LA GOP Convention Madness
Today, June 2, 2012, I was in attendance as a delegate in support of Ron Paul at the Louisiana Republican State Convention in Shreveport. Before the convention began I told someone if we make it through without someone being tazed I would feel the day was a success. As it turns out, I wasn’t specific enough. Why would I suggest such a thing? For some reason, the Louisiana GOP felt it was necessary to load up the Shreveport Convention Center with Shreveport and Louisiana State Police. I guess they thought us rowdy Ron Paul people would create a scene or something. (Apparently they’ve been reading our blogs) In that regard they were correct, but not in the way they were expecting.
First, some background. The Louisiana convention delegation is made up of 25 delegates from each of the 6 LA Congressional districts. The Louisiana State Central Committee wrote into their original rules the authority to elect 5 additional delegates for each district, bringing the Convention total to 180. After the results of the district caucuses, Ron Paul delegates won 111 seats for a 62% majority, including sweeps of the 1, 2, 5, and 6th districts. Now, the LA GOP saw the writing on the wall for Ron Paul supporters to be elected to a potential 32 of 46 delegate seats to the Republican National Convention. This of course was not pleasing to them. A humorous but sad aside; an older woman in the delegation told a female Ron Paul supporter that she knew the reason she liked RP was so he could legalize drugs for her, and what is she, 19 (because age makes her views irrelevant?). Great attitude lady. Anyway, so what do the “powers that be” do? Change the rules of course, 19.5 hours before the Rules Committee was scheduled to meet. And for good measure, they appointed their own chairmen to the 3 convention committees.
These new “Supplemental Rules” could most accurately be described as…. corrupt, power-grabbing bullshit. I was also elected to a seat on the Rules Committee. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the committee meeting to finalize the rules for the convention. However, during the meeting, the body (made up of a majority Ron Paul supporters) voted to remove the appointed chairman and elect Alex Heilwig. Rough video of this is below.
Now, back to the Convention itself. The first order of business was a prayer that I would best describe as a political admonition to just sit back and let the powers that be do whatever they want regardless of the will of the 62% majority body. 4 minutes later, self-appointed Chairman of the Convention, Roger Villere, asked Scott Wilfong, “Chairman of the Rules Committee,” to give the report from the committee. At that time, Alex Helwig, the duly elected Chairman of the Rules Committee, challenged this while contesting the legitimacy of Wilfong’s alleged chairmanship. The result? Shreveport and LA State Police assaulted him, breaking at least one of his fingers. Video of the dust-up below.
Immediately proceeding those events the delegation proceeded to nominate a new Convention Chairman. The motion carried, and as you can see in the above video, the delegates turned their chairs around to continue the Convention since Roger Villere refused to acknowledge this entirely legitimate and proper procedural move. So, what would Villere and the LA GOP do next? Of course, it’s not a real party until the cops assault 2 political activists.
What you saw in that video, was elected Chairman Henry Herford being forcibly dragged away from the proceedings before being injured and subsequently arrested by Shreveport Police. After that craziness calmed down, the majority of the delegation continued with the business of electing delegates to represent Louisiana at the Republican National Convention. Roger Villere continued to have the minority portion of the delegation proceed with their own elections.
So, what next? Now the RNC will receive both results of elected delegates and choose who to seat at the convention in Tampa in August. Ask yourself, which process seems more legitimate to you? What country do we live in where political parties can change rules whenever the results don’t seem to be going their way? What country do we live in where a political party hack can have police assault an elected member? That’s right, here in the USA. Also, I forgot to mention that the event was on private property so there is a question as to whether the police even had the authority to remove anyone.
Anyway, there you go ladies and gentlemen. This is what the Louisiana Republican Party has become. And you wonder why rLOVEution is under way…
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“Now, the LA GOP saw the writing on the wall for Ron Paul supporters to be elected to a potential 32 of 46 delegate seats to the Republican National Convention.”
You are actually incorrect. The rules state that the 20 at-large delegates are to be awarded proportionally according to the LA Presidential Primary results. That leaves 10 for Santorum and 5 for Romney. RP did not have districts 3 and 4, so that leaves 6 others. 3 of the 46 are the RNC committee members (national committeeman, national committeewoman, and state party chairman)-none of whom are RP supporters. The Exec Committee also names 5 delegates of the 46.
Let’s do some math…
District 1- 3 Ron Paul
District 2- 3 Ron Paul
District 3- 3 uncommitted
District 4- 3 uncommitted
District 5- 3 Ron Paul
District 6- 3 Ron Paul
At-large- 10 Santorum, 5 Romney, 5 uncommitted (but would be RP due to amount of RP delegates voting at state convention)
Exec Committee chosen- 5 uncommitted
RNC committee members- 3 uncommitted
*note the district delegates are ALL actually uncommitted, but I inserted Ron Paul for clarity’s sake
Looks as if Ron Paul only had the potential to have 17 of the 46 not the 32 as you stated.
The difference comes in when Santorum gets around to releasing his delegates. At that point his 10 in LA become unbound. Therefore it is important that those are Paul supporters. So, now we’re at 27. The other 5 would still be bound to vote for Romney on the first ballot (which would also apply if Santorum chose not to release his delegates). Which means realistically we’re looking at a number of 27. In a perfect world where Romney didn’t get the nomination on the first ballot in Tampa those 5 would bring the LA total to 32, but looking at the actual delegates selected by the Paul campaign, for strategic purposes, those 5 would probably support Romney regardless.
