Sacramento GOP reverses course, demands resignation of Proud Boy member

Jan. 25—The member of the Proud Boys elected to Sacramento County’s Republican Party Central Committee has been told by GOP officials to resign his post or face expulsion.

Jeffrey Erik Perrine, whose election to the committee post was revealed Monday in The Sacramento Bee, says he was told by country GOP Chairwoman Betsy Mahan after the story was published that he had to resign because he had not sufficiently disavowed past statements he has made regarding immigration and other issues.

“They’re not even willing to allow me to be in the party because I’m a Proud Boy,” Perrine said in an interview with The Bee. “Betsy and the executive committee emailed me and immediately demanded my resignation.”

Perrine said the demand came despite Mahan’s statement to him Friday — after she learned of his association with the far-right group from The Bee — that he could still serve in the unpaid position.

Mahan declined Monday to discuss her conversation with Perrine.

GOP initially defended his right to serve

“I’m not going to be making any more public statements,” she said. “I can confirm that the executive committee of the Republican Party has called for his resignation and I’m preparing a statement.”

On Friday, Mahan defended his right to run for the position, although she said she knew nothing of his past activities.

“He is allowed to run for office just like every other registered Republican in the county, and our bylaws state that anyone can do that,” Mahan said then. “We don’t check people’s affiliations when they run and we have no control over who can run.”

Despite the demand that he quit, Perrine said he will not resign and will force the party to vote him out at its next meeting Feb. 17.

‘I’m not with the KKK, man.’

“They clearly don’t appreciate freedom of speech,” Perrine said. “I’m a member of the Proud Boys. I’m not with the KKK, man.

“I’m not an officer (with the Proud Boys). I don’t have a tattoo on my body.”

Perrine said last week that he had disavowed much of his past activity and had no interest in street violence that is frequently seen at events involving Proud Boys chapters.

He also insisted he has no racist tendencies, and defended his appearance on a widely circulated video from Portland in 2018 in which he proclaims over a bullhorn that “all the illegals trying to jump over our border, we should be smashing their heads into the concrete.”

Perrine said that appeared to be the issue that led the GOP to demand his resignation.

“We allow for the left to dictate who we associate with,” he said. “Betsy’s telling me that my statements from Portland — because I doubled down and felt like they were not racist statements — that the GOP finds that what I said was racist.”

Demand to quit came in GOP email

Perrine provided an email from Republican officials outlining their reasons.

“Prior to the publishing of today’s article, you led us to believe you had not been a member of the Proud Boys since 2018, which according to your words is not true,” the email from the central committee read. “Rather than denouncing your previous statement regarding violent acts toward illegal immigrants, you doubled down by saying it was not racist.

“It is our unanimous belief that your views and actions are not consistent with the mission or values of the Sacramento County Republican Party, constituting ‘bad conduct,’ and we hereby give notice that we will recommend your removal from the Central Committee at the February 17 Committee Meeting.

“If you wish to resign immediately, that will make this action no longer necessary. We will need to receive your resignation message by return email or in writing. We ask you to take this seriously and to understand that we will always take actions that we believe are in the best interest of the Republican Party.”

Perrine said he is disappointed that his position is being revoked before he was sworn in.

“I thought I was going to be able to at least raise hell at a meeting once,” Perrine said. “I kind of felt that once they saw who I was they would not do this to me.”

He added that he believes Mahan should resign “for harming the party.”

“She’s just as divisive and she’s keeping real Republicans from joining the party,” he said. “She’s keeping it as a country club setting, and she’s not allowing for diverse thinking.”

Proud Boys listed as hate group by national monitors

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the Proud Boys organization as a hate group that maintains “affiliations with known extremists.”

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said Perrine’s election was an example of other efforts by far-right groups to “mainstream” their groups into political discourse.

The Proud Boys gained notoriety last summer when then-President Donald Trump was asked about them during a debate and said he would urge them to “stand back and stand by.”

Perrine says the GOP move against him means he will drop his previous efforts on behalf of the party, including working for the recall of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“I will turn everybody I know away from the GOP in the Sacramento region,” he said. “Anyone that I know online I will push away from the GOP.”