Tuesday marked the first day of business for the 2012 GOP Convention in Tampa. Long day ahead. Let me begin with a picture to lighten the mood before it gets all into business...The Texas delegation wore Texas flag shirts with our cowboy hats on this day. Here I am with my fellow alternate delegates, Crystal and Joe, from CD3.
But I also need to rewind to Monday a bit to discuss something that arose regarding rule changes which we would be voting on today.
Many of you have now heard about battle over rule 12 and rule 16. Here they are prior to being changed for the actual vote...
Rule No. 12: The Republican National Committee may, by three-fourths (3/4) vote of its entire membership, amend Rule Nos. 1-11 and 13-25. Any such amendment shall be considered by the Republican National Committee only if it was passed by a majority vote of the Standing Committee on Rules after having been submitted in writing at least ten (10) days in advance of its consideration by the Republican National Committee and shall take effect thirty (30) days after adoption. No such amendment shall be adopted after September 30, 2014.
Rule No. 16: (a)(1) Any statewide presidential preference vote that permits a choice among candidates for the Republican nomination for president of the United States in a primary, caucuses, or a state convention must be used to allocate and bind the state's delegation to the National Convention in either a proportional or winner-take-all manner, except for the delegates and alternate delegates who appear on a ballot in a statewide election and are elected directly by primary voters.
(a)(2) For any manner of binding or allocating delegates permitted by these Rules, no delegate or alternate delegate who is bound or allocated to a particular presidential candidate may be certified under rule 19 if the presidential candidate to whom the delegate the delegate or alternate delegate is bound or allocated has, in consultation with the State Party, disavowed the delegate or alternate delegate.
As a compromise, rather than having a floor fight on Tuesday during voting, Rule 16 (a)(2) was then replaced with: "For any manner of binding or allocating delegates under these rules, if a delegate (i) casts a vote for a presidential candidate at the national convention inconsistent with the delegate's obligation under state law or state party rule, (ii) nominates or demonstrates support under Rule No. 40 for a presidential candidate other than the one to whom the delegate is bound or allocated under state law or state party rule, or (iii) fails in some other way to carry out the delegate's affirmative duty under state law or state party rule to cast a vote at the national convention for a particular presidential candidate, the delegate shall be deemed to have concurrently resigned as a delegate and the delegate's improper vote or nomination shall be null and void. Thereafter the secretary of the convention shall record the delegate's vote or nomination in accordance with the delegate's obligation under state law or state party rule. This subsection does not apply to delegates who are bound to a candidate who has withdrawn his or her candidacy, suspended or terminated his or her campaign, or publicly released his or her delegates."
And at one point in time, there was also language in the rules that the RNC was trying to adopt which included allowing the RNC and presumptive GOP nominee to veto any delegates or alternate delegates, despite having been duly elected (this also gets us into another issue that arose regarding unseated duly elected delegates).
Ultimately, here are the final rules that were adopted at the convention after a voice vote that was too close to call, and was actually scripted into the program. If you haven't heard about it or just want to see more, click here and here. (Not just to point fingers at the RNC, looks like the DNC also scripts their votes.)
Another issue that arose at the beginning of the day was when they were deciding whether to seat Maine's duly elected delegates or have them replaced with delegates of the establishment's choosing. Here you can hear a good amount of delegates chanting "Point of Order!" trying to get Chairman Reince Priebus to recognize them and to address their objection, but Priebus ignores them. The chants then start mixing with "Seat them now!" Many people may think this issue is just Ron Paul supporters causing a disruption or creating chaos during the convention, but the concern is fundamentally about following the rules. In the state of Maine, they voted on their delegates and alternate delegates. It's not up to the RNC to decide that just because they don't like who the delegates or alternate delegates are, they can have them replaced because they may or may not support the RNC's presumptive nominee. Talk about the RNC and presumptive nominee having vetoing power over elected delegates, what they did to unseat Maine can also happen to any other state. This was an overstep of power that was uncalled for.
I hope this day's post makes sense, because there was a lot that happened, and I'm trying to describe faithfully what happened (with video) while still maintaining some objectivity. But there are so many other strings attached to what happened that it's difficult to write out linearly.
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