Anaheim seems to be home to the California Republican Party’s favorite southern home for convention activities. This report on the convention centers on our platform, which was released a year after the governor’s election. The platform has been contentious, for at least the last generation.
Of course, this weekend there were some special guests from Donald Trump to Senator Tim Scott attending, but not all the delegates and guests had the 150-500 dollars for attending these dinners and lunches. Some of us would rather buy LA Rams tickets.
Activists question the Party’s positions on abortion and “family values” – some say these positions sustain the health of the party, while others say they’re electoral death, while Democrats use them as wedge issues to beat our candidates. (See Assembly Districts 40 and 76 for example.)
Do we Republicans need to regain a relationship with people of color and religious groups like Muslims and Hindus in order to once again gain a foothold in our state? As a former candidate I learned that GOTV does make a difference and the district lines made by the “Independent, but really progressive“ groups” may not be beautiful works of art, but we must work with them. We can’t just simply endorse the best Democrat; we must run candidates in those districts. As ghastly as the redistricting lines may be, we Republicans must work that much harder. Knock on those doors and reach out during neighborhood events to reclaim the lost ground.
We Republicans have a flaw – we do not plan and we just want the easy route, but we must do the challenging work to change California for the better. Moderates and reformers feel that our platform is basically a weapon the Democratic Party uses against us, Conservatives feel that we need to distinguish ourselves dramatically from Democrats. But right now the Democratic Party being pushed so far to the left – crime is rewarded, explicit library books are available to school children, and with the ambivalence towards our energy issues there is plenty for Republicans to speak up about besides abortion and the LGBT issues.
Religious voters say if we turn against them, they will walk away and not be as engaged. Those 16,000 ballots collected at the local mega-church in my AD might dwindle down to 1/10th the amount if we betray them. Perhaps Republicans should give the religious and conservative voters four years to prove their point. If Republicans fail to win elections, then maybe our platform needs to be buzz sawed to oblivion even if demanding work does not make a difference. If they can pull some upset victories in the state legislature such as the socially conservative Inland Valley, then we can carry on as usual because they would earn a mandate for better or worse.
I am not asking for us to have a drag performance at our Sunday general meeting or feminist beanies being passed out in our convention tote bags to celebrate abortion rights. Voters do not want total restrictions or total allowance for abortions overall. I support states having the freedom to limit or have a defined limit for elective abortion at the end of the 12th week for states who refuse to have stricter limits. Look at Ohio and Kansas, they are not exactly bastions of progressive politics, but they know when one side goes off the deep end.
The question we need to ask is if we refuse to compromise, are we ready to become more irrelevant like the Hawaiian Republican Party or West Virgina Democratic Party? Democrats are steamrolling us on many issues and helping the state becoming more irrelevant by the day. We need people to become Republicans even though the orthodoxy may be out of place, but we need modernization.
If the platform needs to be reformed there needs to be a better process in which the state party would determine what the delegates want. We should have a scoping session during the first convention of the year after a governor’s election. The focus group study would be distributed to the delegates so we can understand what the membership wants. Then the drafting committee meeting used to debate the drafting document should only be the exclusive meeting held. The 2023 drafting committee was run after an executive committee meeting where it made the facilitators ram through the submitted amendments. Also, we need a provision that bans any draft platform from being stealthy submitted. A future amendment should advocate for draft platforms must be on display on the state party website for at least five business days before the drafting committee meeting.
The reformers who tried to moderate the platform should have remembered the platform fight of 2011 which made delegates angry which led to the 2008 document carried over to 2012. If we fail to remember our history, we are always doomed to repeat our mistakes. We need a fresh document that talks about 2023 issues, not issues from 2008, 2012, 2015, 2019. There are articles from 2011 that discuss the failures of pushing thru the 2011 draft document that should have been read from Assemblyman Wallis, Assemblyman Mathis, and the Chairman of the Los Angeles County Party Tim O’Reilly. Learning from these mistakes will help the reformers do better in 2027.
I may not be happy at what happened during the convention for what went on in the platform, but do we have those missing voters to win those elections with our current document or can we have voters return home to the Republican Party as demonstrated in Congressional Districts 47 and 49 where we lost those districts. There are cities across this state have shown weaker Republican Party performance since Trump was elected in 2016. College educated voters and women are not buying what we are selling. I love California, but the voters who are voting for Democrats are killing our state. It is tragic that delegates sent our state party to its doom because they feel that they would rather sell California to the wolves instead of risking spiritual death for compromising. Politics is about the art of compromise just as how Trump authored a book about the art of the deal and it’s ironic how many of the platform defenders have values contrary to Trump’s personal values.
