TWO BILLS CURRENTLY UNDER CONSIDERATION BY THE VIRGINIA GENERAL ASSEMBLY CONSTITUTE UNWISE, UNFAIR, AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL INTRUSIONS INTO THE OPERATION OF PRIVATE POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS. TELL YOUR LEGISLATORS TO VOTE THEM DOWN!!
Republican legislators in Richmond–undoubtedly with a lot of support from Democrats–are are currently moving to strip political parties in Virginia of the ability to determine on their own how to select their candidates. If these lawmakers succeed, a decision that for over 200 years has been left to political parties to determine in accordance with their First Amendment rights will now be taken by the state, resulting in state involvement and control of each and every nomination of candidates in Virginia.
First Amendment Threatened
These legislators, Sen. Frank Wagner (R-Virginia Beach) and Del. Scott Taylor (R-Virginia Beach), have introduced bills (here and here) designed to ban nomination by party canvasses, conventions, mass meetings, firehouse primaries, or any other nomination process not run by the state (i.e., a primary). And while these measures are claimed to be taken to allow active duty military participation, their real purpose and effect is to strip the Republican grassroots of their ability to have a strong voice in how our party is governed.
Before going further, let me make one thing clear. I am a veteran, and the son and grandson of veterans. My closest group of friends–men my children call “Uncle” because I consider them my brothers–are those with whom I served. I live close enough to Quantico to have my windows rattle during live fire training (“the sound of freedom”), and am blessed to count innumerable active duty and retired military people as my neighbors. I respect and admire military service, and the sacrifices made for our freedoms. Further, I think Defense Department rules barring participation in political nomination conventions by active duty personnel are based on misunderstandings of how conventions and other nomination methods work (at least in Virginia). I think those rules should be changed.
What SHOULD NOT be changed is a political party’s right to make its own choices about its candidates, how it governs itself, and how it presents itself and its message to the public. This sort of activity, including (especially) the selection of the party’s nominees, is the absolute core of a party’s First Amendment rights to free speech and association. Accordingly, political parties are PRIVATE organizations whose collective First Amendment rights cannot be violated.
I’ll save for another post the argument about whether primaries, canvasses, or conventions are the better way to choose a nominee. In all honesty, each method has drawbacks and advantages, and each has the potential to alienate some segment of the voting public. Each can be appropriate under different circumstances. But the choice is simply not the government’s to make. That choice belongs, as it has for literally centuries, with the parties themselves, organized and governed in the way they see best suited to their expression of political will.
At bottom, this is an attempt to silence the grassroots and strip their best vehicle for affecting the political process–the Republican Party of Virginia–of any real power to do so. It must be stopped. If these lawmakers were serious about allowing military participation in conventions, they’d be lobbying to have DOD Directive 1344.10 (a policy, not a law) tweaked to allow military personnel, in civilian clothes, to participate in conventions for at least the limited purpose of casting a vote for nominees for public office. But that’s not their real aim.
To members of the legislature that support such an unconstitutional power grab, please remember two names: Joe May and Beverly Sherwood. We will fight this, and we will remember you.
An elephant never forgets.
UPDATE: RPV Chairman Pat Mullins gets it:
13 comments
I read the bills in both house and senate which are the same except for the HB wants military to be able to vote with absentee ballots.
What language exactly in this bill is a power grab?
What language do you see as a threat to either party being able to choose its own method of nomination. The language in parts A&B specifically provide that the parties choose their method all by themselves.
Part C mandates that no party may intentionally make an election that is intended to exclude military voters. This seems very straight forward, and if it helps us get more military voters (unlike Obama’s actions to suppress them), then it would seem the true defenders (with their very LIVES) of our Constitution will be assured to not be excluded from the GOP.
Actions by a few sneaky people in Stafford, VA specifically, are a regular test of the integrity and intended rules of the party. It seems that at every election seat to be had, the same group is always scheming to manipulate the system to win and place a small-minority-minded person, rather than just elevating better ideas and plans and fighting about how to BEST do the same thing. This sense of opposition to a bill that clearly, in English, defends a military voter, seems pretty suspicious to me.
Unless, I’m missing something, which I’m open to be shown and change my view with a REAL and not fear-mongered explanation as to why this bill is not a good one, then the ad hominem attacks on good republican senators that are clearly called for by Russ Moulton’s posts are unjustified and just another cycle of his, and his co-conspirators *actual* powergrabs.
It’s not the flaming gay liberal gungrabber comunist in a rainbow suit and sandals that is destroying the Republican Party. We KNOW what their agendas are!
Eric, the House bill bars any method of nomination where absentee ballots (e.g., federal postcard absentee ballots, federal write-in absentee ballots, and other absentee ballots administered by local registrars) are not available to military voters or federal workers & contractors overseas. That leaves only primaries. The Senate version bars any nomination method where an injured military person–wherever stationed in the world–might not be able to attend a meeting. That effectively kills any nomination method involving a meeting. Essentially, the revised code would say the parties can choose any method of nomination they wish, just so long as that method is a primary.
