"Abortion Activist Keeps Seat on GOP Executive Panel"

Kathy Wolf, who has been arrested four times while protesting in right-to-life demonstrations, will be permitted to remain active in the Osceola Republican Executive Committee. Her most recent arrest occurred this year during demonstrations in Buffalo. Following her arrest, Wolf spent 60 days in jail.

The executive committee called a vote at its monthly meeting whether to allow Wolf to remain on the committee.

Vice Chairman Bill Muntzing asked that Wolf be dismissed, but the committee voted 17-9 by secret ballot against Muntzing's proposal. A two-thirds vote--18 votes--was required for the proposal to pass.

"I give God all the glory," said Wolf after the vote. "He is my defense."

Wolf said the platform of the Republican Party is "clearly pro-life" and that she is a Republican because she believes in the party platform.

Those who are "destroying the plank" will be "the death of the party and the children," she said.

Muntzing said while Wolf is entitled to her beliefs, violating the law cannot be condoned.

"We cannot continue to sit as elected Republican officials with one who advocates civil disobedience," Muntzing wrote in a memo distributed to committee members several days before the meeting.

"Her actions have tainted the entire committee," the memo said.

After the vote, Muntzing said he would not continue to pursue the issue.

"The committee made their decision and their decision came up short," he said.

The vote turned out just right for committee member Kathy Padgett. Had the vote gone the other way, Padgett said she would have changed her party affiliation.

"I was so angry," she said. "Right to life is in the platform and to go the other way is against the party."

The right-to-life issue and its role in the Republican Party has resulted in controversy at the national level as well as at the local level.

Jeanne Van Meter, Osceola Republican Executive Committee chairwoman, said she hopes the issue is not causing factionalization within the local party.

Van Meter said that the vote was more reflective of how people feel about anti-abortion activism than how they feel about the abortion issue in general. She said the committee is evenly divided on abortion rights.

"A lot of people, no matter how they feel on abortion, feel it should not be brought up into the community," she said.