Heard on the Tom/Toms
Stephen Frank, Exclusive to the California Political News and Views, 7/31/23 www.capoliticalreview.com
New California Republican Party By-Law ENDS March, 2024 GOP California Presidential Primary.
With the support of the Democrat Party and the Los Angeles Times, the Anti-Trump/Anti-GOP wing of the Republican Party won a great victory, using a by-law change to assure NO presidential campaign would compete in the March, 2024 Primary.
Simply, the by-law states that to win all the delegates to the Summer, 2024 Presidential convention a candidate has to win 50% plus 1 of the votes, States wide. Since it looks like Trump is just above the 50% margin, an opposing candidate has to determine if they want to spend millions in hopes of holding Trump to under 50%. If they don’t, they get nothing.
Under the current rules, it is winner take all by congressional district—in that way, a candidate can win a few districts and receive delegates—making it worthwhile to campaign in California. In 2020 the RNC issue Rule 16—supported by Chair Patterson and National Committee members Harmeet Dhillon and Shawn Steel (who by the way, signed the bylaw change to create the need of the California Presidential Primary did NOT attend the meeting—Shawn understood he harmed his wife’s re-election campaign by promoting this and I think Dhillon was embarrassed by her being bullied into supporting it) supported the Rule that set off the Democrat victory.
Why are the Democrats the winners? As Orange County GOP Chair Fred Whitaker noted, “this disincentives a GOP turnout in March, it will affect our lower ballot contests—and could harm our volunteer base for November.”
There are over 1400 delegates to the CRP. They were NOT allowed to vote on this. Instead an Executive Committee, of 100, were voting on it. When I moved to postpone the decision/vote till the September convention, 56 people voted against my motion. When the by-law finally passed, 52 people voted for it. Who were the 52? Almost exclusively they were either appointed by Chair Patterson—or were mandated positions, previously supported by Patterson. In other words, out of 1400 delegates, ONE delegate, Patterson, got veto power on a Presidential Primary.
The Chair of the Rules Committee in opening the discussion (Matt Jacobs—who has NEVER attended a Rules Committee previously—and has only been a CRP delegate since February—what qualified him to Chair a GOP Committee to end the 2024 Presidential Primary? Last year he gave a standing ovation at the Reagan Presidential Library to Liz Cheney as she was DENOUNCING the Republican Party and President Trump) made the following statements, “We are here today to have a vigorous discussion on this by-law change”. How did they define “vigorous? Two, three minute speeches in opposition—a total of six minutes on a by-law change that ends the Presidential Primary. In other words, the Establishment realized they could not afford a discussion.
To make matters worse, on the days leading up to the meeting in Irvine, the CEO, Bryan Watkins, a staff member made calls to Executive Committee members telling them to show up and that their vote was needed for the Chair (is this the role of staff for the whole CRP). This, on the back of the Andy GimmeeKandy calls to say you need to get on his Team—and if interested in being a delegate in 2024 national convention, you must be on his Team.
The Chair is well known to be anti-Trump (just look at the March 2020 L.A. Times interview with George Skelton).
Then you had the Platform Drafting Committee—it was run like the chaotic L.A. County Committee—both run by Tim O’Reilly. There are over 160 people on the Platform Committee, I believe there are 37 people on the Drafting Committee. It was so bad that O’Reilly had to quote an obscure section of the by-laws to allow a quorum of 37 to be 14! And what did they do? They adopted a DEMOCRAT policy, ending support for natural/traditional marriage. Yes, it was submitted by a GOP Assemblyman Greg Wallis—the ONLY Republican in the Assembly or Senate that signed on to the bill in the Legislature.
The GOP was founded on the Platform of ending slavery—though it was the law. Original Republicans stood up for what is right. Today, Patterson, O’Reilly, Wallis and the drafting Committee decided to go with the WOKE and stand for nothing.
The weekend was a great win for the Democrats—no GOP enthusiasm for the Presidential Primary. And GOP’ers that believe in family values told to pound sand. Think they will help the CRP or its “preferred” candidates? Literally, those following Patterson declared the California Republican Party unwelcome to People of Faith, those that want contested primaries and those that believe in Republican values trying to determine what Party represents them.
(Periodically the California Political News and Views will publish tidbits of political news, to keep you in the loop of what the pooh bahs know. The phrase “tom/tom’s” comes from my mentor, Lorelei Kinder who never passed a rumor, just called to tell me what she heard on the “TomTom’s”. This column is named in her honor.)
