MOSES LAKE — The Grant County Republican Party is in such disarray it's unclear who is even in charge.
Last fall, Grant County's GOP split into two factions, each with its own chairman, board and state committee representatives — and each claiming to be legitimate.
The semirural Central Washington county of 100,000 people is a Republican stronghold.
Division centers on the party's controversial chairman David Hunt, who has an open criminal case against him.
The Washington State Republican Party so far only recognizes the original officers elected at the beginning of last year: Chairman Hunt, State Committeewoman Candace Erikson and State Committeeman Rick Heiberg.
However, Erikson and Heiberg are in the faction opposing Hunt.
Adding to the confusion is a war of optics online. Hunt controls the county GOP website; Erikson and Heiberg control the Facebook page.
Erikson and Heiberg, along with their faction of precinct committee officers, appointed newcomer Andrew Koeppen to be their chairman.
Koeppen has projected authority, regularly updating the Facebook page, launching a new website, and carrying on with party events like the county caucus in January and the annual Lincoln Day Dinner fundraiser last weekend.
"A lot of good is coming out of this," Koeppen said. "The party is extremely unified."
The dinner at the Pillar Rock Grill in Moses Lake sold all 180 tickets and included as a keynote speaker Dave Reichert, a former U.S. representative running for governor as a Republican. One of Reichert's opponents, Semi Bird, was also scheduled to speak at the event but canceled last minute.
While Hunt has continued to hold meetings with precinct officers, he did not hold a parallel Lincoln Day. Hunt said he allowed the opposing faction to run the caucus for the greater good of the party.
"We are just trying to keep doing the right thing," Hunt said. "The truth will come out."
A new chairman is elected
In January 2023, the Grant County Republican Party held its reorganization meeting to elect its new leader.
The night before, the outgoing chairman Mike McKee emailed a file of court records to the PCOs regarding a series of restraining orders and violent threats Hunt allegedly made against his wife three years earlier.
Hunt addressed his record in a speech saying that he was a changed man and that everything was resolved with his wife.
The eleventh-hour dirt rubbed some people the wrong way.
"In my mind, that is why David got elected," said Rick Heiberg, the state committeeman.
Andrew Koeppen had just been elected a PCO and said he didn't know Hunt prior to that.
"I believe in second chances," Koeppen said. He went ahead and voted for Hunt. Erikson and Heiberg also said they supported him at the time.
"The fact that he had a pending felony kind of fell on deaf ears," McKee said. He stopped attending meetings after that.
"At that point I could not be part of an organization that had a potential felon running it," McKee said.
There wasn't enough time to investigate it before the vote, but the file opened a lot of questions for some who had supported Hunt.
Erikson, Heiberg and Koeppen said they only found out later that the criminal case had not been resolved and that the case is on hold pending a psychological evaluation.
As time went on more concerns emerged about Hunt's leadership. They said he was not being transparent, wasn't documenting things properly and wasn't conducting meetings according to the bylaws.
During meetings he would go on hourlong tirades calling people liars and not getting to business, Koeppen said.
As Hunt tells it, he came on the scene as a disrupter to the complacent establishment wing of the party and made a few enemies along the way. He said they were resentful of what he was accomplishing.
October ouster
Tensions escalated to a crisis at an Oct. 5 meeting.
Koeppen amended the agenda to add several items including to discuss replacing the chair, according to meeting minutes provided by PCO Eric Turner. Hunt tried to disallow motions on those items, the minutes said.
Hunt did not provide his version of the minutes, but said the other faction didn't have enough votes. The meeting escalated out of control, so he called the meeting adjourned and left the room along with the executive board and a few PCOs. When they did so, Hunt said there was no longer a quorum.
Turner said 14 PCOs stayed behind, including himself.
Koeppen said Hunt didn't properly adjourn the meeting and there wasn't a vote to do so.
According to the minutes, Koeppen moved to "declare the chair vacant and proceed to elect a new interim chairman to finish out the term of office."
