Second District GOP Convention

I have to admit that I love GOP conventions. I get to see many old friends and make new ones. The conventions really are like a big family reunion. Of course every family has its own little eccentricities. Our 2nd District GOP family is in the middle of a hotly contested congressional primary, add in the governors race and their is bound to be tension.

State Representative Tom Sands chaired the convention. I thought he did a good job. Usually the convention chair is a ceremonial position and involves little controversy. Tom definitely got a workout as chair Saturday.

This year there were more speakers than usual.Now, this is a good problem to have because I cannot remember the last time we have had a full slate of statewide candidates. From a logistical point of view it was challenging, we had our 4 congressional candidates, 3 gubernatorial candidates, Senator Grassley, Auditor Vaudt and Ag Secretary Northey. We also had Brenna Findley for Attorney General, two Secretary of State candidates and two candidates for state treasurer. Add RPI Chairman Matt Strawn and you can see the logistical problem. The speeches took a couple of hours. But again I want to stress that this is a good thing. It means that we have challengers up and down the ticket, but it does make the convention planning difficult.

After the speakers we had nine candidates run for three State Central Committee positions. Since winning required a majority, it took 8 ballots and a couple of hours to finally get all three elected. In 2008 we went from 7pm to 1am trying to elect our 3 delegates and 3 alternates to the National GOP Convention so this is probably not a surprise. If my memory is correct, in 2008 we were unable to come up with a mechanism to drop the low vote getters from the list so it took several ballots to get our delegates selected. I chaired the  Rules Committee and we adopted a rule that called for the candidate with the least votes to be dropped after the second and all subsequent rounds of voting. There were a couple of attempts to suspend the rules to either accept a plurality instead of a majority of drop the bottom two candidates rather than the bottom one — neither attempt to speed up the process succeeded.

I think it was about 3pm when we finally had our 3 SCC members. At this time, delegates became aware that we only had the facility until 5pm. As Representative Sands was preparing to hand the convention over to the Platform Committee chair, Don Racheter, a motion was made to suspend the rules and accept the proposed platform as submitted by the Platform Committee. This motion passed by a 2/3 majority and then things went crazy.

The motion essentially ended any possibility of discussing the platform. There were over 20 proposed amendments that had received enough signatures and had been accepted by the Platform Committee. Several delegates were upset and a number of points of order and other forms of objection were raised but to no avail. The motion was in order and passed appropriately.

There are three primary items of business at our district conventions: 1) Giving our district and state-wide candidates an opportunity to address district activists 2) to elect SCC members and committee persons for state convention committees 3) to finalize a platform.

It is my view that different people come for different reasons but for some reason it is always the platform that gets short shrift. I hope in the future we can come up with a way to do all three of these things in the time we have for our convention. I am open to suggestions.

Comments

[Tim Reineke]

I think there are three changes that should be considered for the next district convention - and possibly even for the state convention coming up.

First, it should be made clear from the outset what the time limitations are, so the ordinary convention-goers know to re-arrange the agenda to get to items that are their priorities as time starts to run out. (e.g. the platform)

Second, basic rules should be explained at the beginning of the convention - e.g. is there a speakers' queue, how do we know when we've moved on to the next item on the agenda, what are the consequences of a motion to suspend the rules. Unfortunately, several people at the convention seemed unfamiliar with the rules, so these clarifications should be given verbally at the convention for those who just skimmed/didn't understand the rules in the tabloid.

Third, perhaps debate should be allowed on the motion to suspend the rules to pass the platform? It is normally not up for debate, but considering how much time was spent with people making "points of order" to say they at least wanted to debate the platform, this would likely both save time and salve feelings.

Finally, while our chairman did a great job overall, I think it may have helped if, when seeing how close the vote was, he had noted that people could call for a division. This would have helped avoid the future issues over whether the vote was counted correctly. Similarly, after making his first contested decision as chair, he should have noted the motion to overrule the decision of the chair. I think such a motion would have failed, but it might have mollified the feelings of those in the minority to at least be able to try.

[Tim Reineke]

I guess that's more than three changes. Counting fail.

[Matt Green]

One thing I wonder if we could do Dave is something similar to many states primaries where the candidates have to meet a certain percentage minimum of the vote to go to the runoff. That'd probably cut the number of rounds of votes in half.

