My MNGOP Reform Goals #1 - Leadership Schedule Change
Posted by Andy on November 28th, 2006
If nothing else happens from this little civil war I started, one thing has to change. The leadership of the state party should coincide with the election cycles. We should elect the Chair, Deputy Chair, and Secretary/Treasurer immediately following the November elections. By the first of the year, the next round of candidate and officials up for election should know who they will have to work with.
These people are responsible for far too many decisions to change or leave to doubt in mid stream. The candidates do start working immediately after election day getting ready for the next round, our party should too. This 8 to 9 months of figuring out what went wrong and waiting to implement the changes until their jobs are secure is BS. Or in this year’s case, give the failed leaders a chance to cover their butts.
This would mirror what the House and Senate caucuses do by electing new leadership right away so they can hit the ground running. It just isn’t fair to change leaders in mid stride like we do. Changing horses in mid stream never goes well.
This would require some Constitution changes as I see it. We’d need to change the schedule a tad so that we elect Party leadership with in say 45 days of a general election, instead of “in the off year”. The elections work on a schedule, our Republican Party should too.
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November 29th, 2006 at 11:11 am
This is not a simple change to make. Right now, party officers are elected by the CONVENTION in odd-numbered years, not the Exec committee, and that is how it should be. On the other hand, if the off-year conventions are changed, by constitutional amendment, to an “issues forum” as recommended by the platform study group, then another mechanism for the election of officers would be required and I would certainly endorse both changes.
Of the two, however, it is the issues forum which is vastly more important. I see it as the linchpin for re-centering the party around a set of [conservative] ideas. As Ron Carey told me a few months ago, “people do not work for a party or candidate, they work to advance a set of principles or ideas that they believe in.” That is what is going to draw activists and voters to our party, not the internals of how our party officers are elected or who they are.
November 29th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
I think they are both important and should both be fought for. Admit it, it is downright stupid to have chairman elections in the middle of campaigns. And if we got our leadership set, they could repair teh party adn get all ramped up for the issue convention.
We have to elect our leaders early in the cycle. That change is critical if we are going to fix the party.
November 29th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Well, you are right in that the National Party does it this way (and have probably named not the best person to the task). I would like to think, though, that while national elections, particularly presidential elections, start the day after the preceding Congressional elections, that the State campaigns have something of a shorter time frame and that we can tolerate, even require at this point, six months of introspection, planning, reform and reorganization before heading pell-mell into another cycle with no time to think, just doing what we did last time. That’s how we got into this fix.
Heck, I’ve long favored the British system, where they say, all of a sudden, “OK, six WEEKS from now is the election, you can start campaigning.” All the drawn-out and very expensive campaigns get us is those who want office desperately enough to tolerate it, and dim enough not to offer courageous solutions that might offend some minor constituency.
November 30th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
In principle, I like the idea of moving party leadership elections up a few months. Below are several issues that should be considered:
1. 45 days from the general election would put leadership elections within a week of Christmas. This would create a headache for many delegates resulting in low turnout due to family commitments and vacation plans. After asking State Central delegates – unpaid volunteers – to devote their summer and fall to electing candidates, it is only fitting that we respect their need for family time during those weeks immediately preceding and following Christmas.
2. It does seem reasonable to more closely parallel the timing of leadership elections in House and Senate caucuses. However, as Hugh Hewitt has argued, the rush to elect caucus leadership in November fails to give caucus members an opportunity to get input from their constituents. It is almost as if they seek to elect leadership before the ramifications of election have a chance to be felt. Specifically, the media has claimed that conservatism was rejected at the polls. Those of us in the grass roots know otherwise. But, in their haste to elect leadership, it is more likely that caucus members would be influenced by the media’s view than that of the grass roots volunteers. The media can perpetuate their view quickly, but it takes more time to get the rest of the story.
3. The candidate pool for caucus leadership is finite and decided by the election. It is relatively easy to determine who is willing to run. Indeed, many likely candidates may have already been considering a possible run for the leadership while they were campaigning for the general election. In contrast, it takes more time to find new candidates to lead the Party. It is likely that candidates would need to be recruited. Further, such recruits may need to be convinced to seek a position that was previously off their radar. This takes time.
4. Haste makes waste. Ron Carey threw his hat in the ring within a few weeks of the June 2005 State Central Committee meeting. I suspect the haste to replace the existing leadership, and doubt about the experience of its chief competition, lead the body to support Ron Carey. There was little time for delegates, and other candidates, to ferret out the pros and cons of the new candidate.
5. It does make sense to have new leadership in place prior to the start of the legislative session. One of our concerns is that current leadership did not advertise the benefits of conservative issues. The heat of the legislative session is prime time to advance our issues. For example, the myths of minimum wage could be exposed while congress is considering raising it. However, since current leadership failed to advance conservative issues in the past, new leadership may be needed to do so now.
6. Perhaps late January or February – before the BPOU conventions are held, may satisfy the desire to elect – or reaffirm – party leadership before the next election cycle begins. It may also be soon enough to address issues that will be raised in Congress.
7. Currently, the State Party leadership is elected by the State Central Delegates who would be elected at their March-April BPOU conventions. Moving the election of party leadership to a date prior to the BPOU conventions would leave this responsibility to existing State Central Delegates. This may be a good thing for the existing crop of State Central Delegates may have more direct knowledge of what went right and what went wrong in November.