Sen. Potts
I swear as a fledgling member of the Pajama Hadeen that this picture has not been photoshopped.
F. McDonald
Posted on 02/27/2005 6:01:18 AM PST by RKBA Democrat
State Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr., a Republican who has tossed a monkey wrench into state politics by running as an independent for governor this fall, has been asked to resign from the Senate’s GOP caucus.
Potts, 65, formally announced his candidacy on Friday. --SNIP--
Shortly after his news conference, Potts was evicted from a specially called meeting of the Senate’s GOP caucus. His long time colleagues emerged from the closed-door session two hours later with a formal request that Potts resign from the caucus, relinquish his chairmanship of the Senate Education and Health Committee and all of his other committee assignments.
“I absolutely and unequivocally refuse,” Potts told reporters. “I will not resign from the party of my father.”--SNIP--
“The rules are on my side and I don’t expect anything to change,” Potts said.
(Excerpt) Read more at home.hamptonroads.com ...
Ping.
I could be wrong (hopefully I am) but the way I read it, it sure looks like he is right about the rules being on his side.
Yeah, looks to me like he has the rules on his side as well. But, public outcry could change how that works out.
This is a bad precedent for Democrats as well. If you want to run as a turncoat, that's your legal right. I'll vote against you regardless of your affiliation and urge others to do the same. But at least have the decency to quit your party.
Yeah, looks to me like he has the rules on his side as well. But, public outcry could change how that works out.
This is a bad precedent for Democrats as well. If you want to run as a turncoat, that's your legal right. I'll vote against you regardless of your affiliation and urge others to do the same. But at least have the decency to quit your party.
Do you have a group within your state party that is organized enough to begin the process to change the rules and terminate this guy? We refused to give party endorsement to a RINO a few years back and you'd have thought that was the worst crime possible by the attitudes of the party hacks. Battles over rules always go into the wee hours at our state conventions. However, there is a growing conservative resistence to the party bosses domination of things. We'll see...
I don't disagree.
Absolutely.
When reading excerpts of this to my husband yesterday he was surprised to hear where Potts is from...considering his stances on things like guns and taxes.
Unfortunately I am not the person able to answer that question. I have very little knowlege of the workings of the party here...not for lack of trying, rather lack of leadership at the county level in my county.
His Senate Leader can strip his Chair and committee assignments from him.
I don't think anyone can force him to change his party affiliation, but the party leadership surely has the ability to withdraw his appointments.
Can someone direct me to a site where the rules are posted?
Never mind. I found it. Sorry.
This guy is an opportunist. He is running as an independent yet wants to maintain his cushy job as comittee chairman. This RINO would attract more liberals than conservatvies when he runs as an independent for Governor.
Man, what a jerk.
Here's a link to his website:
http://sov.state.va.us/SenatorDB.nsf/0/ea6e44e68f92c4ba85256aa00071998c?OpenDocument
And here's his email addy:
district27@sov.state.va.us
Actually under the rules of the VA Senate, his party leader has NO power to strip him of his committees. It takes a vote of 27 members of the Senate to do so...the GOP has 23+Potts. And changing the Senate rules requires the same name number.
In the VA House, the Speaker can unilaterally dump a member from his committee assignment. In the VA Senate, the rules of the body are different. Now that may change after the next Senate election (in 2007) when the body has to pass new organizational rules, but as of now, it seems impossible to pull off unfortunately.
Plus, because we have no party registration on VA, it makes it very hard to get a ruling out of the chair--who is the Democrat LG and a candidate for Governor himself who probably benefits from Potts' entry--that he has switched parties. With such a ruling, Potts would lose his committee assignments without the need for a vote. But that does not seem possible given the need for the Dem LG to cooperate on this.
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