One big question I would like to ask much of our party is how can we protect children if we cannot win elections? It seems our failure to win hearts and minds of our state is the reason why our children are threatened by the legislation our Democrats write?
The problem is many of the gains made for LGBT people in the Republican Party in California are at risk of being undone. However, with California having Republicans leave by the dozen each hour to other states, we need to add more people to our coalition. Some of the religious radicals want to eradicate non-straight and gender non-conforming members out of the party and banish us to Siberia like how the Texas state party has done for generations.
If you are an independent voter as no party preference, or a Democrat who is looking to walk away, be a critical voter this upcoming election year. Ask about their positions about inclusion of LGBT people in the Republican Party, not all of us believe that minors should be allowed to transition via medication or have surgeries such as total breast removals. Not all of us believe that smutty library books should be purchased for minors with taxpayer money. Sadly, a good segment of the religious faction in the
Republican Party still carries ignorant stereotypes about people like us. There is no fault in abstention if none of the candidates are worthy of your vote. Make inclusion one of your key factors in how you vote.
Matthew Munson was the first out San Bernardino County Party central committee member and served on the California Republican Party Committee from 2003-2004, 2014-2024.
From Steven Frank —
Grassroots to Team Jessica – Don’t try that again!
If you’ve never experienced a Convention Session chaired by Jessica Patterson, you should sometime before she is termed out. She has become a practiced session manager after a rough start several years ago, where her rudeness was greeted with loud boos. Having learned her lesson, she will patiently manage motions made by the hoi polloi, adroitly drawing out their intent for all to understand.
Then after a discussion on the motion, she will call for a vote. When announcing the motion to be decided, she will follow it with this: “The Chair is asking for a No (or Yes) vote. Mr. (or Ms.) Delegate is asking for a Yes (or the opposite) vote.”
Neither the CRP by-laws nor Roberts Rules forbid this. From her powerful position, she tells her supporters how to vote. And she’s been doing this ever since she became chairwoman of the State Central Committee. It’s unsettling to many. They wish they could find a way to stop it.
Maybe they have.
As usual, before every vote leading up to the vote on the Platform on Sunday, Jessica told the convention how to vote. But when it came to the vote on the Platform, she just called for the vote. There was no announcement of how to vote. Chants went up, “Jessica, tell us how to vote.” “Jessica, what are you hiding?” She refused to announce HER vote or tell HER delegates what she wanted.
Why? Because she did not want her fingerprints on the defeat she knew was coming or remind people of her complicity in engineering the biggest fiasco of her tenure. She might be the captain, but she wasn’t going to go down with the ship. No, that job was left to her first mate, Tim O’Reilly, the self-proclaimed Eisenhower Republican.
That’s the end game. Here’s how it went down.
Her wingman, Andy Gimmekandy, was tasked with electing “her” people to the Platform Committee. He did a great job. Almost every member of the Drafting Committee was on “her” slate. Jessica then appointed the Chair of the Platform Committee, “rising star” Tim O’Reilly. The Generalissimo was there to get the needed exposure to replace her when she is promoted to the chairwomanship of the Republican National Committee.
Jessica Patterson owned the Platform Committee. She owned the eager Chairman. Everything was in place for a well-orchestrated takedown of the platform they loathed. There were no barriers to doing the very thing they wanted—gut the GOP Platform by removing the antiquated pro-life plank that protected innocent life from conception to natural death, the defense of traditional marriage as between one man and one woman, and religious freedom.
Generalissimo O’Reilly did the dirty work with Sergeant Assemblyman Devon Mathis whipping the votes. Like George Patton, he moved a one-page platform faster than shoving “crap through a goose.” Those who were paying attention had no chance to object. You can see one member describe the process here: HowAmendmentsToPlanksAreConsidered.mp4
And “crap” it was. But Jessica was proud.
What they didn’t understand was that their maneuverings united the grassroots in opposition to the O’Reilly platform, led by the Tea Party Caucus. Startled Party leaders, County leaders, the CRA and legislators came together to oppose it. Like Yamamoto after Pearl Harbor, they awakened a “sleeping giant.”
Finally, leaders like National Committeewoman Harmeet Dhillon, Orange County Chairman Fred Whitaker, San Diego County Chair Paula Whitsell, and others, led by Board of Equalization member Ted Gaines—sent a letter to delegates opposing the O’Reilly platform, reminding them of the consequences of going “woke.”
