In the weeks leading up to the Republican National Convention, much attention has focused on the Rules Committee, which convenes the week prior to the Convention.
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He was not elected a delegate to the national convention that saw Utah at the center of a chaotic floor fight over an unsuccessful attempt to force what would have been a protest vote against Trump.
Anti-Trump delegates wanted to alter the rules to free delegates to vote as they pleased, for a so-called “conscience” vote. Ted CruzTed CruzNevada delegate confuses his state’s capital Live from cordoned-off Cleveland The Trail 2016: Words matter MORE (R-Texas), who finished second behind Trump in the Republican primary, on the convention ballot.
Arkansas Congressman Steve Womack each time ruled in favor of the Trump forces. The Representative from Rogers responded to escalating din by walking off the stage for a handful of minutes.
He returned but didn’t intend to grant a roll call request. A similar effort failed last week during the drafting of the rules.
But sensing a potential threat before the official convention programming began, Trump’s campaign and RNC staffers worked the floor to push delegates to withdraw from the petition.
Again, Womack determined the ayes were the majority of the room.
When the rules were deemed adopted by voice vote, with no accommodation for a roll call, the convention erupted into boos and jeers from the anti-Trump faction, as well as chants of “free the vote”. “Subsequently, the secretary received withdrawals, which caused three states to fall below the threshold required under the rule. Accordingly, the chair has found insufficient support for the request for a record vote”. “U-S-A” as Trump supporters shouted back simply “U-S-A!” “Never Trump never was”.
Some of the rebels say they fear the RNC and Trump campaign will unilaterally eliminate the state-by-state roll call vote and instead call for a voice vote.
Vincent DeVito, a partner at Bowditch & Dewey in Boston and the chair of the Trump campaign in MA, downplayed the vocal contingent pushing for a floor vote, telling the News Service that from his perch on the floor all he could hear were Trump supporters shouting. They got nine: Colorado, Washington state, Utah, Minnesota, Wyoming, Maine, Iowa, Virginia and Washington, D.C. “That left Colorado, Wyoming, Virginia, Utah and Washington state as the five states that maintained a majority effort calling for a roll call vote”.
They could. Delegates are allowed to protest if they think their vote wasn’t announced correctly.
“To figure out which bloc really earned the win, Mickey Capper, one of Slate’s podcast producers, ran the audio from the convention through a program called REAPER”. “This was about grassroots rules and making this a bottom-up party”, Cuccinelli said.
And when the voice vote was cast, most of the Arkansas delegation loudly backed the rules that would guarantee Trump the Republican nomination.
Utah’s delegation also used its time at the microphone to offer an olive branch to Trump as state GOP chairman James Evans said Utah is “always Republican, now, today and forever”.
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The blistering speeches appeared to stitch back together a Republican Party that hours earlier suffered an embarrassing show of dissension, as party leaders steamrolled over anti-Trump forces demanded a roll call vote on whether to adopt the party’s rules that cement Mr. Trump as the nominee. Marco Rubio for the GOP nomination. Trump has 16 and Cruz 15.
