Romney's "RNC Power Grab": What Really Happened

Determined to neuter the grassroots and head off future insurgencies like those of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Ron Paul, Republican party bosses have pulled off an audacious coup, high-handedly turning the GOP into a much more top-down, centralized party.

Yesterday, the Republican National Committee in Tampa adopted some rules changes that shift power from the state parties and the grassroots to the RNC and the GOP presidential nominee. Former Governor John Sununu of New Hampshire touted the new rules as providing “a strong governing framework” for the party over the next four years. But in fact the new rules should be very troubling and disappointing to conservative grassroots activists, because they move the national Republican Party away from being a decentralized, bottom-up party toward becoming a centralized, top-down party.

The Romney rules effectively disenfranchise grassroots delegates, and will thus tend to weaken and splinter the party over time. They specifically represent a blow to the Tea Party and the Ron Paul insurgency -- to "the Republican wing of the Republican party" -- to citizens who are strongly committed to economic freedom, fiscal common sense, and smaller, constitutionally limited government -- and who want to have a voice in the Grand Old Party. The new rules force these grassroots conservatives to reconsider their future within the GOP.

Party sage and long-time RNC member (and conservative activist) Morton Blackwell led a last-minute effort to stop the changes -- an effort FreedomWorks strongly supported, together with Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. Phyllis Schlafly and RNC for Life also got involved, while Michelle Malkin, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh helped sound the alarm.

But the Romney camp and RNC insiders won the day, successfully imposing their will with the help of their control of the gavels, superior knowledge of the process, and perhaps some dirty tricks. The conservative “rebels” won the moral victory, however, taking their fight to the Rules Committee and the full Convention floor and arguably winning the voice vote there to stop the rules, only to be gaveled down by Speaker John Boehner [view video from 1:08 minutes].

Yesterday’s fight offers a sobering glimpse of what life will be like for conservatives in a Romney Administration. It proves once again that sometimes we have to beat the Republicans before we can beat the Democrats.

Last Friday, August 24th, longtime GOP lawyer and Romney advisor Ben Ginsberg surprised Rules Committee members by proposing three basic changes clearly intended to head off a conservative challenge to President Romney and/or tamp down the Tea Party and Ron Paul movements in 2016.

1. Amend existing Rule 12 to hand members of the Republican National Committee, for the first time, the power to change the party's rules on the fly between national conventions. (National conventions only take place during presidential election years.) Three-fourths of RNC members must approve a proposed change for it to take effect. Note: This new rule is protected; it cannot be amended or repealed by the RNC.

Comment: This is unprecedented. It would enable top GOP officials to circumvent rules adopted by state and grassroots leaders at the National Convention. One can imagine how it might be used to shape and control the delegate-selection process to the advantage of insiders and special interests.

2. Amend existing Rule 15 to allow the presumptive presidential nominee to “disavow” duly elected delegates and force state parties to hold new elections to replace any delegate or alternate deemed unacceptable by the presumptive presidential nominee.

Comment: One can imagine the influence this change would give a presumptive nominee over any delegate that doesn’t toe the line. He could, in effect, choose the people who are to choose him. It’s not hard to imagine the temptation a campaign would feel to use this power to intimidate delegates and to reward friends, supporters, and campaign contributors. The proposal also contained a provision altering the method of allocating delegates, in order to front-load and shorten the primary calendar.

Unfortunately, the proposed change to Rule 12 passed. Thankfully, the proposed changes to Rule 15 were stopped. But a version of the “disavowal” provision did pass, touted by the insiders as a "compromise." But it's not acceptable.

Under this “compromise,” a new Rule 16 was added to stop an alleged “faithless elector” problem -- delegates who run claiming to support one candidate but then vote for another at the Convention. The new Rule 16 requires that a delegate who attempts to violate his binding pledge to a candidate under state law or state party rules shall be deemed to have resigned and the Secretary of the Convention must record the improper vote as it should have been cast based on state law or party rule. This compromise was supported by conservative stalwart James Bopp, as well as Ron Kaufman and Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi. Blackwell opposed the compromise because it retained the Rule 12 change.

As long as the RNC can change the rules between conventions, the proposed changes to Rule 15 that we managed to stop could easily be revived at any time, without a vote at a National Convention. Since the RNC usually follows the lead of its Chairman, and the Chairman has powerful incentives to go along with an incumbent Republican President, it should be easy for Team Romney to change the party rules pretty much any time at their pleasure. This should trouble every Republican.

At a minimum, the effect of the new rules will be to empower insiders over the broad party electorate and to discourage grassroots activists from taking part in the process. The new rules will thus have a chilling effect on intra-party debate, including debate over the National Platform and, of course, on future rules changes. The “Inner Circle” has scored quite a coup.

