A push to limit floor fights at future Republican conventions has failed, reports Politico, despite the efforts of Memphis attorney John Ryder.
Romney campaign ally John Ryder, a Tennessee national committeeman, proposed an amendment to the RNC Rules Committee that would require candidates to control the most delegates in at least 10 states, instead of the current five, to officially compete for the nomination.
Though the measure would not have taken effect until 2016, it would drastically raise the bar for candidates like Ron Paul trying to continue their fight through the convention. It would also make it much harder for anyone to ruin an incumbent president’s coronation.
“Everyone recognizes that conventions are television events, and they have to be – just as the nightly news – on a tight schedule,” said Ryder. “We’re long past the days of smoke-filled rooms and unbound delegates. So the results are a foregone conclusion.”
Paul sympathizers on the rules committee spoke out forcefully against the change.
Morton Blackwell, a longtime party activist from Virginia, called it “a choke operation” that would have a chilling effect.
“We have got to, in this party, treat newcomers fairly, to the extent possible,” he said. “This would be taken as a slap in the face to grassroots people.”
When it became clear that Ryder didn’t have the votes, he agreed to keep the threshold at five – as long as candidates could produce written proof that they actually controlled the delegations in each of those states. That change passed.