We could also have the county chair's verify the final number of delegates and alternates by tally sheet as the first item of business, after moving alternates to fill the delegate quota, and turn them in to credentials, instead of a voice verification which took a fair amount of time. Then just have the credentials chair read them off in one shot.

I understand some were upset about not hashing out the platform, but people need to remember it's parliamentary rules and they need to stay on their toes. Best thing counties could do is assign a parliamentarian and a backup who know the convention rules and make sure one is in the room at all times to defend their interests.

It really is not the convention chair's job to make sure every one is in the room, paying attention, and understanding every last detail - his job is moving the agenda. It's the delegates' job to raise the point of informations and orders and put those motions out to make sure their people are informed and prepared.

BTW congrats on getting elected Dave.

[Carolyn J. Williams]

I don't recall it being mentioned here yet that the Platform Committee was only bringing two of the 20 some ammendments, only 2 got out of the platform committee.

As it turned out we probably would have spent less time talking about those two than what happened.

I kept thinking during the SCC voting that maybe in some of the subsequent votes, the bottom TWO should be removed... but I agree the amount of "engagement" was a good problem to have - but we should have been told our "out time" was 5pm.

[HawkeyeGOP]

Carolyn,

The rules for our district have always allowed a platform amendment to be brought before the body simply by meeting the time and signature requirements for submission. At that point the amendment belongs to the body. Personally when I have chaired the committee, we have declined to give a recommendation on the amendments and just passed them on to the convention as is.

While I think that the Platform Committee 'may' give the committee's recommendation on a particular amendment, it has always been our 'rule and practice' that all properly submitted amendments come before the convention for discussion and vote.

From a practical perspective as one who has served on many platform committees, the committee always takes ownership of the proposed platform. Therefore, amendments to that platform RARELY get the approval of the committee. Had the platform debate occurred and only the two approved amendments been brought up — there would have been a parliamentary fight!

[HawkeyeGOP]

Matt,

Excellent input. You will probably see some of the changes you suggest in the future.

As for the platform issue, the motion to suspend was entirely proper — I just did not like the fact that we did it. ;-)

[Dustin Krutsinger]

Mr Chung, thanks for the report on the convention, I think it is pretty accurate. I was one of the young people very upset over the situation. I was also the author of the 2 amendments that made it out of the platform committee, although I'm not sure why they need to authorize amendments if they made it through the rules, all 24 should have been discussed. I realize that people come for diffent reasons, but I fell the platform and SCC are the main ones. If you want to hear the politicians, go to a forum, interviews on radio/tv/newspaper, or their website, I did not pay to hear them speak, they should be paying me (advertising). I understand the importance of SCC and voting, but it should not be a 5 hour process requiring 8 votes. Following will be my more controversial interpretation of events:

[Dustin Krutsinger]

Deem and Pass + Fuzzy math = Convention chaos.

To be fair, I think the majority of those who voted this way were just tired and ready to go home, which is very understandable. But we spent 5 hours listening to those running for office repeat the same things. And I'm sure people were tired after voting for the 8th time on state central committee.

I am not upset because my two amendments did not get passed, I have no doubt that they would have failed if voted for, the GOP isn't ready for them. I am upset at the process that prevented discussion on all the amendments that people, including myself sacrificed time to research, write, prepare a speech, and arrive early to the convention to garner signatures, all for nothing.

We got to the platform late in the day, even though it is arguably the main order of business that should have priority. People were tired, someone proposed suspending the rules that called for discussion of the 24 submitted amendments and just deem it passed, the platform as is without discussion. And it may have won by 2/3 required. I say may because the chair announce the numbers "123 for, 67 against, it barely made the 2/3 required to pass" but then someone said, that is not barely over 2/3, it is barely under 2/3, it doesn't pass... The chair spoke to those counting and suddenly the numbers changed and it now passed. Someone said, since there is some question, lets get a recount, but the chair said "we have moved on, it is a done deal, it will take a 2/3 vote in order to ask for a revote, which of course failed. Does this sound familiar to anyone... I think the GOP was angry over this kind of stuff working against them in Minnesota Senate race. So Deem and Pass, and fuzzy math, next comes convention chaos. From that I made a motion to change the official name of the convention to the Democratic Caucus, which got some boos, some applause and several saying "I second", but I was called out of line by our czar, oops, I mean chair, and it was not allowed. Thats when I walked up to the stage and ripped up my delegate card.

