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| Licia Ronzulli, representing Italy in the European Parliament, gets a little help with voting. I don't plan on bringing kids to State Central meetings, but I do find this photo adorable. |
What does it do? State Central Committee makes decisions for the Republican Party of Virginia, statewide. Chief among these is choosing between primaries and conventions as the method for nominating statewide candidates (President, Senator, Governor, Lt. Gov., and Attorney General). State Central can amend the "Party Plan," which is like the bylaws of the Republican Party of Virginia, and controls much of what local units like the Fairfax County Republican Committee can and cannot do. They approve the annual budget for the state party, which means they have an important role to play in how the RPV raises money and how it is spent.
State Central representatives also sit on their own Congressional District committees. These committees choose between primaries and conventions for their own congressional district's nominations, and they determine the rules for their own party conventions (i.e. the May 19 convention at Oakton HS for the 11th District). They also play an important role in supporting Republican candidates with fundraising and grassroots assistance at the congressional district level.
Why is it important? The choice between holding a primary and a convention often makes or breaks certain candidates where the Republican nomination is contested. Conventions tend to favor candidates who have been involved in Virginia GOP politics for a long time, or who provoke enough intense feelings from a certain group of voters to inspire them to navigate the complex process and spend a day in Richmond voting. (As you can imagine, they also favor candidates who live closer to Richmond.) Primaries favor candidates who have the organizational capacity to reach out to a broad base of voters throughout the state, including voters who want to have a say in the nominating process but aren't willing or able to give up an entire Saturday to do that.
Other rules set by the State Central Committee can critically impact elections in Virginia, and local party operations. For instance, State Central has the power to make the changes I've suggested in recent posts: providing statewide online registration and allowing sensible proxy voting for conventions. State Central also plays an important role in defining the Republican "brand" in Virginia.
1) Why does a convention favor candidates in Richmond? Nowhere does it say a convention must be in Richmond and there have been conventions in other parts of the state in the past. Also, KC was not from Richmond when he ran for AG; Jeff Frederick was not from Richmond when he won State Party Chairman; George Allen was not from Richmond when he won the nomination in 1993.
ReplyDelete2) Proxy voting at conventions is a horrible idea. It would be extremely difficult to track. There is a big difference between attending a meeting as a proxy and voting for a public official at a convention with a proxy.
1) I think it is patently obvious that it is easier to get supporters to show up and cast a vote at a convention that is near these people's homes, versus trying to get people to drive hours and commit a whole day (maybe even an overnight stay in a hotel). So wherever the convention is (usually Richmond), candidates whose base of support is near there will be favored.
ReplyDelete2) You're mixing apples and oranges by throwing Jeff Frederick's run for chairman of RPV into the mix (an intra-party race that could never be decided by primary) when I'm talking about nominating candidates for public office.
3) None of the AG candidates in 2009 lived near Richmond, so the Cuccinelli example doesn't prove your point. In fact, I believe his biggest challenger, John Brownlee, lived in the Roanoke area, which is further from Richmond than NoVA, so it kind of helps prove my point.
4) I'm sure fairly simple procedures can be devised to allow proxy voting to work. We need to find a way to stop disenfranchising people who are in the military, or have family obligations, jobs, or health conditions that prevent them from taking part in conventions. A failure of imagination is no excuse for taking away their voice in the political process.
Ms. Vogl,
ReplyDeleteThe point about Frederick remains the same. He was chosen at a convention that was also nominating a US Senate candidate, meaning the voting pool was essentially the same. You did not address the victories of other candidates who won a convention over candidates who had a geographical advantage to where the convention was held. I would also point out Bob Marshall lost by only a few votes to Jim Gilmore in 2008. Obviously, Gilmore's neighborhood is the 7th District and Henrico County, where he served as CA for a number of years.
The only reasonable way to ensure military votes is to support a Primary. Allowing proxy voting at a convention opens up all types of problems and it would be almost impossible in a weighted vote scenario to essentially count AB ballots.
Anyone who knows anything about conventions knows that the weighted votes make or break a campaign. Cuccinelli had Northern Virginia locked up and that controls a convention. So, your theory is rather weak. If a NOVA candidate is in the race, no matter where geographically and can carry his home district and that of its neighbor 8/10/11, the entire state must go to the other candidate(s) for them to have a shot at winning.
If simply procedures can be designed, why don't you do it to show us a process that could be implemented? And why so silent up until now?
Mr. Anonymous,
ReplyDelete"Why so silent until now?" I am not an incumbent who has ever had a voice in these matters. The incumbents have not solicited the opinions of the local Republican activists they are supposed to represent; neither would I waste time lobbying someone with firmly entrenched views on the subject. Would you like to identify yourself as someone who DOES have a say in these matters?
You are quite right that primaries are the easiest way to accommodate the military and everyone else who is unable to attend a convention at a particular date and time.
But primaries are not an option for party leadership races. As I have talked with dozens and dozens of local Republican activists over the past few weeks, I have heard a great deal of demand for a proxy option for these intra-party conventions. The exact logistics of how that would work are not something I would presume to dictate; that is something that should be determined through thoughtful discussion with people who have experience running conventions and the Republican activists who are asking for this option.
The complication of weighted voting is actually an argument against conventions, because it is extremely difficult for grassroots activists to understand, and it dilutes the votes of some people while multiplying the votes of others. Even for intra-party races, there is the alternative of a Mass Meeting, in which one person has one vote, and people do not have to preregister months in advance.
But let's not get lost in the weeds. Does the current convention process give every Republican reasonable opportunity to make their voice heard in the party, and does it encourage more people to get involved in helping elect Republicans to public office? I think the answer is NO, and that is not an acceptable status quo.
Here's a question from a New York Republican:
ReplyDeleteWe have a State Committee and County Committees, each with separately elected members. But in my county (I don't yet know how it's done this way elsewhere in other NY counties) the County GOP authorizes members elected to State Committee to vote on County Committee and, in fact, allocates 25% of all Election District (precinct) votes within the larger district to the two state committee people elected for that district!
The result is that the State Committee people in each of our county's districts control, between them, 50% of the district's vote! With any single additional vote from any County Committee person in any ED within their district, they then are guaranteed majority control in each district!
This enables our countywide leadership to effectively control all county committee decisions by providing perqs to our State Committee people in exchange for their votes.
The upshot is that our County Committee people are disenfranchised which has had a clear impact on participation rates, discouraging grassroots involvement, while, because it institutionalizes insider control of the entire county apparatus (while locking out activists at the grassroots level) has spawned endless feuds and lawsuits between two county factions, each of which is contesting for control of the county level organization in hopes of commanding a closed organization which, once in power, they can lock up using existing rules. If we had an open system, based on one person/one vote, two insider factions could not hope to monopolize the Republican Party in our county as they now do and our rank and file would be encouraged to become active again.
I am trying to find out if this sort of thing occurs in the GOP in other parts of the country and if there is some reason why this strange set-up should be considered the norm? My view is that this is at least PART of the reason the Republican Party is so weak here in New York State.
Can you give us some advice? Some information? Some help?