It appeared to me that the object was to require about 150 members from at least 4 congressional districts as opposed to 20 from 2. Fortunately, it didn’t break down that way in the voting.

I still find the proposals to be very reactionary, and unnecessarry.

Sure, the chairman can call a special meeting in case of emergency, but what if the chairman is the emergency? There is only one reason I can imagine the delegates would call a special meeting: To remove or otherwise discipline a party officer. It’s not hard to imagine why an officer might prefer that to be more difficult.

My guess is the state exec looked at what was suggested by some folks who had a legitimate concern (you) and thought about calling a special meeting. But as you noted, you did not think you had anywhere near the votes so it was not worth calling a meeting. You understand that once you see you lost a vote, calling for a similar vote twelve times is just harassment and accomplishes nothing. You made your point, used rational thought and behaved like an adult

The same can not be said about the Ron Paul folks.
After losing vote after vote, they continued to try and delay the meeting.
And the stupid motion to censure – good grief, who cares – why not pass a motion calling the chair a big poopy pants – has the same outcome – nothing.

So as I said, I don’t think making someone finding 50 people to hold a special meeting is a big burden. If you can’t convince 50 people one on one, you surely not going to convince more than that with a two minute speech.

The Ron Paul folks are similar to some of the folks who supported Joe Repya – they confuse folks who do not support your guy as folks who do not share some of their beliefs.

I’m not a huge fan of the direction the party is going, but I was even more concerned with Joe as leader of the party (a concern that appears to have some validity based on state central – although no one can be proud of the exchange). What did Joe accomplish at the meeting – making himself look bad and weakening his argument and position.

Same for Andy – It appears that you probably share (as do many conservatives) some of the same concerns the Ron Paul supporters have, but feel that Ron Paul is not the right guy to move those ideas forward.
But since you did not support Ron, you appear to them as the devil incarnate.
So while the Ron Paul folks talk about the party alienating them, they are doing a great job of alienating people who would probably be glad to assist with some of the changes moving forward.

If you do not like the way the party leadership is going, then do something about it at your CD elections. The CD Chair reports to his CD executive committee – use that power to do something.
But I would suggest that the time to do something is the Second Wednesday in November.
We have our candidates, let’s work on beating the DFL until then – and then start working on 2010 and 2012. We can complain all we want about our candidates, but I don’t know about you – I am not going to let McCain or Coleman decide for me that my great local representative deserves to be replaced by a DFL candidate. And as Andy has pointed out – I think the DFL in St. Paul are having a bigger effect on us right now and your local BPOU can have a bigger impact on them instead of holding a rally to complain about the gold standard.

A

Sometimes CD Chairs do not listen to the activists. Some only listen to the Executive committee and party Chair. State Central is a special body and seems designed to be a private venue for internal party business.

We have serious problems with this party. Some of us care very deeply about repairing them so we can once again be a party on the verge of majorities in Minnesota. Some of us are worried about he direction the party leaders are taking it. Sure, I was not one who was mounting a challenge, and once again the establishment/Carey folks got me confused.

I did rise to speak against the powergrab. I was defeated. I didn’t make any motion. And I did tell Repya to not say a word.

I really do wish some day you would have the courage to reveal your identity. You drag me through the mu here an awful lot. I should at least be able to look my accuser in the eye.

Oh and as for not having to deal with the minority, I expect that Party leaders and other State Central establishment sympathizers will release its lit of topics it is willing to hear before the next round of those elections in 2009 so that none of us who question things will bother running. Afterall, if we’re not welcome, it is your duty to say that we aren’t before we are elected to represent our Districts.

With the future of the Ron Paulians future unknown, it is not inconceivableness that they could elect 10 of their folks to state central. They could then call endless meeting after meeting to delay and harass the party.

I don’t see getting 50 folks (or even 150) as a huge hurdle to call a special meeting.
We have an executive committee which is elected to handle most emergencies.

The only reasons I have heard so far seem about folks upset that their guy wasn’t supported or someone with a short temper who is sore loser and wanted a public forum to complain.

It you are concerned about the party, show up at your CD meeting and tell you Chair you want an issues. If it is a big deal, the have your CD executive vote to force their chair to do something at exec.

As for adjourning, even if “other business” is on the agenda and their is a rule that says a motion to adjourn is debatable until all business is completed, other business is not business so the ruling is correct.
Even if there was debate, are you telling me that the people in the room didn’t know what people wanted to bring up? Just because 25% still want to talk and complain doesn’t mean the other 75% need to stay and listen.

The way the bylaw changes were structured and voted on, it was possible to create a situation wherein (approximately) 150 state central members from 4 congressional districts would have been required to call a meeting. The way the voting broke down, it’s now about 50 delegates from at least 2 CDs that are required to call a meeting. Not outrageous in itself, I suppose, but as a reaction to the possibility of such a meeting being called to Take Carey to task, it seems very heavy-handed and protectionistic.

I liked Carey’s answer to a question about whether a state central member would be given the list of other members to even make such a scenerio come about: “It might be reasonable to consider that.” or something to that effect.

