BOSTON (AP) - Tea party-affiliated candidate Mark Fisher pressed his lawsuit Thursday against the Massachusetts Republican Party that demands they certify him as a candidate for governor, pay him damages, and release voter tally sheets from their state convention that he said will show party leaders denied him critical votes.
At a Thursday news conference, Fisher also said he was approached by a party state committee member in December with an offer from the party to pay him $1 million to drop his campaign. He refused to name the official citing what he said was a court gag order.
“My first reaction was this is a bribe. This is illegal. This can’t be done,” he said.
Republican Party chair Kirsten Hughes called the allegation bogus and said it was Fisher who “asked the MassGOP leadership for $1 million dollars to abandon his lawsuit, and later revised his offer to $650,000, not the other way around.” She also denied there was a gag order.
Fisher said he later told the party that he would consider accepting some financial settlement, as long as his name would appear on the ballot.
The battle between Fisher and Republican leaders is threatening to overshadow the campaign of Charlie Baker, the party’s endorsed candidate. Fisher said he’s collected the 10,000 voter signatures needed to secure a spot on the ballot.
On Wednesday, the party offered to certify Fisher as a candidate for governor in exchange for Fisher agreeing to delay any additional legal proceedings in the lawsuit until after the election. Fisher rejected the offer.
Fisher blamed his dispute in part on Baker and “his cronies” and called on Baker and Attorney General Martha Coakley to press the GOP to release the tally sheets which he said will show criminal activity.
The party maintains Fisher fell just short of qualifying for the primary ballot by failing to win the needed 15 percent of delegate votes at the March convention. Fisher claims the party violated its own rules by including blank ballots in the tally and adding 54 additional blanks to the total after the roll call on the convention floor.
A Baker spokesman said Baker wants a fair and quick resolution and urged Fisher to work with the party.
“If that means a primary, then we welcome it,” said Baker aide Tim Buckley.
Fisher also said that during an April meeting, Republican Party lawyer Louis Ciavarra said there could be two settlements - a smaller settlement if Fisher remained in the race and a larger settlement if he dropped out. Fisher said Ciavarra said the settlement would have to be structured to prevent the FBI from investigating.
Ciavarra said there was never an effort to structure an unlawful settlement. He also said there’s no effort to hide tally sheets and there’s no court order preventing Fisher from revealing the identity of the individual who said offered him $1 million.
“These are serious allegations,” Ciavarra said. “I have talked to the leadership of the party and to the best of anyone’s knowledge, it’s an untrue statement.”
Ciavarra said the last settlement request he received from Fisher was for $650,000. He said he any payment would have to be tied to “provable, sustainable, actual damages.”
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