And like I said in the post, if this is really about protecting the military, there are better ways to do so that do not involve stripping the parties of rights they’ve exercised in Virginia for over 200 years.
Finally, what do you mean by “a few sneaky people in Stafford”? I’m in Stafford and don’t know how much more public and straightforward I can be in my opposition to this. Maybe that word doesn’t mean what you think it does?
It seems to me that you take issue with section C: “No political party, through its duly constituted authorities, shall determine that its candidates for statewide or General Assembly district office shall be nominated by a method that will have the practical effect of excluding participation in the nominating process by otherwise eligible active duty military personnel, including military reservists and Virginia National Guard personnel, or by individuals unable to attend meetings because of injuries suffered in military service, regardless of the duty station or location of such personnel or individuals.”
So if this were taken in the purest form, it is solved by something innovative like allowing a video vote (hold your id to the cell phone and have a designated verifier), or an online vote with a long PIN that is mailed or texted to the rightful owner, or an absentee ballot that is downloaded and sent back via email, or something like that. BUT that is only one interpretation and the one certain people are spurring others to go to battle with our conservative state representatives.
Maybe the language just needs to be tightened up? It’s certainly not a “naked power grab” as Russ Moulton is calling it. So given a worst case, that everyone has to vote in a primary which is expensive to taxpayers and useless for the paltry turnout we get, it is still FAIR to every candidate in the race. The ones who seem to be crying the loudest are the ones who consistently try to manipulate the rules in small rooms with untrained volunteers, in order to shove their puppet candidate down a majority’s throat under an obscure rule or a newly minted convention rule that they crafted months earlier.
The sneaky people in Stafford reference would not apply to you (unless you are a willing mouthpiece for a conspiracy), who use your own name and state your own opinion, and back it up with reasons. The reasons could be wrong or debatable, but at least you’re willing to discuss them. That term is reserved for the sneakiest of all sneaks Susan Stimpson, or Russ Moulton could be substituted during a convention or mass meeting, depending on whether one has already betrayed the other yet. It’s just a matter of time. The games they play with nominations, rules, and elections are shameful and there are not two more divisive people involved in that county’s political arena.
Everyone says it, everyone knows it. Few will sign their name to it publically because the wrath of a spoiled self-entitled grown up brat can be nasty at times. Fortunately, enough people witnessed Susan’s public meltdown at the last convention to see her true colors, and now she is completely irrelevant. This will be more clear when she announces that she’s running for Mark Warner’s seat in order to pay off her campaign debts and favors in cash from new sucker donors. So maybe I’m wrong and her political hackery is only “mostly dead”.
Eric, although we’ve met a couple of times over the years, I don’t really know you or where you’re coming from on this. But I can say that I think people involved in politics (especially intraparty politics) sometimes take things way too personally. I don’t know what you’re getting at with “sneakiest of all sneaks” or some of the other vitriol, but I can say that an us vs. them mentality too often devolves into personal hostility and tribalist rivalries. I get it, and confess to being guilty of it myself from time to time. You may have some valid concerns for all I know, but I hope you’ll take a step back from the ad hominem stuff.
Here, the issue is the legislation in front of the GA, not the integrity of any Stafford resident. I personally do think this is a power grab. It’s a move explicitly designed to weaken the power of the grassroots, to the benefit of incumbents and big money. I firmly believe the military aspect is a fig leaf..not for all supporters, of course, but for the people who are behind this and have been advocating the same outcome for years.
Steve, I may have seen your post originally from a myopic lens because I have spent the last several days calming down irate and irrational people from Spotsy who are all worked up over this topic, which to my knowledge got started there by emails containing the most outrageous claims about a three paragraph bill!
You used phrases in the post that either came from, or inspired the emails from Russ recently depending on who wrote his first. But you went on to a much better path of rationale why you oppose the bill. I disagree with you your judgment of its intent and level of possible damaging effect though. The language could be better written, but I don’t interpret the effect of killing our ability to have canvasses and forcing us to have primaries only as you seem to.
I also oppose the bill- surprised? But for constitutional reasons, that the gov’t should not regulate the actions of a law abiding private group in any way. Simple. Could have been a Tweet.
Our party’s loudest mouths seems to attack others every time anything happens, as if they were caught stealing from church. We have little boys and girls who CRY WOLF every time a law is proposed and “call to arms” their email lists that are often obtained from recent candidates they were supposedly helping.
Recent email blasts sent by, as near as I can see, Russ first, coined some phrases such as “naked power grab”. They followed up with naming specific senators including Reeves and others who have not yet taken a position on this and did what he always does which is threaten our own party’s elected leaders with the ‘We the grassroots will be watching you and will remember how you vote on this’ type statement.
