Republican 2024 Rules Confusion Explained

The current occupiers of the RNC will attempt to require states to “bind” delegates to the 2024 Republican National Convention to vote according to the results of primaries.

Beginning with carrots and continuing with sticks, GOP leaders advance primaries over party.

The GASLIGHTING OF REPUBLICANS by powerful advocates of Critical Primary Theory began some time ago for reasons that only the advocates can provide. We can tell, from transcripts of meetings, who was involved and what they did, but not why they did it.

Prior to the 1996 convention, then RNC Chairman Haley Barbour appointed a “task force on presidential primaries and caucuses” chaired by Rules Committee chairman Jim Nicholson. Members of the task force were Alice Algood, TN; Bob Bennett, OH; Cindy Moyle, ID; Connie Nicholas, ND; David Norcross, NJ; Alec Poitevint, GA; Doris Russell, ME; and Diemer True, WY. Norcross was a member of the RNC Rules Committee and General Counsel of the RNC at the time.

The RNC ultimately chose to respect “states rights” of “federation” member state parties and recommended a “bonus delegates” incentive to coerce states to extend the primary season and avoid “frontloading” primaries.

Critical Primary Theory Advocates bring out the BIG STICK in 2000.

RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson created an Advisory Commission on the Presidential Nominating Process on July 2,1999, and appointed Bill Brock to be its chairman.

The following lawyers, consultants, and officials were members of the commission: MI Senator Spencer Abraham, Haley Barbour, Richard Bond, VA Rep. Tom Davis, Frank Fahrenkopf, CA Secretary of State Bill Jones, OK Gov. Frank Keating, Tom Sansonetti and Jim Nicholson, ex officio member. (Brock, Barbour, Bond, and Fahrenkopf are former RNC chairs)

The commission was staffed by RNC staff members Tom Cole, Tom Josefiak, Larry Purpuro, Kevin Murphy, Catherine Tyrell and Bill Pasco.

The stated purpose of the Brock Commission was to “Review ‘reform’ proposals to improve the selection process”.

In the end, this commission reached the conclusion that its preferred solution to a perceived problem of “front loading primaries” was the creation of the “Delaware Plan” for groups of regional primaries.

A slick 208 page final report entitled “NOMINATING FUTURE PRESIDENTS” was published to persuade the 2000 Republican National Convention delegates to adopt the recommended “primary reform” package which, if adopted by the convention, would have formally committed the Republican Party to NOMINATE its FUTURE president and vice-president candidates in primaries; leaving no role for the convention in the nomination process.

This would have forever stripped the delegates to the Republican Party National Convention of their Constitutional right to nominate Republican candidates.

GEORGE W. BUSH CAMPAIGN SQUELCHES DELAWARE PLAN!

Last minute jitters by the Bush campaign sent the much vaunted Brock Commission report and its recommendations to the trash bin.

But the slick final report did reveal the BIG LIE that to this day pretends to allow primary voters to choose the Republican Nominee.

On page 9 and again on page 85 of the slick final report’s mission statement, the last paragraph that described the procedural steps to institutionalize the primary “reforms” states: “The approved Rules of the Republican Party will govern the party’s affairs from the adjournment of the 2000 Republican National Convention THROUGH(emphasis added) the 2004 Republican National Convention.”(The “next” convention)

See what they did there?

The Delaware Plan failed, in 2000, but the renumbering and reordering of the rules survived to create the confusion which is now a useful tool for Critical Primary Advocates because it creates the illusion that the Republican National Convention follows the primaries.

Without changing a single word, the rules have a new meaning!

The use of a Preamble, according to Robert’s Rules of Order, “provides little-known information without which (the rules) are likely to be poorly understood…”.

Such is clearly the case with the Rules of the Republican Party!

To demonstrate, this from the preambles to the 1996 and 2000 Rules of the Republican Party:

1996 rules

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the following be adopted as the rules of business of this convention, the rules for the election and government of the Republican National Committee, the rules under which delegates and alternate delegates shall be allotted to the respective states in the next convention, and how their election shall be conducted and contests shall be considered.

2000 and current rules

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the following be and hereby are adopted as The Rules of the Republican Party, (Rules 1-12) composed of the rules for the election and government of the Republican National Committee until the next national convention, the rules under which delegates and alternate delegates shall be allotted to the respective states in the next national convention, and the rules under which such delegates and alternate delegates shall be elected and under which contests shall be considered, (Rules 13-25) and the rules of business of this national convention (26-42).

Actually, the Convention Rules of the Republican Party should be completely separate from the rest of the rules since they apply only to each Republican National Convention while in session.

Here are the Rule numbers of the current Rules of the Republican Party and renumbered according to the 1996 Preamble, in parentheses.

TABLE OF CONTENTS (from the rules currently on the website GOP.com)

THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE

(18)RULE NO. 1 Organization of the Republican National Committee

(19)RULE NO. 2 National Committeeman and National Committeewoman

(20)RULE NO. 3 Term of Office for National Committee Members

(21)RULE NO. 4 Vacancies of Members and Officers

(22)RULE NO. 5 Officers of the Republican National Committee

(23)RULE NO. 6 Executive Committee of the Republican National Committee

(24)RULE NO. 7 Rules of Order

(25)RULE NO. 8 Meetings of the Republican National Committee

(26)RULE NO. 9 Filling Vacancies in Nominations

(27)RULE NO. 10 Committees of the Republican National Committee

(28)RULE NO. 11 Candidate Support

(29)RULE NO. 12 Amendments

CONVENING OF THE NEXT NATIONAL CONVENTION

(30)RULE NO. 13 Call of Next Convention

(31)RULE NO. 14 Membership in Convention

(32)RULE NO. 15 Participation in the Delegate Election, Selection, Allocation, and Binding Processes

