Thread: Ted Cruz Backers Seek to Control Convention Platform

Ted Cruz Backers Seek to Control Convention Platform

The New York Times

By JONATHAN MARTIN
8 hrs ago

Senator Ted Cruz spoke at the Indiana Fairgrounds in Indianapolis on May 2.

Senator Ted Cruz’s supporters are mounting an effort to seize control of the Republican platform and the rules governing the party’s July convention, the first indication that Mr. Cruz will not simply hand his delegates over to Donald J. Trump.

In an email sent Sunday to pro-Cruz convention delegates, a top aide to the Texas senator wrote that it was “still possible to advance a conservative agenda at the convention.”

“To do that, it is imperative that we fill the Rules and Platform Committees with strong conservative voices like yours,” wrote Ken Cuccinelli, who was the campaign’s former delegate wrangler and a former attorney general of Virginia. “That means you need to come to the national convention and support others in coming, too!”

Mr. Cruz is planning a Monday evening conference call where, as Mr. Cuccinelli writes, Mr. Cruz’s former officials plan to “discuss what we can do at the convention to protect against liberal changes to our platform, and how we can right the wrongs in the rules from 2012!”

The “wrongs” Mr. Cuccinelli was referring to are the changes pushed through at the last convention by supporters of Mitt Romney that would have made it harder for a candidate’s name to be placed in nomination.

But Mr. Cruz’s supporters and other conservative activists are also deeply concerned about Mr. Trump’s general election agenda, and want to ensure that he does not alter the party’s platform. Since locking up the nomination last week, Mr. Trump has made clear he intends to run a populist campaign against Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, indicating he is open to higher taxes and an increase in the minimum wage.

The party’s convention rules and policy platform are determined every four years by temporary committees comprised of a select group of convention delegates. The rules and platform are then ratified or rejected by all the delegates at the convention.

With the assumption that the party’s nomination would not be decided on the first convention ballot, Mr. Cruz spent considerable time this spring electing delegates favorable to him to the July convention in Cleveland. So while he is out of the race, many of his supporters will still be delegates. And while many are bound to support Mr. Trump on the first ballot, they are free to vote their conscience on matters relating to convention rules and the platform.

The email, which carries the “Cruz-Fiorina” logo, was forwarded to The New York Times by a convention delegate.

Reached by telephone, Mr. Cuccinelli authenticated the message. As for Mr. Trump’s rhetorical shifts in recent days, he said, “nothing I’ve seen since a week ago has been surprising to me.”

But Mr. Cuccinelli said Mr. Cruz, who has been silent since withdrawing from the race last Tuesday, had no intention of trying to re-write convention rules on an effort to deny Mr. Trump the nomination.

“It’s important that this not appear as though we are pulling at stunt at this convention,” he said, adding that the goal is to advocate for policies preferred by the sort of hard-line conservatives who backed Mr. Cruz’s campaign.

“This is about protecting movement conservatism,” he said, pointing to party planks on abortion and saying the delegates should consider language regarding transgender bathroom access.

“We want to have girls go in girls, bathrooms,” he said, highlighting an issue on which Mr. Trump has broken with social conservatives by supporting the rights of transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice.
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