After Ginsberg’s proposed changes were presented in the RNC Rules Committee, Blackwell circulated a letter denouncing them and vowing to resist them by means of “minority reports,” which can be offered for votes on the Convention floor and, if adopted, would have the effect of defeating the proposed changes.

Over the next four days, we worked feverishly to kill the rule changes, sending out a national call to action and urging our activists to lobby the party chairs and Rules Committee members from their state about the issue. We lit up Facebook and Twitter (using the hashtag #RNCpowergrab) and burned up phone lines with hundreds of calls. We filled up people’s voicemail inboxes. We caused an avalanche of emails. We irritated the heck out of some people. But the pressure had a decisive effect. Negotiations began on the so-called “insiders’ compromise.”

We knew we were fighting an uphill battle. Blackwell laid the groundwork for a floor fight by obtaining more than the requisite number of signers on each of the two minority reports. (Twenty-eight signatures are required.)

As the Rules Committee meeting neared, Team Romney went into high gear, working hard to peel signers off the minority reports.

When the committee finally met, Blackwell was absent, and we have conflicting reports about whether he still had the requisite number of co-signers. One report suggests he did, but that the committee basically disregarded the minority reports because he was not there to defend them.

Why was Blackwell absent? This was out of character for the veteran, battle-scarred activist. Did the insiders pull a Nixonian trick to make sure the leader of the opposition wasn’t present during the crucial meeting? Here’s how CNN explained his absence:

… [S]ome [rules] committee members suggested meddling was at play. A bus full of Virginia delegates arrived at the committee meeting -- after it had adjourned.

“The bus that was supposed to pick up the Virginia delegation arrived an hour later than it was supposed to,” explained Virginia delegate Morton Blackwell, a prime opponent of Rule 16 [a.k.a. the insiders’ compromise on delegate “disavowal”].

Blackwell continued: “And then when we went downtown, we went around the same series of blocks repeatedly – twice. And then the bus took out away from downtown, went about a mile and a half, and then did a u-turn and came back. And did another circuit, of the same place where we had been before.”

And at that point, the Virginia delegates demanded, “‘Stop the bus. And we're going to walk.' And we did.”

“They pushed us around for 45 minutes and then we missed the meeting,” Rothfeld said. “We were in the security perimeter, they pushed us out of it three separate times. They moved us around until the meeting was adjourned.”

Neither she nor the others recalling the story would say who they were directing their anger at. And none could provide proof to back up their claims.

1. Florida activist Laura Noble informed us that both of Florida's Rules Committee members, Peter Feaman and Kathleen King, were removed from the Rules Committee and replaced with Romney-appointed delegates.

2. Some Rules Committee members were physically barred from entering the room, despite having proper credentials.

3. Some delegates were told that Blackwell was trying to use the situation as an excuse to reopen a settled debate that he had lost four years ago regarding Rule 12. Not true.

4. Some delegates were told Romney personally knew nothing of the matter and it was just his overly aggressive lawyers acting beyond their authority and there was nothing to worry about, he would put a stop to it once he found out what was happening.

5. Some delegates seem to have believed that the rules fight was really just a proxy fight in the larger battle being waged between the Romney and Ron Paul camps over who would represent certain states on the convention floor. This assumption may have discouraged some Rules Committee members from supporting the minority reports.

Governor Sununu chaired the meeting. Governor Barbour strongly urged “unity” and the need for everyone to set aside “differences” to “defeat Barack Obama.”

The rules package, containing the insider’s compromise, passed by a decisive vote of 78 to 14. Unfortunately, the Rule 12 change (permitting the RNC to change the rules between conventions) remained in the package, unaltered. Which, of course, means that the Rule 15 change (giving the presumptive nominee the ability to hire and fire delegates based on their perceived loyalty) can be imposed later, without a vote.

The package then went immediately to the full Convention for approval. On the convention floor, Governor Sununu offered it as a “strong governing framework” for the party over the next four years, and with no debate or even mention of the controversy over Rule 12, Speaker Boehner then called for the ayes and noes. The crowd roared loudly, on both sides of the question. Despite the “noes” being (in this hearer’s estimate) louder than the “ayes,” Boehner hastily gaveled the matter closed, declaring: "In the opinion of the Chair, the 'ayes' have it, and the resolution is adopted."

Apparently, someone at RNC was able to predict the future, because this sentence had been helpfully written out for him in advance, and included in his teleprompter script:

Boehner's scripted announcement provoked cries from the crowd of "No!", "Boo!", "Roll call!" and "Division of the house!" [view video starting at 1:08 minutes]. But the microphones had been turned off. Boehner pretended not to hear.