(33)RULE NO. 16 Election, Selection, Allocation, or Binding of Delegates and Alternate Delegates

(34)RULE NO. 17 Enforcement of Rules

(35)RULE NO. 18 Vacancies in a State Delegation

(36)RULE NO. 19 Excess Delegates and Alternate Delegates

(37)RULE NO. 20 Certification of Election or Selection of Delegates

(38)RULE NO. 21 Contests: Resolution by States

(39)RULE NO. 22 Temporary Roll of the Republican National Convention

(40)RULE NO. 23 Contest Filing

(41)RULE NO. 24 Contest Procedure

(42)RULE NO. 25 Convention Committee on Credentials

PROCEEDINGS OF NATIONAL CONVENTION

(1) RULE NO. 26 Order of Business

(2)RULE NO. 27 Committee Reports

(3)RULE NO. 28 Admission to Convention Hall

(4)RULE NO. 29 Voting

(5)RULE NO. 30 Rules of Order

(6)RULE NO. 31 Length of Debate

(7)RULE NO. 32 Suspension of Rules

(8)RULE NO. 33 Platform Resolutions

(9)RULE NO. 34 Minority Reports; Amendments

(10(RULE NO. 35 Motion to Table

(11)RULE NO. 36 Previous Question

(12)RULE NO. 37 Roll Call

(13(RULE NO. 38 Unit Rule

(14)RULE NO. 39 Record Vote

(15)RULE NO. 40 Nominations

(16)RULE NO. 41 Convention Committees

(17)RULE NO. 42 Temporary Rules

Simply renumbering rules advanced GOP primary fraud.

In 1996, the rules began with the PROCEEDINGS OF CONVENTION and Rule NO. 1 was “Order of Business”.

This sleight of hand happened at the January 14, 2000 RNC General Session as Tom Sansonetti, chairman of the rules committee gave his report to the full RNC as follows:

“Tom Josefiak, Chief Counsel, walked through a series of 19 technical amendments, all of which were approved by the rules committee.”

Sansonetti continued, “Most notably, the committee approved an amendment to reorder the rules so that in the future the rules will deal with the RNC and the way we operate first, and then the rules regarding the convention would be placed together at the end of the rules”.

Without any further discussion, the order of the rules was flipped, with the section containing the RNC rules coming first and the convention rules coming last.

No matter what order they appear in, however, it is perfectly clear that the two sections concerning the Republican National Committee take effect beginning at the conclusion of the convention at which the rules were adopted, while the section on convention rules is in force at the convention where it is adopted, not the next one.”

After this careful review of the Brock Commission report and the corresponding RNC Rules Committee action, we must conclude, sadly, that this was not a “scrivener’s error”.

Reordering the rules was a deliberate act of deception to create the illusion that primaries preceding the convention apply to the current convention.

The Brock Commission fully anticipated that the 2000 Republican National Convention would adopt the recommended changes which then would have obviously required the Republican National Convention to FOLLOW the primary nomination process, thus allowing “binding” in Rule 16 to nullify the individual right of convention delegates to choose the nominee.

In his presentation of the report of the Rules Committee to the 2000 Republican National Convention, Michael Grebe stated : “Several other changes were adopted…including a variety of technical amendments that clarify our rules. One such change was a reordering of the party rules, so that the rules pertaining to the national convention would be placed together.”

The official records of the proceedings of the RNC Rules Committee and the Republican National Convention Rules Committee, prior to and including the 2000 Republican National Convention, reveal that several Republican lawyers participated in this deliberate deception.

Jim Nicholson was the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Grebe was the General Counsel of the RNC and chairman of the Convention Rules Committee, Tom Sansonetti was the chairman of the RNC Rules Committee, Mike Duncan was the vice-chair of the RNC Rules Committee, William McGinley was the deputy counsel to the RNC Rules Committee, and Tom Josefiak was the chief counsel to the RNC.

Again, without changing a single word, simply moving the words “the rules of business of this national convention” and changing the numbers of the rules has fueled the gaslighting that supports Critical Primary Theory to this day.

Recent experience demonstrates that it is Republican lawyers, many past or present members of the Republican National Committee, who are powerful advocates of Critical Primary Theory and the coerced “binding” of convention delegates to the Republican National Convention. We will introduce you to more of these lawyers and advocates in upcoming articles on the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Republican National Conventions.

Why does all this matter as we begin the 2024 Republican presidential nomination process?

Because the current occupiers of the Republican National Committee intend to require states to “bind” delegates to the 2024 Republican National Convention to vote according to the results of the government sponsored public opinion polls (primaries) that precede the convention based on the “binding” requirements in Rule 16.

In 2020, the RNC Counsel’s Office prepared detailed information on the 2020 Presidential Nominating Process that included this statement: “statewide presidential preference votes must be used to allocate and bind the state’s delegation in either a proportional or winner-take-all manner.”

The Counsel’s Office information was “based on the Rule No. 16(f) filings as submitted and certified by the states and territories to the Secretary of the RNC.”

Therefore, simply reading the Rules of the Republican Party on the Republican Party website today with the clarity provided in the Preamble means that:

Rule 16 (33) cannot possibly apply to Rule 37 (12) of the 2024 Republican National Convention.

Delegates to the 2024 Republican National Convention will be UNBOUND, unless the 2024 delegates vote to bind themselves!

Author’s note: The word “bind” did not appear in any Rules of the Republican Party until fraudulently added by 2008 Republican National Convention. A future post will examine the 2008 convention rules process.