Carey’s ruling that the motion to adjourn wasn’t debatable was plain wrong, and it was pretty clear to me that he was afraid of what might come up in “other business” if the meeting wasn’t summarily adjourned at that instant.

First off, the FEC hasn’t done an audit. They asked some questions – submitted those “requests for information” that you recognize are so common. Yes, they’re common, but most party units have enough control over their financial dealings that answering them is simply a matter of offering additional information or a quick explanation.

Not so the Republican Party of Minnesota. Their finances are in such total disarray that they couldn’t answer even the most simple of questions. Questions like “How much cash on had do you actually have?” resulted in multiple amendments with balance differences that range from $2 million to a negative $28 thousand.

The audit was one undertaken by the party itself, not the FEC. Most party units already perform routine audits and act like taking care of their donors’ contributions is an important responsibility. Not so the RPM, where the audit that was finally undertaken took over a year to complete.

You then proceed to mention “a couple of main points that [you] feel will clear the party on the FEC attack.” Goodness, where to start?

The FEC doesn’t “attack” parties, even under the Bush administration. Rather their role is to ensure compliance with the law. The problems with the RPM were so glaring that even this FEC couldn’t stomach looking the other way. Hence, the letters asking for more information — letters it took the RPM over a year to answer. But now that the answers are in, the FEC finally has enough information to do what it’s been stymied from doing all along: determine how many campaign finance laws may have been broken.

“The Republican Party hired a firm to audit them and in turn help file amended reports, something completely with in [sic] the rules…” The FEC certainly allows amended reports to correct errors, but you miss the point that this is far from the end of the matter. The FEC now has the info to undertake its investigation, and determine if there was illegal activity. To say that the filing of the amended reports is the end of it is like Robert Beale filing amended tax returns next week and them claiming that now he doesn’t have to go to prison.

“Personally I never had any real problem with this whole deal and feel pretty confident this is a non-issue.” What other law-breaking actions are you ok with? Some people are just fine with “illegal” immigration, but you go into spittle mode when it comes up.

We eagerly await your determination as to which federal statutes can be ignored and which ones can’t.

Exactly as it should. Since there has never been a need, apparently, to call such an emergency meeting under the old rule, there should be no need to do so under the new rule, either. There is almost no foreseeable “problem” that could arise that would not be handled, on reasonable request, by your BPOU or CD leadership, or the State Exec Committee, or by Party staff. There is a SCC meeting every three months, at which any reasonable issue may be raised from the floor. Any emergencies affecting the whole Party and requiring an SCC meeting could be called by the Chair or by State Exec. If, for some unimaginable reason they did not, and 15% of delegates thought they should, the meeting could be called by that 15% and one would wonder if 15% could really convince 50% whatever motion(s) might be desired. So, yes, the only reason for the rule change is to keep small numbers of “troublemakers like [you]” from making trouble. Sounds reasonable to me.

As for attempts to “censure” or “vote no confidence” or whatever you’re talking about, I’m going to suggest that your efforts are better directed elsewhere and happy to see you looking that direction. Candidates don’t elect themselves, and Ron Carey alone cannot do much unless all of the BPOUs and CDs concentrate on the essential of getting our candidates elected rather than those other guys. Time for a sports analogy: If the ball bounces off the defender’s helmet, slips out of the receivers hands and the big offensive tackle stumbles and falls across the goal line with it, it’s still six points for the win. Or you could sit on the bench and grouse about it, I suppose.

I am still not clear about the 7 figure mistake. I was sitting up in the guest area, and I thought the questioning was fair, to start with, but then the speaker went overboard…I actually was wondering which was going to break first the gavel or the podium, when Ron Carey was pounding the gavel, that was the most intense pounding I have ever seen outside of construction…

Here are some thoughts for the next convention:
1) Setup an area for Silent Auctions, every 1/2 day should be a set of new items up for auction, a great and easy fund raiser. There would be a lot of people that would have bid on a few autograph copies of Rove’s book, President Bush pictures and autographs, Norm Coleman signs that are autographed, and other items.
2) Allow for sitting Republican Govenors and Senators to be automatic Delegates, since the majority of the state has already elected elected them. (Yes I was behind that movement this morning, to make sure there wouldn’t be a future challenge to Pawlenty, this would have looked really bad if this went to the National Convention…looked what happened to SD1…).
3) Each CD should have a party room each evening, and we should have a map of where each is located, it would be nice to drop in and talk with various candidates and network with them…each CD party room should also have a silent auction for some more fund raising.
4) Publish the Agenda, Rules, Abridged Roberts Rules of Order, Constitution on the web site, well before the Convention.
5) Get rid of dates from the Rules, and use generic time tables…like for the interview in person appearance of candidates for Delegate and Alternate befor the Nominating Comittee, just use “Thurday of the week of the Convention, from 9:00-am-8pm, at the convetion site” Then it is clear, consistant, and never has to be updated again..
6) Offer leadership, intro to Roberts Rules of Order, fund raising, BPOU classes, and BPOU brain sharing, on Thursday, before the Convention.

See you next time.