Had we been able to force a roll-call vote, it would have delayed the day’s proceedings by several hours, which would have created an embarrassing logistical foul-up for Team Romney on the Convention’s first night. With the prime-time coverage and big evening speeches scheduled to begin fairly soon, our leverage would have been significant. Team Romney would have been forced to commence immediate negotiations right there on the convention floor, desperate to get their show back on track. But having foreseen the possibility of dissent, they planned to be, at the critical moment, conveniently deaf.

Soon after the disappointing outcome, FreedomWorks released the following statement from Matt Kibbe:

I believe that the Republican party has made a huge mistake by effectively disenfranchising grassroots activists who want to be a part of the party process. If the party sincerely wants the support of citizens, shutting them out of the process is not the way to do it. Sooner rather than later the Republican establishment needs to come to terms with the decentralized nature of grassroots organization circa 2012. The terms of engagement can no longer be dictated from the top-down.

The new rules strongly suggest the insiders don’t think they need the grassroots to win in 2012 -- an astounding assumption, given the critical role grassroots voters played in the historic 2010 wave election.

Despite this setback, we’re proud to have come so close to victory on such short notice and while operating under such severe disadvantages, relative to the insiders. This episode confirms just how powerful grassroots action can be in today’s world -- and we hope the party insiders are taking note of this fact.

We expect Democrats to be top-down and high-handed -- centralization of power is their governing principle, after all. But coming from Republicans, high-handedness is deeply disappointing. Republican rhetoric has always emphasized decentralization and local control -- making policy from the bottom up. And until yesterday, the GOP was in fact a mostly bottom-up party. No longer.

This isn't merely "inside baseball." If the new RNC rules had been in place forty years ago, the establishment might have been able to shut down the Reagan insurgency in 1976. Reagan might not have been able to secure the nomination in 1980.

Perhaps we should not be surprised by this turn of events? Perhaps the centralization of power in the political parties is simply a logical development in the present era -- a “progressive” era, when all institutions, under the pressure of an unlimited, centralized government, tend over time to reflect and become servants of that government?

Perhaps. But whenever an "Inner Circle" exploits its constituents' trust to entrench itself in power, we believe the appropriate recourse is always the same: expose the treachery and keep fighting. Find ways to break down the castle walls. Drive the despots out.

This develoment confirms our thesis that the reclaiming of Washington, D.C., by the American people requires siege warfare -- or, in the corporate parlance of our time, a “hostile takeover." The failed, entrenched "managers" of our nation -- including the powerful insiders who run the political parties -- will not let themselves be replaced without a fight.

1) Beginning today, the GOP will be much less representative of state parties and voters -- and much more representative of whichever interests are smart and powerful enough to dominate the RNC.

2) The conservative grassroots will now have to add “Monitoring the RNC” to their “eternal vigilance” list.

1) We should work to make sure the RNC doesn't actually change the rules on the fly. One

2) begin working from the bottom up to take the Republican party back from the centralizers.

Of course, between now and November 6th, we must focus on the elections. We must fire Barack Obama and elect a new wave of true fiscal and constitutional conservatives to the U.S. Senate to reinforce allies like Jim DeMint, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee.

But let's face it. The conservative grassroots must also decide whether and to what extent they want to remain engaged in a Republican Party whose establishment clearly does not want their input.

Dean Clancy is FreedomWorks' Legislative Counsel and Vice President, Health Care Policy

The RNC and the Republican Party do not like or want Conservatives.
The high point of Conservatism within the Republican Party was Reagan.
All you have to do is look at the sorry candidates and empty promises since then.
This party will not and does not want to change, it's for Big Government just like the Democrats.
I have heard this mantra that Conservatives can change and take over , etc., etc., Ad Nauseam and it never happens.
We got fooled by Bush and he had a so called Republican Congress and what did it do, Spend! Spend! Spend!!!
Conservatives are deluding themselves if they are thinking Romney is really going to change things. I do not see it.
Guess we will now see what will happen.
Romney can probably win if he keeps the focus on the economy and nothing else.

This is 100% spot-on...and, as a result, very sad. I had long thought that the Republicans were different, but it is clear that the Party's leaders are no different in their purpose than those of the Dems - to ensure the continuity of their own power. None of this letting the peasants revolt stuff anymore.

Note that I am a solid Reagan conservative, not some Paulista. To me, conservative principles are correct, and we should proudly shout them from the rooftops. However, the Republican elites obviously not only don't share my views, they have disdain for them. I'd be very much for a big exodus of conservatives to a well-organized Conservative Party, but I know that such would only lead to a guaranteed Dem win. Maybe if we can convince reasonable Dems to also leave their party at the same time...so we'll have 4 parties.