Then legislative leaders like Assembly Leader Gallagher and Senate Leader Jones got on board, with numerous other members of the Legislature. Only one GOP legislator supported the “Bud light” platform—Sergeant Assemblyman Devon Mathis. He’s the same guy who for the Cap-and-Trade bill to burden us with all the “green regulations” and a trillion dollars in taxes over the next decade or two.
Our elected legislators cornered Andy Gimmekandy for working hard to harm their re-election. Two of them individually went to Andy Gimmekandy and told him to STOP working for the “platform of suicide.” He was told to “stand down” or “he would be gone.”
Who were the winners in this battle? The grassroots. They won the day with 78% of the delegates voting to keep the 2019 platform with its grammar and spelling errors and out-of-date issues. They woke up our legislators and caused them to realize that the Party leadership was not only harming our 2024 candidates and nominees but threatening their re-election. Nothing moves God or man more that personal interest. See the Lord’s prayer.
Who were the losers? Vice Chair Corrine Rankin and Platform Committee Chairman Tim O’Reilly. Corrine’s job was to get the “platform that said nothing” passed. She failed. Like the good soldier he is, Tim produced his “gem” and was rewarded with an appointment as Regional Vice Chair. This defeat has probably cost him his chance to run for CRP Chairman in 2025—as the candidate supported by Jessica. Now, she has to find another candidate to run against Corrine.
The short-term damage for Tim O’Reilly was even worse. At Saturday’s Los Angeles Regional Caucus meeting, the Los Angeles County Republican Party chairman Tim O’Reilly stood for a full term as Los Angeles County Regional Vice Chair, a state board position, the next logical step in his ascension to CRP Chairman.
But with the threat from Legislators, a distracted Andy Gimmekandy failed to manufacture the votes Tim needed to win like he had done previously for Tim’s ascension to Los Angeles County Chairman. David Hernandez, a real conservative Republican, won election to a seat held for years by Jessica’s rubber stamp, 68 to 61. To add insult to injury for Jessica, a long-time grassroots activist, Jon Paul White, won the Associate Representatives position on the Executive Committee, 61 to 55.
For the first time, the Legislators realize that Patterson and her establishment leadership have been using them instead of working with and for them. Perhaps the most crucial lasting effect of this loss is this realization. Hopefully, they will tread carefully in the future rather than just trusting Patterson and her folks.
(1) Did you just post an entire unattributed (which includes where it was published) story on our blog? Pick your favorite four paragraphs (first three words of each will identify them) and they can stay. Of this is from Equis, that’s fine — but you have to say so!
(2) I thought that Matt was just being funny. There’s really a guy named “Andy Gimmekandy”?
Andy Gharakhani – A “politico” – possibly a lobbyist. Advisor to yet to announce, possibly won’t run, for US Senate – Steve Garvey.
I don’t usually post full long articles, but I thought this one is pretty good & informative. I am a delegate. It was posted in California Political Review.
I put the link in the open thread. You can crib a few paragraphs from it and summarize what you’d like.
I don’t mind people coming after me or this blog, but I do mind when they’d be justified, as here.
Disappointing article. I object to the use of the images of innocent non partisan crabs. (My spirit animal )
I was surprised to hear that there actually was a Republican platform. Thought that went away and they still just professed 100% fealty to TFG.
No mention of Forest Floor Dampening, Pelosi’s Hammerhead Hubby, or “MotherFucker” .
Overall looked like a pretty dismal Convention. Definitely more fun when you add the Gays.
And yes, precinct walking can be a real eye opener. It’s interesting when you actually talk to the people you want to represent and not just mail them political hit pieces about what you’re gonna do to them if elected. Book banning, forced pregnancy on 10 year olds…etc. etc.
Now I’m off to watch the (R)s burn McCarthy at the stake for keeping the Govt. open
Have a nice day!.
I’m working on my own report, “Trump Pollutes Anaheim Again.”
The crabs were my idea, inspired by Matt’s title.
Sorry Matt the GOP is fucked and has been fucked since before Trump . Not only do you have to remove the cancerous tumor of trump but also the cause of that tumor Faux Gnus. Until you do that you’ll keep getting new tumors each more metastasizing than the last.
The problem is that your party’s growth strategy is paradoxical—attract new voters by appealing to their impulse to exclude others. And since Republicans have nothing else to offer than the same periodically crashing Wall St. war economy mainstream Democrats embrace, your party is in a nutball extremist-led death spiral.
Ho hum.
Your party swears fealty to the sweating, rotting Yam. The GOP is not even a conservative party anymore. It’s a strange cult made of of grievances glued together by a sheapjack con man.
“Democrats use them as wedge issues..” Bad, bad Democrats. Where did they get the idea of using wedge issues?