Deem and Pass + Fuzzy math = Convention chaos.

[Matt Green]

Yeah Dave, I think the problem lies in the time constraints of keeping the facility and the constraints of people's attention span and balancing that with the wishes of the 'platform geeks' if you will.

Otherwise I'd doubt we'd have had that motion made. Hopefully next time we'll have more GOP incumbents and fewer speakers :-D, but if we could be rolling into platform within a couple of hours by cutting down the other, I think we can balance everyone who's attending the convention for different things.

[Matt Green]

Dustin - rule 19:

"...Following a standing division, but before the results are announced, any delegate may request a roll call vote, provided the chair determines that 20 or more other delegates join the request for a roll call vote."

That was the time to speak if there was a question. I was in fact surprised no one called for a roll call vote. There we enough nays standing to speculate to see that it was close enough to 2/3rds to call for that. Had I been on the nay side I'd have been all over that microphone.

I know people are unhappy but that's why you do the homework and know the rules and process and pay very close attention at all times, so as to react on a moments notice. Alot of things have been stopped by knowing your parliamentary procedure down tight.

[Dustin Krutsinger]

Thanks Matt, I read the rules, but did not have them mastered by any means. I will know that for the future.

[Dan Kauffman]

David the time spent counting ballots is Dead time Nominations for the Platform and Credential sub committees could have been made during these niches, in addition at our Linn county convention delegates were given a stack of ballots to use, that might have saved even more time. We would probably have run out of the ballots handed out when signing in and might have had to slap together some last minutes ones due to delegate counts changing from when the last were submitted and the Convention started but any time savings is better than none

[HawkeyeGOP]

Dan,

I agree that the ballot counting is dead time. However, I do not think that holding the other elections concurrently would help. I thought that we could have done the platform debate during the down time.

Imagine if we were electing both SCC members AND national convention delegates — that would have been a nightmare. On the SCC I advocated doing away with the Friday night nominating conventions for delegates. I still think we should elect delegates at the district convention but we will have to dramatically tighten the voting rules.

Perhaps three rounds drop the lowest vote-getter then if we go to round four the top vote getters are selected even if they do not get a majority.

[Al]

David,

Just to let you know, in the 3rd the method by which we elected our State Central Committee members was by one ballot. The three candidates with the most votes were the victors. If there was a tie for the 3rd and final selection, we would then have had another vote between the two nominees that were tied.

[HawkeyeGOP]

Al,

As a 'rules guy' I have a hard time wrapping my head around electing candidates by plurality. On the other hand as a practical matter it may be the way we have to go.

How many candidates did you have?

[Al]

We had five candidates. I was on the rules committee that worked on the rules for this convention. We knew going in that we would be overwhelmed with speakers. So we did what we could to streamline the convention process to keep it moving. Even with the steps we took to speed the convention up we didn't adjourn until about 5PM.

[Dan Kauffman]

Perhaps three rounds drop the lowest vote-getter then if we go to round four the top vote getters are selected even if they do not get a majority.

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Just as a side note of humor in the Former Soviet Union Ballots have a place for "None of the Above" in one Provincial Election "None of the Above" WON in Two rounds of voting LOL
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I think after a few rounds a "Sudden Death Vote" may be in order

[Tim Reineke]

I agree with Mr. Chung that simple plurality voting wouldn't be the best way to go, and I think this holds true especially when there are many candidates on the ballot. For time's sake, however, it may be a good idea to have a formula based on the number of candidates running to drop 2-3 off each round instead of just dropping 1 off.

Alternately, we could drop enough candidates each round that if (hypothetically) all of their votes switched to the top vote-getter, that person would have a majority. I mean, we had a round of voting where the guy dropped off had four votes - when the top vote-getter was still 20-30 short of a majority. That was a wasted round of voting.

[Dan Kauffman]

"a good idea to have a formula based on the number of candidates running"

Where X is the number running and Y is the number voting all nominations having a vote of less than Y/X are dropped

10 nominations 160 voting less than 16 votes results in being dropped

If your vote is less than an even distribution of all the votes among all the candidates you probably are not in serious contention