2024-02-29 11:18:05
MINOT — Perrie Schafer was the chair of the North Dakota Republican Party until current chair Sandi Sanford, a self-described “culture warrior” who enjoys the support of populist wing of the party,
narrowly defeated his reelection bid in June 2023.
Now Schafer is backing a new political committee aimed at taking on the “ultra-right” of his own party. It’s called the LegeNDary Fund, and Schafer is in the process of organizing financial support for it.
I obtained a letter he sent out to potential funders inviting them to a meeting Friday, March 1, to discuss it. “I’m surprised you got a hold of it already,” Schafer told me when I reached him for comment. “I just sent that thing out.”
He said the letter speaks for itself and that he’ll certainly have more to say regarding it as time goes on, but said it’s “not an effort to destroy the NDGOP.”
“I’m a past chairman, for crying out loud,” he said, while adding that the party “can’t keep going down the road we’re going on.”
“You may be thinking that we have total control of the state offices and the legislature now, as Republicans, so why do we need to organize to keep republican leadership?” his letter to prospective funders stated. “The answer is very simple…there is a movement across the USA taking power away for everyday ‘center-right’ Republicans and going to the ‘Ultra-right’ of the party.”
“We can’t keep winning elections if we have people in power within the party that want to burn the house down,” the letter continues, referencing turmoil in the chapters of the Republican Party in other states like Michigan, Arizona and
You can read the whole letter below. I redacted the video conferencing password and link, as well as some of Schafer’s personal information:
A search of political committee filings with the Secretary of State’s office reveals that Schafer’s group has formed both a multicandidate committee and a political action committee, indicating an intent to both support candidates for public office directly and to engage in independent spending.
That search also revealed a third committee state Rep. Brandon Prichard created using the same name as Schafer’s committees. Prichard, who is a Republican, is a member of the “ultra-right” in the NDGOP that Schafer is trying to oppose. Schafer said he’s aware of Prichard’s committee and is consulting with his legal counsel regarding it.
Per data from the Secretary of State’s website, it appears Prichard created his multicandidate committee on Jan. 15. Schafer’s multicandidate and political action committees were created on Feb. 5.
I spoke with Secretary of State Michael Howe regarding what rules or laws there might be governing the use of identical names for political committees. “There aren’t any,” he told me. He directed me to
section 16.1-08.1-03.2 of the North Dakota Century Code,
which states, in part, that “Registration by a political committee under this section does not reserve the name for exclusive use nor does it constitute registration of a trade name under chapter 47-25.”
Howe said that a committee would have to register its name as a trade name in order to protect it. Schafer has done that. He registered “Legendary Fund” with the Secretary of State’s office as a nonprofit corporate entity on Jan. 2.
Prichard, it seems, is trolling.
This isn’t the first go-around for political committee hijinks for the Bismarck lawmaker. Last year, he
raised over $131,000
— including over $33,000 from some of his fellow Republican lawmakers — for a federal political action committee called the YR Victory Fund. He told the people from whom he raised the funds that the money would be used for outreach to get young North Dakotans involved in the Republican Party.
But at the end of the 2023 reporting period, he
donated nearly all of that committee’s revenues
(outside of a $10,000 payment to himself) to a national committee based in Ohio called the Citizens Alliance Political Action Committee Inc. Prichard is also the executive director of the North Dakota chapter of Citizens Alliance, and has been using that position to run critical
attacks aimed at defeating moderate Republican incumbents.
Some of the contributors to the YR Victory Fund — including some of the legislative backers — told me they were surprised by the redirection of funds. “Can we get our money back?”
Rob Port is a news reporter, columnist, and podcast host for the Forum News Service with an extensive background in investigations and public records. He covers politics and government in North Dakota and the upper Midwest. Reach him at [email protected]. Click here to subscribe to his Plain Talk podcast.
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