Officials at the House and Senate GOP campaign committees said Tuesday that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) is still scheduled to headline their annual joint fundraising dinner in June, following a report in her home state that the governor was not confirmed to speak at the event.
The National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee announced Monday that Palin would headline their joint fundraising dinner in June — her first major public event in Washington, D.C., since she campaigned as the Republican vice presidential nominee last fall. However, a story in the Anchorage Daily News on Monday evening reported that Palin had not confirmed her attendance at the dinner.
“I communicated with the governor directly, and she did not know anything about it,” Bill McAllister, Palin’s official spokesman, told the Anchorage Daily News.
But spokesmen for the NRSC and the NRCC said separately that to their knowledge, Palin is still scheduled to headline the event.
“The committees have confirmed this with the governor’s political staff at SarahPAC, not her official staff in Juneau, so it’s understandable why there may be a miscommunication here,” NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh said in a prepared statement.
Pam Pryor, the national spokeswoman for SarahPAC, declined to comment on whether Palin would headline the dinner, saying the governor’s scheduled will be finalized by the end of April.
“From the political office of SarahPAC, we are fielding many many requests for Governor Palin and are submitting those to her,” Pryor said in a statement. “Her schedule will be finalized after the conclusion of the Alaska session.”
This is not the first time there has been confusion over a Palin address in Washington, D.C. Palin was announced as a speaker for the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual conference in February but pulled out of the event a couple weeks before, citing official duties.
Lois Lerner, director of exempt organizations for the IRS, arrives for a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the investigation of the IRS' targeting of political groups. Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right to not testify and caused a protest from some committee members when she offered an opening statement and engaged in dialogue with members before invoking the right.
Roll Call has launched a new feature, Hill Navigator, to advise congressional staffers and would-be staffers on how to manage workplace issues on Capitol Hill. Please send us your questions — anything from office etiquette, to handling awkward moments, to what happens when the work life gets too personal. Submissions will be treated anonymously.