The remaining PCOs unanimously elected a new board with Koeppen as the chair, according to the minutes.
Erikson said this was temporary just to finish the meeting. A special meeting was held later that month with additional PCOs to make the appointments permanent.
The central committee functions differently than other bodies, Koeppen explained. PCOs vote in meetings and can override the chair and executive board as long as a quorum is present, according to the central committee's bylaws.
A quorum is 20% of PCOs for a regular meeting and 50% for a special meeting. The bylaws also say a 50% quorum is required for a meeting to remove executive board members.
There are 80 PCO positions. Hunt said about 45 are currently filled and about 35 are vacant. He said a handful of PCOs are inactive and never attend.
Koeppen said Hunt appointed a number of those PCOs since October.
According to Turner there were 38 PCOs in October, including both those who were elected and who Hunt previously appointed. Turner said that 20 supported Koeppen while 15 supported Hunt.
A more than 60% majority of PCOs attended the October special meeting, Koeppen said.
Hunt said Koeppen inappropriately relied on proxy voters to reach a quorum.
The second meeting had 14 attend in person and seven by proxy, according to minutes Turner provided.
Koeppen said the actions they took were proper, legal and reviewed by their attorney.
"We were very cautious about everything we did," Koeppen said.
On Jan. 18, 2024, both factions scheduled another meeting at separate locations to reconfirm their positions again.
Protection order and criminal allegations
Hunt, who grew up in Grant County, said he got addicted to pain pills while dealing with injuries from his career in the construction industry.
He was arrested in 2020 over text messages he allegedly sent that violated a protection order by his wife.
"They are not good text messages," Hunt said. "They are very ugly, but not physical abuse."
His wife, Elsa Hunt, filed a protection order against him in October 2019, saying he gets very angry and that she was afraid he might accidentally harm her. They began fighting when she discovered he was using meth.
Elsa Hunt wrote that he made vague threats, called her various slurs and was paranoid .
She filed another protection order in March 2020 after she said he returned from rehab and relapsed. The threats and paranoia were worse this time. She wrote that she planned to file for divorce.
At about 1:30 a.m. March 27, 2020, Grant County sheriff's deputies pulled over Hunt and arrested him just 700 feet away their home.
Elsa Hunt called the sheriff's office to complain that her husband was violating the protection order by sending her constant raging texts threatening violence.
The probable cause affidavit said, "In the final text message David sent he stated he was coming by the house to get an answer from Elsa and he would end it all with his blood splattering on Elsa's face."
After obtaining a warrant, deputies recovered a rifle, two handguns, ammunition and a bag of meth inside his car. Investigators were unable to unlock his cellphone or extract its data.
David Hunt was charged with a felony harassment threat to kill and a gross misdemeanor for violation of a court order.
Investigators also said in a report that David Hunt called or attempted to call his wife 40 times from jail, which they said was another violation of his protection order.
He was released from jail on bond April 16.
In July 2020 Elsa Hunt sent a letter to the court asking for the restraining order to be lifted.
"I appreciate and thank this court for helping me in my time of need but I have been married for over 30 years and want to save my marriage," she wrote. "I know my husband is going to counseling every week and I need to be able to talk to him. I will not be part of any court proceeding against my husband."
David Hunt said he has been clean since then and lives peacefully with his wife.
Elsa Hunt did not want to be interviewed, but said on speakerphone during an interview with her husband that she agreed with everything he was saying. Elsa Hunt made no allegations that her husband had physically harmed her.
On June 6, 2022, a Grant County Superior Court judge stayed the case and ordered a mental competency evaluation from Eastern State Hospital. Hunt said he has yet to be interviewed about it.
His time in jail was a turning point, Hunt said. Going through that experience and talking with inmates opened his eyes to problems with the justice system and local government. Once he recovered he was determined to be more involved.
He attended meetings and sent letters. He helped efforts opposing the county's plan to build a new jail in favor of reopening a work release center. He said he was involved in uncovering corruption that he said led the former sheriff and Moses Lake School District superintendent to resign.
