GOP chief discourages rule changes that seem to block Donald Trump
JONATHAN MARTIN
The chairman of the Republican National Committee has privately urged members of the partys rules committee not to make changes to the guidelines governing the presidential nominating process, an effort to avoid the appearance that the party is seeking to block Donald J. Trump from becoming its nominee.
The chairman, Reince Priebus, whom associates describe as increasingly frustrated by Mr. Trumps criticism of the delegate-selection process, sent a text message last week to multiple rules committee members strongly suggesting that they not alter the convention rules when the party convenes next week for its spring meeting in Florida, according to two who received the message.
Separately, a group of influential rules committee members held a conference call Thursday to prepare for the meeting and reached a consensus that they would derail any attempt at the gathering to make changes to the how the convention is conducted, according to a committee member on the call.
Were not going to do anything with the rules next week, said Rob Gleason, chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party and a longtime member of the rules committee. Theres no point because new rules will be written at the convention.
The matter of convention rule-setting is the sort of arcane intraparty business that rarely draws attention from even the most committed political enthusiasts. But with the prospect of a contested convention and a divisive front-runner waging a high-profile campaign against the party apparatus, issues of how individual states select their delegates and who can or cannot be placed in nomination have become a high-stakes drama.
With Mr. Trump and his supporters on the lookout for any maneuvering that can be construed as a backdoor attempt to cheat him of the nomination, establishment-aligned Republicans see little to be gained by tinkering with procedures that could well be disregarded before the July convention.
While the standing rules committee of the party can set nominating guidelines, they are effectively only suggestions. It is a rules committee comprising 112 delegates that actually writes the rules governing the convention, and those are only implemented if they are approved by a full vote of all the Republican delegates in Cleveland.
Further, with 17 states still left to vote in the Republican primary campaign and considerable uncertainty about whether and by how much Mr. Trump will fall short of attaining a delegate majority before the convention it is not even clear what rule changes could be made now that would diminish his chances if party insiders even wanted to tilt the playing field.
What upside is there for us to muck around with the rules, said Steve Duprey, the New Hampshire Republican committeeman and a rules committee member.
The committee, under pressure to conduct a transparent campaign and irritated at Mr. Trumps claims of unfairness, is moving more aggressively to explain how the primary works and pointedly rebutting their own front-runner.
The rules surrounding the delegate selection have been clearly laid out in every state and territory, and while each state is different, each process is easy to understand for those willing to learn it, Sean Spicer, a senior party official, wrote in a memo released to the public on Friday. It ultimately falls on the campaigns to be up to speed on these delegate rules.
But Mr. Trump shows no sign of curbing his complaints, and his campaign appears to be only escalating its argument. In an essay published in Fridays Wall Street Journal, Mr. Trump argued that Senator Ted Cruzs efforts to elect his supporters as delegates to Cleveland so they may support him at a multiple-ballot convention after they are no longer bound to the results of their states vote amounted to voter-nullification scheme.
Voter disenfranchisement is not merely part of the Cruz strategy it is the Cruz strategy, Mr. Trump wrote, inveighing against double-agent delegates who reject the decision of voters. Mr. Trumps assault on the Republican Party and the nomination process it oversees is seen by some in the party as the makings of a strategy to gain an advantage with those delegates who will be unbound, and therefore political free agents, on the first ballot.
These delegates could be pivotal if Mr. Trump narrowly falls short of 1,237 delegates at the end of the primary season and needs a handful more to help him clinch the nomination on the first vote in Cleveland. But one leading Republican from a state that will send 54 unbound delegates to the convention suggested that such tactics would not be effective.
Were not playing beanbag, said Mr. Gleason, the Pennsylvania chairman. This is for president of the United States. The New York Times
