The View From The Cheap Seats
After this fight, the rest of the Plan of Organization was adopted without much fuss. It was during this part of the process that any objections over Chairman Fetzer’s involvement in the 8th District race were to be addressed, but none were raised. In fact, as near as I could tell, Tim D’Annunzio and his supporters were simply not present, at least not in large numbers. The deadlines for qualifying to be a delegate at the convention had passed long before the controversy erupted.
The party platform was debated and adopted without too much acrimony – a few arguments here and there over word choice, but no major changes. Friday’s business ended after that, leaving only Resolutions for Saturday’s business.
That was for the best, because the Resolutions Committee’s report consumed as much debate time on Saturday as everything else put together. The Resolutions Committee had several items for consideration, although there was one notable exception. Delegates from the 2nd and 9th Congressional Districts had passed resolutions supporting a North Carolina Firearms Freedom Act, a proposed bill codifying 2nd and 10th Amendment protections of firearms kept within the states in which they are produced.
This is a bill that has been promised sponsorship by State Rep. David Lewis and State Senator Andrew Brock. However, the State-level Resolutions Committee rejected it. Martha Jenkins, the chair of the Resolutions Committee, explained that the party’s platform already supports gun rights, and a similar resolution had been passed in 2009. In her words, “We don’t like to be repetitious.”
Why such a criterion applied to this particular resolution, and not to the resolutions expressing support for our troops and Republican candidates that are proposed and passed every year, she declined to say.
One especially passionate debate erupted over a resolution supporting sanctions on Iran over its alleged nuclear program. This was the kind of resolution that would have passed without comment in past years, but this year several Tea Party activists raised protests. A succession of younger delegates offered various arguments against sanctions, in one example calling them “an act of war.” Many more delegates strenuously disagreed, including one who angrily insisted that the world should be, “dominated by America, not Islamo-fascism.”
Ultimately the resolution passed, although not without a significant minority voting in opposition. Again, this would have been unheard of even two years ago.
Once the Resolutions Committee concluded its report, delegates would have typically had the opportunity to introduce resolutions from the floor (such as the one supporting the NC Firearms Freedom Act). However, another delegate quickly made a motion to adjourn, which takes precedence over all other motions, and the business session was ended before the other resolutions could be introduced.
I’m told that they were finally introduced during Sunday’s Executive Committee meeting, and hotly debated, with only one, the NC Firearms Freedom Act resolution, actually passing. The others included a condemnation of the ban on smoking in public restaurants passed last year, and a call on Republicans to oppose any legislation proposed by President Obama’s special debt-reduction committee, headed by Erskine Bowles. Of note was the impassioned opposition to the smoking ban resolution voiced by State Rep. Justin Burr (who voted with the Democrats in favor of the smoking ban last year).
So what are we to take from all this? The main lesson is that while the Tea Party movement is a force to be reckoned with in electoral politics, it still hasn’t made itself felt that strongly in internal NCGOP affairs. Many delegates were Tea Party activists attending their first convention, but they didn’t consist of a majority. The process for becoming a delegate is arcane and complex, and many Tea Partiers still remain registered as unaffiliated voters.
The Tea Partiers who were present had an eye-opening experience, going by my conversations with them. They kept asking why certain debates were squelched, and why there was a rush to adjourn at the end of the day on Saturday, despite that the convention took place in a year when no party officers were elected, and no critical decisions were made.
Nevertheless, the Tea Partiers’ presence led to honest, heartfelt and needed debate on issues of transparency, foreign policy, and the proper role of government. While the debates might have gotten heated at times, the fact that they were happening at all was a good sign.
If Tea Partiers want to do more than make cosmetic changes to the political process, they must participate in the party process. The two major parties in this country literally hold the keys to the kingdom. They have legally restricted ballot access to all but exclude third parties. Next year, the NCGOP will elect a new slate of officers, including a new State Chair. If newly awakened conservatives wish to make their voices heard, they must attend their 2011 NCGOP precinct meetings and get qualified to become voting delegates.
Otherwise, they’ll spend another two years as outsiders looking in.
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©2010 Adam Love. Special to PunditHouse. Used by permission.
Adam Love is the NC State Coordinator for Campaign for Liberty. The Mission of Campaign for Liberty is to promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a noninterventionist foreign policy, by means of educational and political activity.
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