Someone is either lying or quite misinformed. I was there. It was NOT a “VIP” list. The first slate of people nominated for the At-Large Delegate positions were the “Statewide Elected Officials”. The woman who moved to strike Straus from the list argued that he is not a statewide officeholder. She said he is one of 150 State Reps, and if they put him on the list, there would be no room for grassroots delegates when all the other Republican State Reps and State Senators wanted on the list. She agreed that the other names on the slate appear on her ballot, so they should be on the “Statewide Slate”, but Straus was not on her ballot, so he didn’t get an automatic position. Perhaps someone should note that Sen. Steve Ogden was nominated by someone else and was elected to the at-large list, and if someone on that committee would have nominated Straus as a regular delegate, that same argument would have held true. I believe he was removed by a vote of 18 to 12. The woman did NOT, in fact, put herself in Straus’ slot. The second slate of people put on the at-large list was everyone on the committee who stood up to say they wanted to attend the national convention, and she was elected along with all of those committee members. The third slate of people elected were staff members from RPT. Then all other individual names were placed on the lists. No one person did ANYthing. There was a committee of 36 people, chaired by a Parliamentarian, and nothing passed without a majority vote of the committee.
Thanks for this...It’s good information to know.