On Friday December 9, 2016 the Virginia Republican State Central Committee struck a heavy blow against the grassroots by gutting its own authority in favor of a seven person committee.
As the election of officers (June meeting) and the choice between primary v. convention (August meeting) were behind us, and the December Republican Bacchanalia was ahead of us, not very many people were paying attention.
One of the few items on the docket was an appeal I filed to a general counsel ruling from August.
The Party Plan
The Republican Party of Virginia Party Plan governs how party officials are elected, how they are removed from the party, and our rights and obligations. It is the founding document of the Republican Party of Virginia. It is well intentioned, but flawed.
The Party Plan can only be changed by a statewide convention body (this is rarely if ever done) or by a 3/4 vote of the State Central Committee.
Ambiguities in the U.S. Constitution are interpreted by our court system. Ambiguities in our state Party Plan are interpreted via an odd system.
Certain party officials or groups of party officials are allowed to request rulings of the General Counsel on interpretations of the Party Plan. The General Counsel, a single human being, (appointed by the RPV Chairman, and approved by the SCC) then issues a binding opinion. In order to prevent a GC Opinion from running roughshod over the party plan there is an appeals process.
This appeals process has been manipulated.
The appeals process
The party plan says that any appeal of a GC Opinion can be made to either the SCC or to a seven member appeals committee. The Party Plan does not specify that the person appealing can choose where it goes, but that is how RPV currently interprets it.
If appealed to the SCC, the SCC takes a final vote and accepts, rejects, or modifies the GC Opinion. This result then becomes the final say on interpretation of the Party Plan.
If appealed to the Appeals Committee and the Appeals Committee upholds the GC Opinion, the Party Plan says that the GC Opinion may then be appealed to the full SCC.
*BUT*
If appealed to the Appeals Committee, and the Appeals Committee overturns the GC Opinion this is what the party plan says about the right to appeal:
“……………………………………………………..[crickets]……………………………………………………….”
If appealed to the Appeals Committee, and the Appeals Committee overturns even the tiniest portion of the GC Opinion this is what the party plan says about the right to appeal:
“……………………………………………………..[crickets]……………………………………………………….”
The Party Plan is silent about what is and is not allowed in those instances.
I was told by staff that there is no right to appeal from a negative Appeals Committee ruling, so I requested a GC Opinion about this issue.
The GC (who I am not criticizing) issued a GC Opinion that says that this:
“……………………………………………………..[crickets]……………………………………………………….”
= there is no right to appeal and the Appeals Committee ruling is final.
The SCC’s unquestionable power
Article X § C of the Party Plan grants the SCC final say on all timely appeals of GC Opinions:
Article X § C exists to preserve the sovereignty of the SCC as the final decision maker on all disputes, in part, because your representatives that you voted on at District Conventions make up the vast majority of members of SCC.
SCC votes against itself
The SCC voted 32-41 to reject my appeal. The main two arguments against the appeal were:
- If we support this appeal we are acting like Democrats who ask activist judges to rewrite the Constitution. This argument was made by a member of SCC who cynically used the Appeals Committee to accomplish overturning a GC Opinion just a few months ago and did not want it brought before the SCC.
- Upholding my appeal runs counter to the plain language of the Party Plan. This was communicated to me privately. As laid out above, the Party Plan is silent in Article X § A, and is unquestionable as to the supreme authority granted to SCC in Art. X § C. There is no plain language of the Party Plan I was asking to be overturned.
The Appeals Committee
The Appeals Committee is designated under the party plan, and not appointed by the Chairman. It is made up of:
The RPV Party Chairman (Elected by the grassroots at our quadrennial state convention)
The First Vice Chairman of RPV (Elected by the SCC every four years)
The Eastern Vice Chairwoman (Elected by the SCC every four years)
The Eastern Vice Chairman (Elected by the SCC every four years)
The Western Vice Chairwoman (Elected by the SCC every four years)
The Western Vice Chairman (Elected by the SCC every four years)
Representative of the Joint Republican Legislative Caucus (Appointed by Republican officeholders)
Recent determinations of the Appeals Committee have been openly published.
The end result is that if someone has friends making up a four member majority on the appeals committee and they want to manipulate the Party Plan they can request a GC Opinion, appeal it to their friends, and interpret the Party Plan in their favor with a four member vote made up almost entirely of people not selected by the grassroots.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. It is almost as if those in power do not realize that some day they will not be in power and the instruments of power will be turned back upon them.
A few final notes
I believe that only a few members actually intended their vote against the appeal in a nefarious manner, most did not realize how dangerous this is.
