The strangest thing to happen on the floor of the Republican National Convention today had, oddly, nothing to do with Stephen Colbert.
The Late Night comedian may have crashed the dais Sunday night, but “Dump Trump” delegates, led by Sen. Mike Lee, led the Monday afternoon chaos, as they moved to force the RNC to take up a roll call vote to affirm the Rules Committee’s slate of convention regulations. The slate included the all-important (to the Dump Trump crowd) conscience clause, unbinding delegates and freeing them to vote for whichever Presidential candidate they wanted.
The RNC chair vacated the podium and screams rang out from both parties, as Trump supporters shouted their candidate’s name from the galleries and objecting states made their presences known on the floor. Lee shouted into his microphone at the chair, telling the gathered crowd that “If the Republican Party wants unity, then they have to treat us respectfully.”
@SenMikeLee urging for a #rollcallvote at the #RNCinCLE pic.twitter.com/UqUqSbQYpS
— Joshua Denton (@JoshDDenton) July 18, 2016
The Republican party, apparently, didn’t agree. Claiming that Lee did not have enough signatures from enough delegates in enough states to bring the RNC rules slate to a full up-or-down vote with each state’s delegation voting independently, they held a simple voice vote – a collective yea or nay – and claimed that the “yeas” had it. The rules were approved.
If you were watching the live-stream, you just saw a lot of yelling. The RNC quickly moved to cut audio, and played ambient music instead.
FWIW, the official RNC youtube stream just cut audio and is playing some elevator music
— Marcus Gilmer (@marcusgilmer) July 18, 2016
Which was good for the RNC, because the delegates quickly broke out in a chorus of jeers.
Delegates break into chant of "roll call vote" after chair denies state-by-state roll call vote on rules. #RNCinCLE https://t.co/Mi4aE7NgaQ
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 18, 2016
Maine’s delegates started a “Roll Call vote” chant from their delegation area.
Maine delegation starts a "Roll Call Vote" chant during the official convention delegates picture. https://t.co/Mb1dVFrRhl
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) July 18, 2016
Colorado delegates walked off the RNC floor.
Colorado delegation walks off convention floor after being denied roll call vote https://t.co/qkzqFusYBP #RNCinCLE pic.twitter.com/s2GWiJ5Lza
— The Hill (@thehill) July 18, 2016
Lee and former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli led the charge for the roll call vote. Both had been vocal proponents of the delegate conscience clause in earlier proceedings (Lee is, himself, a member of the Rules Committee). Lee and Cuccinelli had, apparently, been waging a massive effort to collect delegate signatures for a roll call vote since last week.
The process is convoluted, but to get the roll call vote, you need a majority of delegates from at least seven states to sign a petition requesting it. Lee and company thought they had nine states, but the RNC chair said that three of those petitions came up with too few signatures, meaning only six states qualified.
Here's the rule that anti-Trump efforts are trying to use to force a roll call vote on rules: pic.twitter.com/OQLAsOEP03
— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) July 18, 2016
The time to actually unbind the delegates might has passed with the Rules Committee’s deliberations last week, but for the Dump Trump coalition, today’s floor vote was an opportunity to be public with their opposition – a final display of how divided the party is over their potential nominee (and maybe even some plausible deniability for some key Republican leaders, if Trump loses in November).
Once the rules were adopted by the chair, however, the movement ended. Aside from a well-organized mass walkout, it’s unlikely that any more anti-Trump efforts will derail the New York real estate magnate’s official nomination.
Colorado delegate George Athanasopoulos, a candidate for Congress who has endorsed Donald Trump, said he blamed the RNC for mishandling the situation.
“This is about having a transparent process, and the RNC steamrolled dissenting voices,” he said. “This is not the right way to run an informed convention where delegates can make informed decisions.”
Athanasopoulos said he supported the motion to have a roll-call vote on the rules package because he “had no objection to going on the record and voting.”
Such a vote was almost certain to fail, perhaps overwhelmingly. By refusing to allow a vote, Athanasopoulos said, the RNC had emboldened the so-called “Never Trump” movement, which might otherwise faded had they been defeated as part of an open process.
“Now the Never Trump movement is going to live until November,” he said. “It’s an anchor around the neck of the Republican Party.”
