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The GOP establishment and Trump embrace
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 Date: November 8, 2016 |
Winner: Donald Trump (R) Hillary Clinton (D) • Jill Stein (G) • Gary Johnson (L) • Vice presidential candidates |
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This article covering the 2016 presidential election was written outside the scope of Ballotpedia's encyclopedic coverage and does not fall under our neutrality policy or style guidelines. It is preserved as it was originally written. For our encyclopedic coverage of the 2016 election, click here.
July 15, 2016
By Jim Barnes
Cleveland, Ohio— Donald Trump happily tweaked, insulted, and ran against the Republican Party establishment en route to capturing the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. Republican insiders and elected officials have been exasperated by Trump’s campaign antics and incendiary rhetoric.
But on the first day of the deliberations of the convention Rules Committee, party regulars and the Trump team locked arms in a pragmatic entente. The Republican National Committee and its allies on the Rules Committee got support from Trump delegates on the committee to beat back efforts of conservatives to reform party rules that limited the authority of the RNC and its chairman. In exchange, the regulars, including Trump antagonists, opposed any rules changes that would unbind convention delegates and potentially threaten his nomination next week.
In vote after vote on Thursday, Trump delegates and party regulars stood together when a division of the committee was called for. A senior member of the Rules Committee team confirmed the RNC-Trump alliance.
The convention Rules Committee attracts different types of GOP insiders. Some are party regulars who see their main roles as protecting the institutional party. Others are conservatives who believe they are charged with safeguarding the interests of the grassroots conservative activists against the party establishment. And there are delegates who are loyalists of the presumptive nominee who are looking out for the nominee’s interests.
Not long after the Republican convention Rules Committee convened around 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, the committee’s chairwoman, Enid Mickelsen, had some bad news: the printer broke. Unable to reproduce scores of proposed amendments to party rules that the committee’s 112 members would be debating throughout the day, the only option for the committee was to recess.
That bought time for RNC chairman Reince Priebus and his team, a group of conservatives led by Virginia at-large delegate Ken Cuccinelli, the state’s former attorney general, and representatives of the Trump campaign to see if a rules deal could be worked out that included modifications to the party’s presidential nominating process. That effort was unsuccessful. “They collapsed it,” Cuccinelli told reporters outside the Rules Committee hearing room, blaming the RNC. The deal fell apart over a disagreement on how to encourage states to close their primaries to just Republican voters, a goal of conservatives, who saw Trump capture the party’s presidential nomination with support from independents and even some self-identified Democrats. Cuccinelli said his effort was designed to make the party “friendlier to the grassroots conservatives.”
Without a deal, Rules conservatives pressed ahead. Morton Blackwell, a Republican National Committeeman from Virginia, challenged two rules backed by party regulars. The Republican National Committee proposed a change to its rules to require the support from at least two committee members from 10 states (each state has 3 RNC members) to submit a resolution for the full committee to consider at its meetings. The current threshold is only one RNC member from 10 states. Blackwell said the existing standard “has been a very useful measure for conservatives” to bring their concerns before the national committee. He argued that increasing the count from one to two RNC members was “essentially a gag rule against grassroots members from bringing up a matter for discussion.”
Peter Feaman, an RNC member from Florida and a Rules Committee delegate, admonished Blackwell: “That kind of overheated rhetoric is not necessary.” When Blackwell’s amendment was put to a vote, the party regulars defeated it, 63 to 44.
The next challenge to party regulars came when Blackwell offered an amendment completely scrapping Rule 12, a provision that allows the RNC to make changes to party rules, including those that govern its presidential nominating process, in between national conventions, which are the ultimate governing body of the party.
New Hampshire RNC member and Rules Committee delegate Steve Duprey said Rule 12, which was adopted at the 2012 GOP convention, “was one of the most effective rules changes made.” He argued that the rule helped the RNC influence the 2016 presidential debate process and “gave us the ability to adapt to changing situations.”
Blackwell decried Rule 12, calling it one of “the worst changes ever inserted into our party rules.” Conservatives generally oppose empowering RNC members to make decisions on procedures like the nominating process in place of convention delegates where conservatives tend to hold more sway.
John Ryder—an RNC member and Rules Committee delegate from Tennessee who is also the RNC’s chief counsel—defended Rule 12, saying it gave the national committee “limited flexibility for a limited time” to effect changes. Any rules change required the support of three-fourths of the RNC members, and they could only make changes before September 30 in a midterm election year. Once again, party regulars defeated the conservatives, 86 to 23.
Conservatives mounted an effort to give states a future 20 percent bonus in their convention delegate total if they limited participation in their nominating contests to Republicans, a proposal the Cuccinelli forces had backed. It was defeated 73 to 32 on a roll call vote. Party regulars also beat back an effort supported by some conservatives to ban lobbyists from being members of the RNC. That amendment was defeated on a voice vote.
Nearly 13 hours after Rules Committee members convened on Monday morning, they dug into a series of amendments over the binding of delegates to the results of primaries and caucuses or forcing them to vote for a candidate against their good conscience. During the debate, some committee members vented their frustration against the delegates and groups that have pursued rules changes to open up the convention and deny Trump the nomination.
“The people that have been sending these emails [lobbying for rules changes that would unbind delegates]; it’s over folks,” declared Steve Scheffler of Iowa. “It’s over, let’s get behind our nominee right now.” Eileen Grossman of Rhode Island vowed, “I will not turn my back on 14.1 million people who voted for Donald Trump.” The vote on an amendment defending the binding of delegates passed 87 to 12.
Kendal Unruh of Colorado proposed an amendment to the rules that recognized that “the right of each delegate and alternate delegate to vote their conscience on all matters shall not be infringed or impaired by any state party rule, state law, ruling by the national convention chair of any other method.” After Unruh briefly defended her proposal, Matt Hall of Michigan abruptly called the question to shut off debate on Unruh’s motion, and the Rules Committee members approved that by a vote of 77 to 21. Unruh’s amendment was subsequently defeated by a voice vote.
On another amendment over binding, Utah Sen. Mike Lee said, “It’s important for our presidential nominees to win primaries and win over delegates.” Almost pleading with his fellow delegates to consider the motives of proponents of conscience rules, Lee warned, “This angst isn’t going to go away if we paper over it with rules… That’s not going to help elect [Trump] president, that’s not going to help our party in the long run.”
Directing his ire at Lee, Steve Munisteri of Texas stressed that Trump was the party’s standard-bearer now and said, “It is time sir, for you and everyone else, to come together.” Gradually, the conscience advocates surrendered and withdrew their remaining proposed rules amendments.
Steve King of Wisconsin, hoping to bring about a degree of unity among the frazzled Rules Committee members, proposed an amendment to lower the amount of support a presidential candidate would need to be nominated in 2020 to just a plurality of the delegates from five states. In previous conventions, the threshold had been raised to a majority of delegates in eight states, a standard that many committee members felt was too high and only served the interests of presumptive nominees by effectively squelching opponents. King pointedly noted that his measure was “wholeheartedly” backed by RNC Chairman Priebus. “I’d like to think this kind of amendment can bring us together,” said King. The amendment passed by voice vote without opposition.
After a few more amendments where the committee members walled off any opportunities for the dissidents to open up the 2016 convention rules, the committee adjourned at 11:31 p.m.
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.
See also
- RNC Rules Committee, 2016
- Republican National Committee
- Republican National Convention rules, 2012
- Republican National Convention, 2016
- Rule 40 and its impact on the 2016 Republican National Convention
- Rule 16 and its impact on the 2016 Republican National Convention
- RNC Standing Committee on Rules
