This could be a game changer in next week's convention. Even this weekend's rules committee could propose rules citing this federal ruling as justification for striking down party rules which bind delegates.
 | Oklahoma's statutes for party delegates are almost as stiff as Virginia's but each of those seeking to be a delegate is first required by party rules to sign an affidavit which can be the basis for civil suits. Oklahoma state statutes does order the maverick delegate to be removed from the convention, and we expect this Virginia precedent to also void the expulsion clause in Oklahoma. For a better explanation of current Oklahoma statutes regarding national delegates, read my April blog post. OKGOP Chair, Pam Pollard had said that if all 3 candidates who received Oklahoma primary delegates do get formally nominated, she will announce the state's vote without caucusing and conducting a formal vote at the Cleveland convention. If just one of those three (Cruz, Trump, or Rubio) are not formally nominated, she will need to conduct a vote so that unbound delegates can cast their own choice. Steve Byas broke this story on his column, in 'The New American'. |
Robert Payne, senior judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, has ruled unconstitutional Virginia’s statute that provides criminal penalities for delegates who do not follow the results of the presidential preference primary. Payne, nominated in 1992 by President George Herbert Walker Bush, declared late Monday that the statute “exceeds the powers retained by the Commonwealth of Virginia under the Constitution of the United States and cannot be enforced."
The essence of the ruling is that Virginia may not impose any criminal penalties on delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, who refuse to vote for Donald Trump. Trump received about a third of the vote in Virginia’s primary, narrowly edging out Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Under Virginia’s state primary law, a candidate does not have to receive a majority of the vote to win all the state’s delegates, but just a plurality (more votes than anyone else). Under Virginia law, a Class 1 misdemeanor provided that any delegate who did not vote according to the outcome of the Virginia primary could be sent to jail “for not more than twelve months,” or face a “fine of not more than $2,500, either or both.”
