Posted on 03/15/2016 8:26:42 AM PDT by TigerClaws
Republican National Committeeman Curly Haugland of North Dakota sent a letter on Friday to fellow RNC officials arguing that current party rules allow 2016 Republican National Convention delegates to vote for the presidential candidate of their personal preference during the first round of voting, rather than voting along with the will of voters in their states.
Haughland wrote in a letter published by The Daily Caller that the party’s Rule 38, also called “Unit Rule,” specifically allows Republican convention delegates to vote their conscience in every vote at the convention.
“Every delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention is a completely free agent, free to vote for the candidate of their choice on every ballot at the convention in Cleveland in July. Every delegate is a Superdelegate!” claimed Haughland, who also pointed out that he has “been defending the right of the delegates to the Republican National Convention to vote according to their personal choice in all matters to come before the Republican National Convention, including the vote to nominate the Republican Candidate for President, for several years.”
Haughland, who is a member of the RNC’s Standing Rules Committee, claims that convention delegates were only bound to vote along with primary results at the 1976 convention and that the requirement was repealed in 1980.
He said that Tom Josefiak of the RNC’s Counsel’s Office gave a 2006 presentation to the Standing Rules Committee in which he counseled, “One of the important rules changes over the last 50 years has been the unit rule prohibited… that change was made so that an individual delegate can vote his or her conscience.”
Haughland, who told The Daily Caller that he believes Trump will not obtain enough delegates to win the nomination, said, “The nominee of the party must receive a majority of the votes of the permanently feted delegates of the convention. That means it doesn’t make any difference what has happened in terms of primary voters, because they don’t count at the convention. It’s only the delegates at the convention whose votes matter.”
News of Haughland’s effort to convince the RNC of his interpretation of convention rules comes on the heels of a Truth in Media report that the GOP establishment is working to force a brokered convention by attempting to deny frontrunner Donald Trump the delegates necessary to clinch the nomination during the first round of voting at the convention in hopes that another candidate will prevail in a subsequent round.
Hey RNC/GOPe - why don’t you try to pull the rug out from under the man who ‘We the People’ have freely chosen by overwhelming numbers?
See what happens...
North Dakota,
Please pick up your idiot.
“If that’s the case, why bother with primaries at all?”
For show. To give voters the illusion that they have a say in who runs for President.
If they try that, Trump will run 3rd party.. IF his voters don’t storm the back rooms first.
Curley Haughland. Is that him?
Go ahead, just try it!
They pull a stunt like that and I will vote for the Democrat (which I have never done) just to spite them and teach them not to f-— with us.
They want to talk about how a Trump nomination would destroy the republican party?
Nominating ANYONE other than the candidate with he most votes IS COMMITTING POLITICAL SUICIDE.
The GOP will not survive that. Voters would leave FOREVER in droves.
Bingo!
State rules apply. Some states bind the *votes*, not the delegates, for the nominee. Delegates attempting to violate state rules would be appealed to the Convention Rules Committee, not the RNC permanent Rules Committee. Convention Rules Committee decisions have to be approved by a vote of the whole convention, which will be about 75% Trump and Cruz, if not an outright Trump majority.
The GOP doesn’t care if they lose in November, it’s still the Uniparty and they’re still drinking from the gov’t trough.
If they pull this the grassroots needs to organize a write-in campaign. I’m confident we could do it. I mean how hard is it to spell Trump.
In all due respect, there has been good reason to form a viable third party since Clinton. You may have noticed we’ve been systematically scrood month after month, year after year no matter how loud we yell.
I blame talk radio and conservative politicians for purposely thwarting any idea of a third party by insisting that if we just ‘work within the party’, all will be well.
Too many either bought it hook, line, and sinker and/or didn’t have the stomach to make the move.
It’s too late for that now. The final nails are being pounded in America’s coffin right now. Either we stop and reverse it now, or it’s over.
“They pull a stunt like that and I will vote for the Democrat (which I have never done) just to spite them and teach them not to f-— with us.”
______________________________________________________
I agree with your sentiment, but voting dem is exactly what the GOPe would want you to do at that point.
They’d rather keep the existing 2-party system (Dem and DemLite -AKA GOPe) than allow Trump to come in and shake things up.
IMO, if they deny Trump the nomination, the only option is to write him in. If that fails, it’s CWII time.
I am of the opinion that delagates should be bound for the first round of voting but allow one exception. A delegate who is committed to a candidate who has withdrawn, or stopped their campaign should be unbound.
I am also of the opinion that delegates should be bound on the second round as well, with only votes being allowed for those candidates who have qualified to have their names entered on the floor (rule 40 - 8 states with a majority of delegates to qualify).
If by the end of the 2nd round, still no nominee, then all delegates are unbound.
I don’t understand why they don’t let the candidate’s campaigns pick the delegates from the states and districts from which they were won.
If Trump wins 2 delegates from a particular congressional district in Pennsylvania, his campaign staff will pick 2 supporters from that district to go to the convention. They could be volunteers, fund raisers, staff, people who contact his headquarters and apply, etc...
Then we could let the delegates vote for whoever they wanted on any ballot at the convention. Chances are they would stay loyal to the candidate that picked them to go. If the candidate drops out, there is a good chance the delegate will do their bidding and vote for the candidate they endorse.
Truthfully, I thought this WAS how we did it and only recently found out that we don’t. Why don’t we do it this way?
This is just wrong, why do we have votes if the leadership can subvert the will of the people? If Trump has won the primaries he should absolutely be the nominee, just as no matter how distasteful to some here, if Cruz somehow despite the odds won the primaries he should be the nominee.
he’s talking about volunteering to become the Whig party.
LOL! Wall street would be the "lessor" and you can guess who the two evils are!
What is "RNC" and "DNC", Alex.
If in fact enough of Donald’s elected delegates turn on him on the first ballot (or even the second) the GOPe will definitely achieve its preference of handing the election to Hillary (or Bernie) over Trump.
It’s one thing to hold your nose and vote for the GOP nominee, it’s another thing to hold your nose after the GOPe has forced that nominee down your throat.
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