The movement to unbind all the delegates at the Republican National Convention is moving forward. If all the delegates are unbound they may vote for any candidate they choose. The group, Free The Delegates, hopes to change the rules to unbind the delegates through the Convention Rules Committee. If the group is successful the rules would change to allow a ‘conscience clause’ that would allow all delegates to vote their conscience and not necessarily the primary results in their state.
We have previously linked to David French who says no delegate is bound and they should all vote their conscience. Last week Paul Ryan told Congress to vote their conscience on Donald Trump’s campaign. This website says three dozen delegates were on a recent conference call to discuss how to block Trump at the convention.
More delegates on the rules committee are realizing Donald Trump cannot win the Presidency. His poll numbers are headed south. He has yet to break even 40%. One delegate who is actively working to change the rules is Kendal Unruh of Colorado. She said,
“This truly has to happen this way. We’re not destroying the party. We’re saving the party,”
“In the last seven conventions, the nominees have not been my first choice but I’ve always fallen in line,”
“We were actually watching the emergence of Trump and getting some amusement out of it. He’s breaking down establishment walls, he’s shaking the process up, he’s doing things that had never been done before, he’s tapping into that frustration that we all feel,”
Then Trump mocked a disabled reporter and accused Judge Curiel of not being able to judge fairly the lawsuit against Trump University. Those things were over the top for Unruh.
“That screamed so loudly to me,” she said, “It went beyond juvenile tactics. It was telling me he didn’t understand the sanctity of life.”
Unruh says her movement “Free the Delegates” continues to grow,
“It’s not something that is going to get less strong, as we approach the convention, it’s only gaining momentum,”
One east coast delegate told me,
“We are currently a quarter of the way to our vote threshold to unbind the delegates with the Rules Committee. We’ve had many conference calls on the subject. It’s frankly very exciting.”
Two people represent Virginia on the convention rules committee, Anne Gentry and Morton Blackwell.
Read more in the book,”Unbound: The Conscience of a Republican Delegate”. It can be downloaded here.
More on the story here. “Free The Delegates” facebook page here.
More on this story in the coming days.
Update: The Washington Post has just written an article on the subject:
“Supporters of a growing anti-Donald Trump movement announced plans Sunday to raise money for staff and a possible legal defense fund as they asked new recruits to help spread the word with less than a month until the Republican National Convention.
Having started with just a few dozen delegates, organizers also said Sunday that they now count several hundred delegates and alternates as part of their campaign.”
Read the article here.
