Saturday, February 10, 2007

Michigan State Repubican Convention

The Michigan Republican Party held its State Convention Friday and Saturday.

The only contested statewide race was for Youth Vice-Chairman. Congratulations to Matt Hall, former Chairman of the WMU College Republicans for his victory. The race was very close, and after several delays, the final vote was 998-984. Trevor Pittsley deserves credit for running a strong campaign and making the race closer than most expected.

Congratulations to Gerry Hildenbrand for his election to be 6th Congressional District Chairman.

More on the convention from Republican Michigander (and this too) and Saul Anuzius.

Activists succeeded in passing a resolution demanding that the borders be secured. The resolution passed handily after the rules were suspended to allow its consideration.

Here is the text of the resolution.

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RESOLUTION DEMANDING SECURE BORDERS AGAINST FOREIGN TERRORISTS, ILLEGAL ALIENS, OTHER CRIMINALS & ENFORCEMENT OF LAW

WHEREAS, Border security and immigration enforcement are critical elements in America’s national security, and

WHEREAS, The Republican Party supports legal immigration to our country and acknowledges the tremendous contributions made by legal immigrants throughout our history to our economy and society, and

WHEREAS, Strengthening the capacity of law enforcement to apprehend foreign terrorists, illegal aliens and other criminals entering our country illegally is essential to protecting America and reducing crime in our cities, and

WHEREAS, Immigration enforcement training needs to be provided to state and local law enforcement to strengthen interior enforcement of immigration laws, and

WHEREAS, automatic U.S. citizenship should not be given to “anchor baby” children born in the United States by illegal alien parents as it provides inducement to sneak into our country, and

WHEREAS, Worker eligibility verification should be mandatory for all employers in the state of Michigan and employers held responsible for hiring illegal aliens as employees and be subject to substantial fines, and

WHEREAS, Working or residing illegally in Michigan must not establish rights or financial benefits of any kind for illegal aliens, and

WHEREAS, Any guest worker plan that allows illegal aliens to remain and work in our country will only result in more illegal immigration and increased crime in our country, and

WHEREAS, Respect for the rule of law is a bedrock principle of our country, our culture and our posterity, now therefore be it

RESOLVED, The Michigan Republican Party calls for the immediate securing of our border with all available means and the enforcement of existing immigration laws in the workplace, and be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, The Michigan Republican Party calls for all state funds to be withheld from any city or local jurisdiction that acts as a sanctuary for illegal aliens by advocating policies, written or understood, that prohibit or otherwise thwart cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, and be it

FINALLY RESOLVED, The Michigan Republican Party calls upon the Congress to pass and the President to sign a bill enacting laws to secure our borders and end employment of illegal aliens in the workplace at the earliest possible opportunity and to immediately commence enforcement.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yuck! How are corporations supposed to maintain their profits if legal aliens would be more able to group together to demand higher wages? Illegal immigration keeps the pockets lined of donors to our party! We can't take that away!

brandonlmoore said...

I just wanted to set the record right on the Youth Chair Race. A lot of people think something fishy went on, and if you weren’t invoulded in the process I can see how you could think that.

After the first round of voting Matt Hall had a 70 vote lead. Trevor Pittsley asked for a recount of Distract 9 which is allowed in the rules. Though a recount is really a revote since there is no paper ballots.

A lot of people had left the convention after voting on the race because the convention (As well as hotel checkout) was suppost to be over at noon but by the time the recount happened it was 1:30pm. Trevor did this in hopes that more Hall supporters left the convention then Pittsley supporters. Which I guess one can not fault him to much for in that close of a race.

This was true in Distract 9 where I would say close to and maybe more than half of the distract left the convention. So after the revote or “recount” Trevor picked up 62 votes. Causing Hall to win by 8 votes instead of 70.

Its important to note that 62 votes do not equal 62 people at conventions. Each district is allowed to vote X number of votes and will always cast that many votes in a proportional way. (Example if a distract has a 100 votes but only 20 delegates are there then each delegate’s vote is worth 5 votes.) So a swing of 62 people could really be only like 9 fewer people who left from the first vote to the 2nd.

We need to change how conventions are ran when it comes to voting. Four major things needs to happen. One no Distract should be able to vote before the nominees are nominated. Two the votes should be cast on paper ballots. Third, any recount should be recounted using the paper ballots. Candidates should not be punished because the convention runs 2 hours later then it was supposed to, or because there supports had to check out of the hotel. And Finally all delegates should have to show ID to get there delegate credentials. I heard several reports of people not having there credentials at the table because someone already took them.

Sorry for the long post but I think the Youth Chair race needed to be explained and these ideas need to be thrown out there and I’m going to try to find out how to get these ideas into the Convention rules in the future, so our leaders or chosen in a better more fair and less confusing way.