GOP rule confusion may cause convention chaos in Minnesota

The Republican Party of Minnesota has not formally adopted the final procedure by which they will elect delegates to the Republican National Convention within their governing documents, creating widespread confusion among party leaders on how Minnesota delegates will actually be elected and allocated to attend the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July.

In the last few weeks the Republican Party of Minnesota has sent numerous emails hoping to clarify procedure on how delegates will be elected and allocated, but the communications have only created more confusion with the process.

The lack of an approved process to elect and allocate Minnesota's 38 delegates to the Republican National Convention has the potential to shift the political spotlight on Minnesota as the presidential campaigns of businessman Donald Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and Ohio Governor John Kasich fight to win the required vote total of 1237 delegates to become the Republican nominee for President of the United States at the Republican National Convention.

As I first reported in a post last October, the Republican Party of Minnesota's State Executive Committee finalized the process delegates will be elected to the Republican National Convention.

All delegates from Minnesota to the Republican National Convention in 2016 will be elected proportionately and bound to the winners of the presidential preference ballot at Republican precinct caucuses on March 1, 2016 for the first round of balloting.

Minnesota Republicans will send 38 delegates next year to the Republican National Convention. Three delegates will be elected at conventions held in each of Minnesota's eight congressional districts (24 total delegates) and 11 delegates will be elected at the Republican Party of Minnesota's State Convention. The final three delegates are reserved for the chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota, the Republican National Committeeman and the Republican National Committeewoman from Minnesota.

Delegates elected at the congressional district conventions will be allocated based on the presidential preference ballot results in each congressional district - 24 total delegates.

My post from October also highlighted a potential problem for Republicans with the procedure they established for electing delegates to the national convention.

Current language in both the bylaws and constitution of the Republican Party of Minnesota seems to prohibit the binding of any delegates not elected at the Republican Party of Minnesota State Convention.

Party officials I spoke with about the delegate election process did not express any sense of urgency in updating party governing documents to reflect the new procedure for electing delegates.

In a post earlier this month, political blogger Jeff Kolb first raised questions on the lack of clarity as to how the delegates awarded to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio after he won the presidential preference ballot at Republican precinct caucuses on March 1, 2016 would be allocated after Rubio later suspended his campaign.

Multiple party officials with the Republican Party of Minnesota confirmed on background that Republicans in Minnesota have not officially adopted a uniform party process to elect Minnesota's 38 delegates to the Republican National Convention that fits within the current framework of both the party's bylaws and constitution.

Republicans in each of Minnesota's eight Congressional districts will begin holding conventions to elect three delegates to the national convention later next month. Each congressional convention will determine the procedure they wish to follow to elect their three delegates and nothing prevents this procedure from being amended on the day of the convention.

The 24 delegates allocated to Minnesota's eight congressional districts could be elected under eight different procedures - opening up opportunities for Cruz, Kasich, and Trump to add to their delegate counts.

The remaining 14 delegates - 11 elected at the Republican state convention in May and 3 delegates reserved for the chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota, the Republican National Committeeman and the Republican National Committeewoman from Minnesota will be allocated on a process that will finalized at the convention.

Rule changes made at the 2012 Republican National Convention and later amended by the RNC, require that the results of the presidential preference ballot at Republican precinct caucuses "must be used to allocate and bind the state's delegation to the national convention in either a proportional or winner-take-all manner."

The RNC allowed each state to determine the process by which they would "allocate and bind the state's delegation to the national convention in either a proportional or winner-take-all manner."

The problem facing the Republican Party of Minnesota is the "certified" process established by the State Executive Committee has not been approved by delegates to the numerous conventions where delegates to the Republican National Convention will be elected, nor is the process allowed within the current framework of both the party's bylaws and constitution.

Until the process for each of the nine elections are finalized (all eight congressional districts could have a separate process for the election of their delegates and one additional process will be approved for election of statewide delegates), each process can be amended.