Observations on the 2009 Maryland GOP Spring Convention

This post ended up with fewer pictures in it because I didn’t take a large number (about 15 total).

I arrived at the Clarion in Hagerstown too late to cover the Executive Committee meeting, but was told by Justin Ready of the Maryland GOP that little of consequence occurred aside from the pledge to support a petition effort to rid the state of speed cameras. (By the way I signed the petition.)

It wasn’t a bad number of people still about for the social milling around 11:00 or so when I arrived. One thing that was sort of nice about the hotel was that suites were primarily placed around a central bar and gathering place. And no one was thrown into the pool, at least not while I was present.

I did manage to get a nice shot of most of the Wicomico contingent present. As you read on you’ll find that’s a story unto itself.

So we all went to bed, thinking about some of the agenda items which were on the docket for the next day. In our packets we had three resolutions to consider; additional items on the slate were a number of reports and an election to fill the party’s vacant Third Vice-Chair position.

Our breakfast host and speaker was Hagerstown Mayor Robert Bruchey. On the whole his remarks were the sort I liked: short, sweet, and to the point. He briefly explained how he got to the position he was in, noted his accomplishments came despite a City Council controlled by Democrats, and spoke about some of Hagerstown’s assets like its arts and entertainment district and a soon-to-be opened School for the Arts in downtown Hagerstown – achieving this while rolling back the city’s property tax by a penny. It was a nice contrast to some of the more long-winded remarks we’ve been subjected to on previous occasions.

Politics rarely runs on time and we didn’t get the room in order until about 10 or 15 minutes after the scheduled 9 a.m. starting time for the convention. However, we managed to blow through many of the reports and other party business in fairly short order. All that was left was a review and debate of the three resolutions on the agenda – and that’s where the trouble began.

This was the seventh state convention I’ve attended, dating back to the one just prior to my election to the Central Committee in 2006. At one point we had established the concept of regional chairs in lieu of the three vice-chairs we now have but found out later that an error in having this conform with convention rules made its adoption null and void. Thus, several attempts had subsequently been made in bringing back this idea but none had met with success because opponents continually stated various items needed to be addressed.

So the adoption was pushed back to after the 2010 elections (to address the concern of shortening the terms of the existing vice-chairs), the proposal was recodified to match the new by-laws, regions were changed, and so on and so forth. Finally it seemed we had something that could make it over the 3/5 hurdle needed for by-law changes – we were barely short in the Fall Convention last December.

That is until someone whose name I missed but who hails from Montgomery County came up and whined that we had much more important business as a party to do than talk about this issue, and we’d done so ever since she was elected in 2006 (the same election I was voted in.) Well, we do have many important issues but obviously no one had asked their inclusion on the agenda! Part of the reason we gather is to conduct the business of the party, and the regional chairs idea would help the party do its business in a more sensible way. Anyway, she made the motion to table the regional chairs question until after 2010.

My narrative is going to skip ahead somewhat, because the same fate also befell a different proposal which would establish each county’s voting strength based not on the number of registered Republicans in each county (the current method) but on the number of votes cast for GOP top-ticket candidates in the previous General Election. Again, I believe it was somebody from Montgomery County who asked the issue be tabled.

Now, Jim Pelura can talk all he wants about how “every voice is important” in the Maryland Republican Party and how we’re “gaining momentum” as he did last Saturday. He can also speak to how we “may be a minority but we’re not irrelevant” in Annapolis. But those of us from the rural counties who provide the backbone of the party’s support and a good deal of its “bench” sure feel like the red-headed stepchildren when it comes convention time.

We have been promised the concerns will be addressed though and I look forward to a solution which satisfies those who make up the grassroots of the party. With that I can get back to a narrative.

Many of the other speakers delivered their usual reports to the convention on national and state doings. Joyce Terhes went through a laundry list of how our freedom had been eroded over the last 100+ days and Louis Pope chimed in with the need to fight a “600 front” war with Democrats, referring to the approximate number of county elected officials in the state.

District 2 Senator Donald Munson had the honor of giving a rundown of the General Assembly session, noting that while each session of the body has its charm and peculiarity, this one was “short on charm but big on peculiar.” We got to Annapolis broke and we left there the same way. Maybe that’s why we had these signs around the hall.

It was at this point that the resolutions were placed on the floor and subsequently tabled. For the record, the counties which voted to table both resolutions were Anne Arundel, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Carroll, and Montgomery. Between the five they control 70.711 LCD votes, which is a majority of the 141 available.

On the other hand, those counties who voted not to table either proposal (Cecil, Dorchester, Frederick, Harford, Queen Anne’s, Somerset, Talbot, Washington, and Wicomico) control a scant 35.716 LCD votes – mostly from Harford and Frederick counties. Tellingly, there were no representatives from three Eastern Shore counties: Kent, Caroline, and Worcester. (Although, they combine for less than 4 LCD votes.)

Yet those counties on the Shore generally elect Republicans.

We also needed to fill a vacant Third Vice-Chair position, with the two candidates being Brandon Butler of Garrett County and Kelly Schulz of Frederick County. Schulz was an easy winner in this election, carrying all but four county delegations.

With the uproar about the resolutions being tabled, one piece of new business was suggested: a Convention Committee to look at several items including siting and voting. It was an effort to end the “rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic.”

Finally, we had a nice lunch with guest speaker Congressman Roscoe Bartlett. After explaining why he ran in the first place – because he didn’t believe his kids and grandkids would grow up in the same America he did – the Congressman started out by blaming the housing crisis on “overregulation” and admitting to be somewhat ambivalent about total Democrat control, as the more dumb things they do the better Republicans look.

Roscoe also noted that he agreed in part with Rush Limbaugh about wanting Obama’s policies to fail, but certainly wants the country to come back strong despite them. Don’t confuse the two, he warned. Bartlett also called on the tea parties to become an “enduring” movement and explained that the Democrats were good people – just wrong on ideas.

One concept he spent some length on was health care; or, as he put it, the “best sick care in the world.” Some items he wanted to see as a counter to socialized medicine were total portability in health insurance (in other words, not tied to an employer), eliminating the cap on pre-existing conditions, and a growth in health savings accounts. Most of these were solid conservative approaches to the issue, which means they’re not going to be adopted anytime soon.

Finally, Bartlett waxed eloquent on “needing a cultural change”. Instead of celebrating the athletes of the world, we need to show more appreciation to the nerds. Why should smart people have to play dumb to be accepted?

Actually, that’s a good question to wrap this piece up with. In general, the GOP has a good share of intelligent folk so it shouldn’t be that hard to place the power struggle aside and come up with a system for running the party everyone can live with. I look forward to finding out what changes are made come fall.