The Libertarians’ Problem with the Illinois Republican Convention
Wonder why the Libertarians who went to the Illinois Republican Convention are dissatisfied with the folks who ran the Tinley Park gathering?
I couldn’t find a way to ask for permission to reprint the following, but I wanted you to have a chance to see why Ron Paul supporters are not happy with the GOP Establishment:
Ron Paul delegate appointment at the GOP convention…
Some Illinois residents on this board may have seen this story floating around.
As Parliamentarian for the Illinois Ron Paul campaign, I thought you guys might be interested in what really happened at the Illinois GOP convention.
About 85,000 Illinoisans voted for Ron Paul in the primary (about 10% of the electorate) and we wanted to appoint 6 delegates for the national convention out of 69 to represent those 85,000 (Illinois is winner take 57 and 12 are appointed at the convention).
In fact, we had 250 state Ron Paul delegates who were at the convention (20% of the delegates).
These state delegates all vote to appoint the national delegates at the coming national GOP convention.
It was me and a friend of mine (law students) against 8 Romney attorneys.
On Friday, the committee hosted an open meeting on selection of delegates but rejected our motion to put delegates up for a vote among the committee … but seeing as we had no committeemen and (it was all but impossible for a Ron Paul supporter to get on this committee… this all was expected. I informed the campaign as much.
The 250 Paul delegates attended the committee meetings but kept running up to me “saying, they did this, can they do that?”
With a heavy heart, I had to say yes every time. But I knew we had one shot on Saturday and we had our plan ready to go a week prior.
Saturday was the official convention where the delegates all voted.
And the speakers at the convention went on a tirade against Mike Madigan (who I agree rules by virtual fiat) and gave a presentation on how government in Illinois ices people out of the process in which Mike Bost spoke. You might remember him from this video that went viral: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5lKk-Iq_sM&feature=related )… and so right AFTER that, this happened….
- –> the Ron Paul wing’s written motion to put up 6 Ron Paul delegates for a floor vote was ruled out of order because we had only 37 (we had 41 but they said 4 didn’t count) out of 50 signatures by Chairmen delegations
Let’s put that ruling into context…
- –> They refused to release the modified rules for putting forth motions until 11:20am
- –> We were required to make the motion at 11:20am
- –. The doors opened at 11:20am
- –> They modified the rules to require 500 photocopies of the motion be submitted (which we knew beforehand due to a brave patriot getting us an early copy)
- –> We submitted our motion to put up our delegate slate for a vote w/ every single requirement sans the signatures.
- –> They invalidated 4 signatures for some unexplained reason
- –> They had instructed everyone not to sign our motion and chairmen were afraid to sign our motion who otherwise would.
- –> Our motion (to put 6 out of 69 delegates for Ron Paul up for a majority vote)was ruled out of order based on not enough signatures.
How is someone supported to make 500 photocopies of a motion at 11:20 am when the doors open and ruled are released at 11:20am?
Why do 500 photocopies of the motion need to be submitted?
Had the motion been entered, a delegate would have been allowed the opportunity to debate it on the floor and this all would have been on the record.
This was one of two walkouts at the Illinois Republican Convention in Tinley Park. I don't know whether it was because of the rejection of the Ron Paul delegates' desire for 10% of the at-large delegates or the failure to consider direct elections of State Central Committeemen (and the addition of elected State Central Committeewomen). The sign is for Evanston Township.
I will let you draw your own conclusions about the process.
When the doors opened at 11:20am, we RAN to the front of the hall in front of 1,000s of delegates to present our motion.
They immediately asked us for the 500 copies and it was great knowing the look on their face when they found out we actually had the 500 copies.
This meant they had to consider the motion and had to be on the record objecting to it.
They even denied it verbally on record and did so after their anti-Madigan tirade.
We now have a paper trail of this.
= = = = =
Politics ought to be a game of addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division.
Being allocated 10% of the at-large delegates does not seem like an unreasonable expectation to me.
= = = = =
Thanks to Dave Diersen’s GOPUSA Illinois for pointing me to this content.
