees, with each Director usually serving on two or three committees. The committees typically meet electronically most of the time, with in-person meetings for some committees usually happening in conjunction with the Board meetings.
Since the NRA is chartered in New York, its laws apply. These laws place significant fiduciary responsibility on individual Directors. Saying “I didn’t know” is not a valid excuse for failing to fulfill fiduciary obligations. It is every Director’s responsibility to know what’s going on and to take appropriate action to ensure that everything is legal and above board. Serving on the Board is not an honorary position.
While reform candidates did well in the last election, progress has been slow in the first couple of months on the Board, tempering my initial jubilation at capturing majority votes for Bill Bachenberg and Mark Vaughan as First and Second Vice President respectively, along with Doug Hamlin as Executive Vice President. Doug hit the ground running with some good moves right out of the gate, but his actions have been limited by President Bob Barr and several influential members of the Board, particularly past President Charles Cotton and the Special Litigation Committee.
The Special Litigation Committee (SLC) was created because our Executive Vice President (LaPierre) and our General Counsel (John Frazer) were both named defendants in New York’s suit against the Association, creating a conflict of interest requiring control of the cases to be put out of their control ostensibly. Initially, the SLC was made up of three officers: the President, 1st VP, and 2nd VP. When Charles Cotton moved into the presidency, he kept former president Carolyn Meadows on the committee and added David Coy and Bob Barr, the new 1st and 2nd VP’s. Now, President Barr has decided to maintain that membership in the SLC rather than replace Cotton and Coy with Bachenberg and Vaughan or dissolve the SLC altogether.
Dissolving the SLC is a valid option, as LaPierre and Frazer are no longer EVP and General Counsel, respectively, thus negating the conflict of interest and the need for the SLC.
The judge in the New York case has made it abundantly clear that he is concerned with the gross failings of the NRA Board of Directors – particularly the Audit Committee – which allowed the corruption and abuse within the Association to happen and continue. He has expressed puzzlement at the Board for reelecting officers in the face of that corruption and abuse and has clearly stated that he feels significant changes need to be made, not only in the Association’s policies and procedures but also in the make-up of the Board and committees tasked with overseeing and executing those policies and procedures.
I had hoped that Bachenberg and Vaughan, with the help of EVP Doug Hamlin and the agreement of President Barr, would make the necessary corrections, fire the Brewer law firm, and push for a settlement in New York. Without Brewer stirring the legal pot, I’m convinced we could have reached a favorable settlement and gotten this case behind us weeks ago (actually years ago), without the expense of a trial.
Instead, the NRA continues to pay the Brewer firm something in the neighborhood of a million dollars a week, and we’re heading into another two weeks worth of courtroom action in New York, which will cost the Association millions more and probably result in a worse outcome than any settlement we might have brokered.
President Barr has also chosen to retain Cotton and Coy as Chair and Vice Chair of the Audit Committee and members of the Finance Committee and has even named Cotton to another powerful committee that I’m not at liberty to discuss publicly. This looks to me like an invitation for the judge to come down hard on the Association and the Board, and grant the NY Attorney General’s plea for him to appoint a monitor over the Association.
I believe Barr is acting under the advice of Cotton and Brewer, and I see the current situation as just the latest example of Brewer doing the exact wrong thing for the NRA at every turn. A pattern he’s not deviated from since LaPierre hired him in 2018.
Obviously, the movement to reform the NRA has far to go. It’s early, but too many Directors are stuck on the ideas of “stay the course” and “don’t change horses in mid-stream.” It’s up to the members to make the changes. Electing the Four for Reform this year was just the beginning. We need a dozen – or two – committed reformers on the Board.
Please! Get those nominations submitted today and start collecting signatures tomorrow. It’s your Association. Take control.
About Jeff Knox:
Jeff Knox is a second-generation political activist and director of The Firearms Coalition. His father Neal Knox led many of the early gun rights battles for your right to keep and bear arms. Read Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War.
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition has offices in Buckeye, Arizona, and Manassas, VA. Visit: www.FirearmsCoalition.org.
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