The 11th Congressional District elected four new members in May. We are the only evenly split delegation between the two “factions” on RPV. As is similar in the past, I am proud to have stood shoulder to shoulder with each of my District representatives on this vote.
There was no roll call vote, as I literally forgot to request it.
There is a Committee appointed to review and make recommendations to the appeals process. Although appointed in August, as of the Advance they had not yet met. There are a mix of representatives and nearly all Congressional Districts have an appointee. The 11th Congressional District does not have representation on this Committee.
11 comments
Here is to me the clear and amazing big picture to me, Paul. The Republican Party nationally is undergoing a re-energizing renaissance that is resulting in historically unprecedented electoral success at both the local, state and national levels across the nation, expanding membership to working and middle class voters, recovering old voters, attracting new adherents and even seeing former Democratic voters return to the fold. This process while sometimes fought tooth and nail by invested Republican establishment national membership has revitalized what was a slowly dying political association. Then there is Virginia.
Virginia has rejected opening party functions and operations to the voters but rather further consolidates and restricts control in the hands of a few, continues to push and manipulate the nomination process for the advantage of a few hand selected individuals that often run for office on a cyclical basis (sort of a what’s up next rotation), and consistently fails to gain any form of traction or consistent level of support from it’s own voting base to achieve any statewide policy accomplishments for the approach they have selected to address Democratic take over of Virginia’s political institutions.
For want of a better description it’s the re-cyclical reenactment of the Alamo, year after, year after year. We do have something in this state that calls itself Republican but what it truly appears to be is just an anarchism of the old fashion state political machine more reminiscent of the political machine age of the Byrd’s or the Long’ s then 21st century Republicanism.
DING!! DING!!! DING!!!! ALERT!!! ALERT!!!! ALERT!!!
You republicans best wake up . . . one of your inmates is about to escape the asylum!!!! Get him back inside!!!
Rep. Scott Rigell (R-2nd, VA) speaks out about The Trumpster:
“If I could isolate all the character deficiencies I see in him, which is impossible to do… I have always said there is not one character trait in him that I would want my son to emulate. Not one…“I think Donald Trump has deeply divided our country, and I cannot see him bringing us together. Do I hope that happens? Yes, I do because I am an American
first, but for him to say, ‘We are going to make Mexico pay for it’ is a bizarre statement…I think [the Rex Tillerson pick] is a deeply flawed decision. I don’t see anything in his background that really qualifies him for this position…It is clear to some degree [the Russians] influenced our election.”
http://wavy.com/2016/12/13/outgoing-congressman-scott-rigell-sits-down-with-10-on-your-side/
Can you at least keep the spam on topic. This has less than nothing to do with this topic. You might as well be trying to sell cosmetics.
Thank goodness that the RPV gender balances east and west. Perhaps these appealing Republicans could have some kind of sash or headdress that would allow us to curry favor and pay homage at Republican events?
Look, RPV at multiple levels creates special seats for Republican organizations as well. I’m not sure the history of this, but it is well before my time. MY problem is less with the specialty seats but that those holding them need to show independent judgment.
Yeah, that’s gonna happen. The RPV politburo ‘policy’ committee would do the job that no state central member would do.
Makeup of the SCC, apportionment of conventions, basic functioning of party all need to be examined and corrected. Start with the specialty seats, ain’t it grand to build sexism into the party from the start?
What about the seats for the other special snowflakes? Perhaps an outreach position for recently registered ex-felons???
I am confused. If you appeal a GC opinion and the appeals committee overturns the GC opinion, haven’t you won your appeal? Why then appeal to the entire SCC?
There are two good scenarios where one might wish to appeal to the SCC. 1. You might want the GC opinion to stand the appeals committee has overturned it, and you never would have appealed the original GC opinion because you agreed with it.
In the second scenario, and this is the bigger problem, if there is a multipart GC opinion and the appeals committee overturns one part of it, the whole thing can not be appealed further.
Still incredibly disappointing. Keep fighting the good fight for transparency and reform, my friend!
As I have stated numerous times. The Republican Party of Virginia is about as dysfunctional as dysfunctional can get. You can look up dysfunctional in the dictionary and you see a picture of the Virginia Republican Party.as the example. It is totally beyond me why we continue to tolerate these “leaders” in Richmond. They only tolerate grassroots because they feel bound to do so in lip service only.
Thanks for explaining this, Paul. It’s not as bad as I originally thought, but it’s bad enough.
Ok, here’s one question, please: If the SCC is to be the final judge in all matters, why is there even an Appeals Committee in the first place?