Hunt ran for his PCO seat in 2022, the same time as Koeppen.
Through his activities, Hunt made political enemies with the party's old guard. He said even though he has long since made up with his wife, his opponents continue to hold it over his head.
"Where's the justice in that?" he said.
Who is Andrew Koeppen?
Born in Australia and raised in Edmonton, Canada, Koeppen immigrated — legally, he likes to point out — to Washington in 2000 and became a U.S. citizen in 2018.
He ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Redmond, Washington, in 2019 before moving to Grant County.
"I wanted to give back to my new country," Koeppen said of why he got involved in politics. He calls himself "a lifelong conservative, but recent Republican."
As an outsider, Koeppen proved his strength as a leader from his excitement as a new citizen, Erikson said.
Also known as Andreas Koeppen, he is a real estate broker and owns a printing business in Moses Lake.
State GOP responds
The Washington State Republican Party website still lists Hunt, Erikson and Heiberg under local leadership for Grant County.
State Chairman Jim Walsh said in a statement that only the PCOs of Grant County can resolve their local tensions and only a clear majority of PCOs can elect or remove officers of a county party.
"It isn't clear that either of the Grant County GOP factions includes a majority of the local PCOs," Walsh said.
The state committee has asked its legal counsel to review the case to determine whether either faction has a clear majority, Walsh said. Until then, the state party continues to recognize the officers who were elected at the last organizational meeting in January 2023.
Walsh said there can only be one Grant County Republican Party and the Washington GOP will not recognize any other group.
Hunt said he appreciated the statements but wishes the state party had taken a more active role to intervene.
"They should have shut this down months ago as far as I'm concerned," Hunt said.
After Koeppen attempted to access the party's bank account, the bank froze the account, both Hunt and Koeppen confirmed.
Hunt has accused Koeppen of fraud for raising money under the party's name and attempting to open another account.
Complicating matters, a Public Disclosure Commission complaint filed in October against the party by David Hammond, a Grant County resident with Democratic ties, alleged that the party failed to fully report all contributions and expenditures for the year.
In a response to the PDC, Hunt's treasurer Dan DeLano apologized for the delay in filings and said that he was dealing with a lack of records left by the previous treasurer.
Koeppen also filed a response in December explaining why he believed he was the new chairman and that he was unable to obtain records from DeLano and Hunt or access their accounts. Koeppen said in the filing that he suspects at least $25,000 was either misappropriated or unaccounted for.
The case is still under investigation by the PDC.
Dave Reichert, the keynote speaker at the Lincoln Day Dinner, said the internal divisions are up to the local party to resolve. He said he came because he was invited and that if Hunt's faction invited him to speak at their event he would.
Koeppen said Hunt made calls before the dinner to the candidates and the venue, trying to get them to cancel.
Hunt said that actually, Reichert's and Bird's campaigns contacted him about it and that he told them they should go ahead and attend.
Hunt said he called the restaurant owner just to tell them that he shouldn't be responsible for the bill. He said he didn't want to cause more conflict by interfering.
He said he allowed Koeppen's faction to go ahead with the January caucus because he didn't want the dispute to affect the business of the party going in a big election year. Hunt did not participate in the caucus, but agreed to recognize the caucus delegates.
Hunt plans to hold a fundraiser in April, though he probably won't call it Lincoln Day since that traditional Republican event is associated with Abraham Lincoln's birthday in February.
Both factions said they plan to hold a county convention this month.
Cease and desist
On Friday, Hunt's attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to Koeppen, saying he did not follow proper procedures to remove the current chair and elect a new one. The letter also reprimanded Koeppen for ignoring the state party's opinion that there has been no change in leadership and for interfering with fundraising.
"You have been advertising for fundraisers using the GCRP Facebook page falsely stating that such fundraisers are GCRP sanctioned events," the letter said.
"Such statements misleads voters and causes illegal donations to be made to an improperly organized political group."
The letter said the party is entitled to injunctive relief and monetary damages based on Koeppen's actions.
