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GRAND HAVEN, MI The Ottawa County Republican Party Executive Committee has censured six sitting Republican county commissioners in the latest public bout of party in-fighting.

The party leadership team alleges the commissioners in question have encouraged Democrats to vote in the Republican primary.

The Ottawa County GOP Executive Committee voted last week to censure any Republican elected official or candidate who encourages Democrats to vote in the hotly-contested Aug. 2 Republican Primary.

In doing so, they censured six Republican incumbents on the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners: Board Chair Matt Fenske, Roger Bergman, Board Vice Chair Al Dannenberg, Greg DeJong, Randy Meppelink and Phil Kuyers.

The Ottawa GOP Executive Committee in a news release claimed these sitting members have been publicly embracing Democrat interference in the Republican primary.

The committee further alleged that some of those commissioners were endorsed by two, unnamed political groups with apparent ties to George Soros that have a goal to elect the most liberal person in races where Democrats have a slim chance to win.

Ottawa County is often regarded as a Republican stronghold in the state. Only one of the countys 11-member board is a Democrat.

Soros, a Jewish billionaire and financier of progressive causes and candidates, is often invoked in antisemitic tropes as a symbol of Jewish wealth and power, the American Jewish Committee said in a Tuesday, July 19, statement in response to the Ottawa County GOP.

This antisemitic language has no place in our political discourse. It should never be normalized, American Jewish Committee officials said. We call upon the Michigan Republican Party and Ottawa County Republican Party to immediately refute these statements.

The six, censured commissioners are among a group of eight incumbent Republican Ottawa County commissioners being challenged in the Aug. 2 primary by fellow Republicans endorsed by new political action committee Ottawa Impact.

That group was born out of the COVID-19 health orders that saw mask mandates in schools in Ottawa County and elsewhere in the state by order of local health department directors.

In a joint press release sent out Saturday, July 16, the censured commissioners called themselves longtime and traditional Republicans who have dedicated ourselves throughout our political careers to making an impact, having integrity, and embracing the common good.

As longstanding members of the Republican Party, we support the values and policies which have made Ottawa County strong, the joint statement reads. We are disappointed that a small, vocal minority has infiltrated the Ottawa County GOP to serve its own narrow political agenda rather than address Ottawa County as a whole and serve everybody.

They didnt specifically address the claims made by the executive committee.

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6 Republican Ottawa County commissioners censured in latest bout of party in-fighting - MLive.com