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Rules Committee member from Alaska says debate lacked honesty
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 Date: November 8, 2016 |
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July 19, 2016
By Jim Barnes
Reacting to the hardball tactics of Republican convention managers who turned away efforts seeking a roll call vote on the adoption of the rules for the 2016 convention’s proceedings, Alaska Rules Committee member Fred Brown charged, “This was not a good demonstration of delegate accommodation, nor of full, open, honest debate of the rules as was promised during the rules committee orientation last week."
What it was, was a demonstration of classic hard-nosed convention management that the legendary Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley might have admired.
Facing a determined team of Republican National Committee and Trump campaign convention whip operations—the same combination that beat back the dissidents in the Rules Committee meetings on Thursday—the Rules rebels were at a severe disadvantage. Earlier in the day, the dissidents thought they had succeeded in forcing a roll call vote by obtaining signatures from a majority of delegates in 11 state delegations where majorities in only seven were required. The effort never had much chance of actually overturning convention rules. But the dissidents wanted at least a symbolic protest over what different factions felt were rules that ceded too much power to the RNC and the party regulars at the expense of the conservative grassroots or that unreasonably blocked delegates from voting their conscience, effectively binding the delegates to the results of primaries and caucuses.
By the time the matter came to the floor, RNC and Trump convention whips managed to get enough delegates in the District of Columbia, Iowa, Maine, and Minnesota delegations to revoke their signatures, dipping the totals below a majority.
Convention managers ruled that Alaska had not turned in the requisite number of signatures. Alaska’s Brown claims that he had acquired more than enough signatures, and when it came time to submit them, the convention secretary was not where Brown was told she’d be. “Some said she was hiding,” claimed Brown. “Others said she was protected by guards.”
Brown's string of misfortune continued. He said that he had been told he would be able to submit his signatures from the floor, but was turned away by a security guard and was not recognized by the chair of the convention.
It wouldn’t be the first time that hard-nosed operatives stifled dissent at a convention, and it won’t be the last. Somewhere, Mayor Daley must be smiling.
James A. Barnes is a senior writer at Ballotpedia who has covered every Democratic and Republican national convention since 1984. He is in Cleveland and Philadelphia for Ballotpedia in July. Contact media@ballotpedia.org with interview inquiries.
See also
- Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016
- Mike Pence vice presidential campaign, 2016
- Republican National Convention, 2016