This BULLYING is what is common in Stafford politics, though it certainly isn’t unique to Stafford. This BULLYING was also taken to a whole new level by Stimpson in the past 4-6 years and continued into races she wasn’t even IN… the races of Bohmke and Hirons come to mind. Alarming robo-phone calls, false-facts postcards, and even threatening letters left in two candidates’ mailboxes from her crowd are the new norm. So if some comments are ad hominem in your view, it’s because the details aren’t important anymore because they are past, but I can see where it comes off that way without details to back it up.
Being that Moulton has a leadership role in our party, coupled with his clear intent to build name recognition and self-importance during the Cuccinelli campaign with “training” con calls and constant bombardment of emails laced with his name, he no doubt believes he somehow commands his own private army of “grassroots people”, when he makes statements like ‘we’re watching you’. Newcomer candidates such as Shak Hill, and Gillespie (whom I’ve heard from a well-known source that Stimpson says she intends to run against “him” as if the others in the race are irrelevant) are using the same talking points of this memo to attempt to relate to the same base of people and fire up “the troops”. It’s not that this isn’t sound strategy to build supporters, it’s just disingenuous, phony, and in my words, sneaky. But it is the new normal.
Our party has a process of out-manipulating the other candidates in small vacuum races like conventions and canvasses rather than besting the opponents ideas with greater ones. Maybe this is why we keep LOSING on larger level races that include dense urban areas who depend more on government services to live. Maybe if we stop chopping down the people we worked to get elected just because of a single vote, we would have a stronger bench of challengers ready to go.
The new normal is a losing one because some who oppose it are not really against the bill itself, but rather using it as a battle cry to raise cash, build fame, increase name recognition, and win a party nod in a primary from the uninformed delegates. And that’s being sneaky, and it won’t win against Mark Warner no matter how many times we blame him for Obamacare. Our ideas have to be better and our leaders have to be earnest public servants, not sneaky snakes.
I participated in the convention last year. It was one of the best things that could have happened. I talked to my local GOP party about a bunch of us going and giving the Democrats payback by voting in the primary for the weakest Democrat. I was told that if I did that, I would be expelled from the Party. This is insanity. Democrats get to cross over and torpedo strong conservatives but the RPV thinks we should expel conservatives who want to return the favor?
….well then, the companion legislation should include registration by party affiliation.
That would not address the underlying fundamental intrusion of the state into an arena where it does not belong.
I agree with all your sentiments Steve, one question though – why haven’t the “pro-convention” folks been fighting the good fight on the DOD directive that prevents military participation at conventions? Or the ability to cast an absentee ballot (at a convention) to help those that can’t participate like Police, Firemen, EMTs, the elderly, or infirmed? What type of changes can be made in the Virginia legislature, or with the party by-laws, to take steps towards some additional inclusion? I see these same topics brought up year after year and neither side makes any effort to make any changes. It gives the impression that the “pro-convention” folks are completely happy with the process exactly how it is.
Cathy, as a matter of fact, some of my colleagues elected to SCC at the same time as me worked hard last year to get a reinterpretation of the DoD directive. They were successful…for a time. Shortly after ruling that participating in a convention for the purpose of voting was OK, higher-ups appear to have overruled them, and the interpretation was withdrawn. More lately, I have personally been working with Rep. Wittman’s office to either have the former interpretation reinstated or to have the directive itself tweaked to allow military members to attend and vote as delegates.
That is good to know Steve, and thanks for your efforts in that interpretation. Knowing the motives behind the reversal of the interpretation is another whole post, I am sure. But whatever you want to share would be interesting.
Unfortunately, people on both sides of the convention debate enjoy the battle lines so rigidly drawn so that they can continue to take swipes at each other. Even questioning the cost and control of the convention process gets you called a liberal (happened to me and others). The discussion or exchange of ideas over the pros and cons of nomination processes is used as a tool to label and degrade people – the same people you might otherwise agree with an overwhelming majority of the time. It is tiresome to me and many others – but I know who does like it. ***The Democrats.**** Every time we divide ourselves into camps that can’t or won’t unite behind the eventual nominee because of the nomination process and eventual “Labeling” that goes with it – they win. Pretty simple.
Completely agree, Cathy. I know good conservatives who support primaries exclusively (I even used to be one), and don’t hold it against them if we disagree in a particular case. But, it seems like so many of us take it way, way too personally when someone disagrees with us. We all need to constantly remind ourselves that we’re on the same side, even when we disagree on some things.
That said, if some of our own are off the reservation (e.g., attempting to strip our party of its First Amendment rights), we need to call them on it, and give them the benefit of the doubt that perhaps they’re just not educated enough on the topic.
In my view, the whole problem with the primary system is its open nature. *Anyone*, regardless of party affiliation, can vote. That allows Democrats to select Republican nominees, and vice versa. In the last election cycle, I would have preferred a primary for convenience, but was glad the convention kept out the Democrats. I was fortunate enough to live close enough to Richmond that my wife and I were able to join a group that rented vans to make a day trip.