When the 2 slates of delegates are presented, one legally chosen (paul), and one that wasn’t, this will unfortunately be spun in a bad light for the Paul supporters. I see these videos and this account, and can’t imagine how the ‘old’ republicans can sleep at night while they do this. But, these videos could just as easily be presented to show that the unruly Paul supporters took over the rules committee, and had to have their leader taken out. It could also look like the Paul supporters unfairly and wrongly turned their back on the convention, having a backwards ‘protest’ convention of their own, so the disruptions needed to be removed. The police hurting that man’s hip is really unfortunate, but we can’t assume anything about these events. The establishment Republicans can and will spin this into whatever they want, while we shake our heads in amazement.
Would it be accurate to say that members of the Shreveport police department tortured Alex Helwig while he was held in their jail facilities? The breaking of the fingers is an older torture technique than water boarding, probably one of the very first torture techniques developed by mankind is the breaking of the fingers.
When the fingers of a political activist are broken by police while being held in a jail facility, isn’t that the very definition of torture. And that he was walking with a limp, can’t we easily infer he was beaten so badly that he was in such pain that he could not then walk without pain?
Wasn’t Alex Helwig “tortured” by the Shreveport police?
Well, not exactly Pam, no delegates are bound according to the RNC, that’s illegal as no primary or caucus is a legal election according to state and federal law. The GOP is a club, they have no standing legally and a primary, and even caucuses are just straw polls. So while a delegate in LA might be bound to Romney, they are not regardless of what the State GOP in Louisiana says – the National GOP’s own lawyer says they have free will to vote for who they want.
So if the delegates bound to Romney from the LA convention are actually Paul supporters they could vote for anybody, or at the very least abstain.
As a delegate at the Louisiana Republican State Convention, I can only say that the leadership of the LAGOP decided to ignore the by laws of there own rules by not allowing the SCC to vote prior to the convention an ratify the supplemental rules adopted by the LAGOP executive committee. These adopted rules would ignore the rules that have been used for the former 4 conventions is Louisiana. This action appears to be an act of TREASON….a tyrannical takeover against the will of the people who are registered republican in the State of Louisiana. I am ashamed to be associated with the leadership of the LAGOP. It would be my prayer that the 200 members of the State Central Committee vote against the act of the Executive Committe in forcing there will with these supplemental rules that are illegal for the 2012 LAGOP State Convention!
Pingback: The Louisiana GOP Convention Madness, From A Ron Paul Perspective
I can tell you exactly what will happen. The delegates elected by the majority of those participants will be contested and will not be seated by the RNC credentials committee. Anyone voting for a Mitt Romney candidates is only further legitimizing this type of thuggery, cheating, and top-down control of the conservative voter. In November, vote 3rd party, write in Ron Paul, or sit it out. Do not, I repeat, do not rewards these ass clowns with a vote for Mitt Romney.
This reminds me of the Arizona convention, except that the private security guard voluntarily released our chairman when no backup came to her aid.
I think many of the Ron Paul folks misunderstand the role of the Executive Committee. It is empowered to establish the rules of the convention.
Thus, the rules were valid and binding, making the Chair Roger Villere for the convention. The efforts of the Ron Paul folks to change the Chair and stage a parallel convention were in violation of the rules.
Therefore, the true Chair had the ability to direct security to deal with disruptions. In both cases cited above, the individuals actively resisted, resulting in the use of force. That’s why the actions of the security personnel will be upheld.
Ron Paul’s folks really blew it. Instead of getting a group of delegates yesterday, they will end up with none from the convention.
We will just have to wait and see what the RNC contests committee decides. In any event, the Paul camp felt the risk was worth it in the face of such hostile and outlandish rules changes. Even if those rules do stand up, we want nothing to do with a process that legitimizes that kind of behavior.
I was at the convention. I saw things differently. The Ron Paul horde was intimidating. They had their own security force with shirts that said security. (these goons weren’t allowed in thank God!). Many of the Ron Paul delegates had walkie talkies with ear pieces and they would point at delegates and position themselves right next to ones that they felt could be easily intimidated. The meeting was chaos from the start! There wasn’t one minute where a Ron Paul delegate wasn’t making a commotion. If it hadn’t been such an important event it would have been laughable. I turned to the person next to me and asked if some “occupy” zealots had infiltrated the group. That’s exactly what it was like–occupy nut jobs filled with worn out hippie ideas about protests. I liked some things about Ron Paul before the meeting. Now I just think the whole lot is dangerously insane! I wouldnt vote for him to run my town sewerage board. And furthermore, if he is the answer why hasn’t he produced. Paul is just another bloated windbag politician who has become obsessed with himself! Now he has an army.
were there majority votes counted for these rules and chair seats or was there ramrodding going on?
The Executive Committee (Roger Villere) simply announced new rules and committee chairmen. Despite the fact that their own original rules stated otherwise. The rules would never have been changed had Ron Paul delegates not won the district caucuses.
So am I to understand that Ron Paul deserves Santorum’s delegates? How does that represent the will of the people? How does that represent the “Liberty” that is thrown around?
Moreover, why do you want to be a part of a group that does not want you?
The delegates who won the district caucuses (Ron Paul supporters) earned the right to select the people they wanted for Santorum’s and Romney’s national delegates. Ron Paul has always said and we will stick to it, that on the first ballot at the RNC, delegates allocated or bound to another candidate will honor that and vote for who they are bound to. If there’s a second ballot though…
Also, to say that the Republican party does not want Ron Paul supporters among it, is to say that the Republican party wants Obama to win in November. So good luck if that’s how you feel.