The 66-member Ohio Republican Party Central Committee will gather in Columbus on Feb. 3 for its first meeting since Gov. John Kasich launched an effort to oust party Chairman Kevin DeWine and take control of the party.

A couple of contentious items could be presented to the committee, which will meet at 8405 Pulsar Place. One proposal is to amend the party's bylaws to set a new qualification for membership to the central committee, which is the party's governing body. The amendment states that in order to qualify for the committee a person must have voted in the three immediate preceding Republican statewide primary elections.

Charles Knight, a committee member from Fostoria, said he will present the amendment to the party's rules committee, possibly next week. If that committee approves, the amendment would go to the full committee for a vote on Feb. 3.

"We want to make it a stronger party, one in which the folks who are there (on the committee) truly want to make it a stronger party."

Kasich and his advisers are running their own slate of candidates for central committee in the March 6 primary election with an aim of securing enough committee votes to oust DeWine, whose current two-year term expires on Jan. 1. Knight said he had been working on the amendment "for awhile," and he had not discussed it with either the Kasich or DeWine allies. He said he didn't know how, if at all, it would impact the fight for control of the party, saying he was motivated only by making the party stronger.

GOP sources said if the new rule is adopted at least one candidate for central committee would be precluded from serving if he is elected. Randy Law of Aurora voted in the 2009 Democratic primary. It was not known whether Law had aligned himself with either the Kasich or DeWine camps. Knight said he was unaware of Law's candidacy.

It also is possible that the central committee could take up a proposal tabled at a previous meeting that would call for the endorsement of all incumbent central committee members for re-election in the March primary.

Knight, who said he had no role in that proposal, said that members initially "were not very comfortable with that at this point" and wanted to discuss it further. If the endorsement proposal is approved at the Feb. 3 meeting, Knight said, it would strengthen DeWine's hand.

"The current committee seems to be really comfortable with Kevin," Knight said. "They don't seem too excited that he's doing something wrong. I keep waiting for someone to explain to me what anybody thinks he's done wrong."