The Price Of Liberty Is Eternal Vigilance

Our Founding Fathers understood that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Many of us have forgotten that. We live in a busy, complicated world, and it is hard to stay tuned to the nuances of the political world around us and how those nuances impact our lives. In recent years there has been a power struggle between the political class and ordinary citizens attempting to exercise their voice in America‘s government. We are a Representative Republic–not a Democracy, and unfortunately we have reached a point where we have a political class that does not always respond to the needs of the people they are supposed to represent. In fact, in many cases, the political class desires only to hold on to their power to the detriment of the people they are supposed to represent. We are seeing that situation unfold today in the North Carolina legislature.

On July 26, I posted an article about the date of the North Carolina Presidential Primary. If the Primary Election took place in February, North Carolina would lose most of its delegates. If the Primary Election took place before March 15th, the delegates would be awarded proportionally, giving more weight to the delegates of the liberal states that hold later primary elections. Having the Primary Election before March 15th allowed the more liberal establishment Republicans to control the outcome–the desired outcome of the establishment being the nomination of Jeb Bush. The North Carolina legislature has written a bill to change the date to March 15th, which would solve the problem. Unfortunately, the establishment Republicans have decided to add a poison pill to the bill. If the bill is passed with the “Affiliated Party Organization” Amendment, it will strip the existing state Republican Party of its power. Why would they want to do that? Because at the North Carolina GOP Convention this summer, two political outsiders were chosen to head the party.

The Daily Haymaker posted the details of the story yesterday.

The article explains:

Since that happened (the election of political outsiders to lead the party) at the NCGOP’s June convention, party establishment insiders have been scheming about how to wrest control of the funds from these *filthy tea partiers.*

There have been attempts to go around the two new elected party chieftains by inserting highly loyal (to the establishment) senior staffers inside the party HQ.  Several attempts at that have failed, and it appears another one is on the way to doing so.  

House insiders are hot under the collar about these last minute changes.  One quipped to me that the bill should be renamed “The Shumaker-Stewart-Leis-Dollar Retirement Guarantee Fund.”

Basically, these changes allow for Jones Street “honorables” to create FOUR new party organizations THEY FULLY CONTROL and thereby weaken / neuter their existing party apparatus.  It’s establishment weasels thumbing their noses at the worker bees outside the beltline.  

It is time for the American people to take back their government. This begins at the local and state level. The “Affiliated Party Organization” Amendment is an effort by the political class to prevent the average citizen from having a voice in the government. The Amendment was introduced by State Rep. David Lewis (R-Harnett), chairman of the House Rules Committee. The Primary Election needs to be moved to March 15th, but not in a bill that includes this amendment. The establishment Republicans in North Carolina should be ashamed of themselves. The people of North Carolina need to stand up and take back their state. They began with the election of Hasan Harnett and Michele Nix to lead the party. Now we need to fight to make sure what we have done stays in place.

The Fight To Be Heard

One of the frustrating things about watching the political scene right now is the feeling that only rich people and lobbyists are being heard by our elected officials. I am willing to admit that I often have that feeling. However, sometimes the obstacles that keep average Americans from being properly represented come from the parties that claim to represent them.

I spent today in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the state legislative buildings. I was part of a group that spoke with a number of state representatives and senators. I also attended a committee hearing on education issues. So what did our group accomplish? First of all, I need to explain that we were a group of eleven Republicans from the 3rd Congressional District of North Carolina. We went to Raleigh to talk to our representatives about a number of issues.

The North Carolina legislature is structured in such a way that if a House of Representatives or Senate bill does not make it out of its committee by April 30th, the bill will not be heard in this year’s session. Because it is April 28th, the legislative building was a very busy place. There were an awful lot of lobbyists running around. We were a group of unpaid, ordinary citizens. However, we did speak to a number of legislators.
One of the issues our group was concerned about was the date of the Republican Presidential Primary Election in North Carolina. The primary was originally scheduled for one week after the South Carolina primary, which would have put it in February. The Republican National Committee told the State of North Carolina Republicans that if their primary was held before March 1st, they would have 12 delegates attending the Republican National Convention, rather than the 72 they were originally assigned. The State Republicans were told that if they held their primary before March 15th, the delegates would be distributed proportionally according to the results of the primary election. If the primary were held after March 15th, it would be a winner-take-all primary. Currently a bill has passed out of committee in the North Carolina House of Representatives to hold the Republican Primary on March 8. Many North Carolina Republicans are hoping the date on that bill will be changed to March 22–the first Tuesday after March 15th. So what is this all about? An article posted by National Review on September 3, 2014, explains exactly what is going on in its headline, “Proportional allocation of delegates in early-voting states will make it hard for non-establishment candidates to rack up leads.”

That is the game being played, and that is the reason that grass-roots candidates are having such a hard time in the Presidential primaries.

The article reports:

This is a potential death sentence for the conservative candidate. Most of the highly conservative southern states traditionally hold their primaries inside of the March 1–14 window. If that occurs again in 2016, a conservative candidate will probably not gain many delegates over the establishment choice by winning the states in his base. Even if a southern state in the window allocates, as many non-southern states do, three delegates to each congressional district on a winner-take-all basis, the proportional allocation of the statewide delegates will place a conservative statewide winner at a severe disadvantage. He or she will then have to compete in less hospitable states that have the freedom to select all of their delegates by winner-take-all methods.

The article shows how the new rules could prevent a conservative from winning the nomination:

The 2016 preliminary lineup already foreshadows this danger. According to the website FrontloadingHQ.com, ten of the 15 southern or border states (including Texas, Virginia, and North Carolina) are currently scheduled to hold their contests before March 14. Three other caucus states where conservatives traditionally do well (Iowa, Minnesota, and Colorado) are also scheduled to hold their contests before the window closes. Conservative Utah is also in this group, as are the two midwestern states where Rick Santorum did best in 2012, Michigan and Ohio.
 
Under the RNC’s new rules, a conservative could run the table in these events and yet barely open up a delegate lead. The establishment choice could easily make up ground and then some in less conservative states such as Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.

The Republican Party is signing its death warrant if it continues to attempt to shut out conservative voters and conservative candidates. The energy in the party has come from the conservative movement, and the boots on the ground have generally been conservative. The establishment wants to hold the power, but they are not generally the ones doing the groundwork.

I am hoping the North Carolina legislature will move the Republican primary to March 22, but I am not optimistic.