“Grassroots” , aka, - Paulers.

This is getting tiresome.

Frankly, the only thing tiresome here are idiots who try to defend these rules changes by appealing to the "Paulbots" bugaboo.

Anyone who actually reads the article, instead of just assuming they know that it's really about "Paulbots," ought to be mightily disturbed by the shenanigans that took place. And the author is right - these rules changes could be used at will to pretty much block out any Tea Party influence on the actual workings of the GOP. Paulbots or not, these rules changes are not about rectifying problems long overlooked - they are about shutting out anyone who doesn't walk the Romney/Rove/Barbour walk.

A lengthy post, but well worth reading.

"The new rules strongly suggest the insiders don’t think they need the grassroots to win in 2012 -- an astounding assumption, given the critical role grassroots voters played in the historic 2010 wave election."

Judging by the reaction of a lot of posters on this very website, they might be right. Conservatism in the Republican Party has entered the wilderness.

This is not propagandizing for the democrats, this is an accurate account of how the RNC is disenfranchising me and many other Conservatives who knock on doors, make phone calls, put up signs, give money, attend local party meetings, county and state conventions. A take over of the state party which will have effects on the direction of the Republican party and the ability of the Tea Party or Conservatives being able to be able to assert themselves in the Republican party.

We Conservatives need to stop blaming others when we are defeated. We’re sounding like Obamanites.

If we cannot acknowledge our errors we’re doomed to repeat them.

In the end, there’s always the third party option next election.

I always put Conservatism first. Conservatism above Party. Battles we lose are our own fault. We must learn from those faults so we do not repeat them.

Lesson #1) NEVER run multiple conservatives against ONE Republican Establishment candidate and expect to have enough votes among the split votes to overcome and ultimately defeat the RINO.

Romney may have been “forced” to join the primary by the GOPe (my opinion is that it was Romney who desired the position)but we had a fair chance to beat him and we lost.

Yeah. Romney was going to win the 2012 nomination since he came second in the 2008 primary because the Republican Party was going to get him over the finish line of the primary no matter what. They pulled out all the stop to get Romney the nomination. First off they miscalculated the winner in Iowa which was Rick Santorum. They forced candidates off the ballot in Virginia. They attacked all conservatives who ran against Romney. And then came Florida. And now this charade at the convention. They want all conservatives out of the party by the looks of it. You do know that after the Paulbots were kicked out all that was left at the convention floor was 100% MittBots. Other than the speakers and invited guests.

“The RNC gave him the big bucks and the rest is history.”

No. Better candidates didn’t come forth; and primary and caucus voters selected him over the other candidates.

Basic stuff here. No conspiracies or other underhanded things.
Why not focus instead on this question. “Why did better candidates not come forth to run this cycle?”

This video will blow your mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKaXqoC4DjE

The republicans are not the good guys.

I know.

And the Mittbots keep insisting that if I don’t vote for their pre-chosen candidate, my lack of support for him is somehow a miraculous vote for someone else.

The Paulbots pulling crap at every primary didn’t help either, like we needed street theater and OWS supporters stinking up the already frustrating situation.

I’m sorry my mind went this way but as I read this I found myself more and more reminded of Hitler’s rise to power in the party and finally the country.

Especially after seeing what happened in the video.

Yeah, they could be used to block any group that seeks to disrupt conventions.

The fight is over for now, the Paulers lost. I blame the Paulers for triggering this rule change because the Paulers hate the social conservtives as much as the hate the inside the beltway Republicans. If the Paulers succeed in taking over the GOP, the first people that they would kick out are the social conservatives.

Ron Paul gave it away with his hate-filled looks at Rick Santorum during the debates.

I agree this is a done deal but I think it is always important to have the history. It needs to be known who did what dirty tricks to hold out proper delegates and who the players were so that proper “rewards” can be distributed.

They also wouldn't allow any other candidate to be nominated. For example, Paul never would have won, but he was nominated which would have put his name on the board and allowed him 15 minutes to speak. From NY Times:

Delegates from Nevada tried to nominate Mr. Paul from the floor, submitting petitions from their own state as well as Minnesota, Maine, Iowa, Oregon, Alaska and the Virgin Islands. That should have done the trick: Rules require signatures from just five states. But the party changed the rules on the spot. Henceforth, delegates must gather petitions from eight states.

If it could happen to Paul, it could also happen to Palin or any other conservative the GOPe doesn't want. We can never nominate a conservative candidate. It will always be who the GOPe selects.

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