Topic: Republican Convention Ron Paul Battle
Return To Reno Part II or, The Non-Return to Reno More than three months after the abrupt adjournment of the Nevada Republican Convention, the State Committee decides not to have oneby rtbohan
(libertarian)
Thursday, July 31, 2008
More than three months after the abrupt adjournment of the Nevada Republican convention, the Republican state committee held a non event and ruled that only the actions taken by the state convention that they approved of were valid and named a delegation to the National Convention. The delegation selected was the slate nominated by the original nominating committee, which had been rejected during the brief time the convention was allowed to be in session.([link edited for length])
Thus ends, apparently the Nevada phase of the struggle, but perhaps not.
The struggle began at the Republican State convention in Reno in April when the delegates chosen by the caucuses to support Ron Paul and those selected to support Mitt Romney combined to reject the national delegate slate of the nominating committee and allow the nomination and election of the delegates from the floor of the convention. After delegates had been selected from two districts, and the votes cast but not counted for the third, the party leadership announced that the lease on the venue had expired, left the floor, and ordered the power to the site shut off.
Immeidiately after the convention, both the convention chairman,State Senator Bob Beers, and the state party chairman, Sue Lowden, promised that the convention would be resumed as soon as possible. In less than a week, however, Ms Lowden was talking about finding a "process" by which the selection of delegates--all delegates to the national convention, apparently--could be selected. She was also talking about the difficulty of obtaining a site for the convention. [link edited for length] It was becoming evident that the committee had no intention of bringing the convention back into session.
The stakes were raised in the controversy when Wayne Terhune, a Paul supporter, rented a space for the convention to reconvene in June and offered it to the state committee. The State Committee decided, after significant hemming and hawing, that the State Committee would find its own venue and pay for it (through assessing additional fees from the delegates, and that any meeting at the Terhune convention would be illicit. The committee, meanwhile, began to talk about how hard it would be on the convention delegates to come to Reno, and the desireability of a mail-in or electronic vote to be counted and certified by the state committee.
Dr. Terhune continued with his plan to reassemble the convention, although the list of credentialed delegates promised to the Paul supporters by Senator Beers was not provided. In June the convention, labeled a "renegade" convention by the Party and by the press, met with over three hundred delegates present and elected a Paul slate of delegates to the national convention.([link edited for length]) The State Committee, having worked hard to prevent delegates from attending the Terhune convention, denied that it had any validity.
On July 17, after three months of promising the convention would be called back, the party announced that it would not happen. This, they said, was done as a favor to the delegates. Only 525 delegates had sent an RSVP saying they would attend, and this would not be a quorum. It would be cruel to ask the delegates to go to the expense and trouble of traveling to Reno if the convention had to be immediately adjourned. "Dozens", they said, had suggested a mail-in ballot. But a "large number' (my guess is exactly one dozen) had suggested that the twelve member state committee appoint the delegates, and this is what would be done.([link edited for length]).
The same day that the party made the announce, about a dozen delegates, including Dr. Terhune, filed a law suit claiming that the appointment of the delegates by the State Committee violated both Republican Party rules and the laws of Nevada.([link edited for length]) Last Friday, in the Second District Court of Nevada, Judge Jerry Prolaha ruled that the case, as an intra-party dispute, should be settled by the party rather than by the courts.([link edited for length]) In making this ruling, he stated that he was following U.S. Supreme court rulings. That is correct, but it is not the entire answer. The Supreme Court was ruling on rules and actions of the national parties which are extra-legal entities. The state parties are legal entities, since the state determines their standing with regard to the elections, which are a state matter. Federal law recognizes party membership with regard to Federal commissions and Boards, and the Congress recognizes party caucuses in determining how business is done in the House and Senate. But the parties themselves are regarded as private associations (unlike the P.G.A. which the Supreme court has ruled a "public accomodation" for reasons known only to themselves. On the other hand, state parties are a legally regulated part of the electoral process in each state. It appears that the State law of Nevada does call for the delegates to the national covention to be chosen by the state convention. I do not know if the deicision if worth appealing or how long a process it would be.
So the battle will go to the credentials committee at the Republican National Convention. How much chance it has would seem to depend on whether Ron Paul supports the challenge. As he has said, the campaign has been more about the message than the candidate. But just as support coalesced around him because of his message, it seems that he ought to give support to those who helped him in his fight. This is not really a case where making a stand is an embarrassment, as he seemed to imply in some of his comments at the time he ended his campaign. I do not think the actions of the party leadership in Nevada will be or ought to be minimized or forgotten. I hope Representative Paul feels the same way.
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