GOP forced to confront divide on LGBT issues in Cleveland

The draft of the GOP party platform explicitly calls for building the wall – after the man who is now the presumptive presidential nominee spent more than a year obsessing over it.

The riots between anti-war protesters and Chicago police outside the convention venue was an outward example of the political disarray inside as delegates battled over candidate nominees Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern.

District 36 Republican delegate David Covey said will not be in the camp of switching votes.

“The court has confirmed what we have said all along: Rule 16 is in effect and thus delegates, including Correll, are bound to vote in accordance with the election results”, Trump Campaign attorney and former FEC Chairman Don McGahn said in a statement.

“There’s so much energy to do this”, said Dane Waters, co-founder of Delegates Unbound, one group challenging the widely held conventional wisdom that GOP rules require almost all delegates to back a specific candidate, based on state primaries and caucuses.

Over the course of the conventions delegates will attend speeches, meet with party officials, discuss party issues and hobnob with elected leaders.

If approved by 57 committee members, the proposal will be added to the committee’s rules package and sent to the 2,472 convention delegates for consideration.

Finishing almost 40 percentage points higher than his closest rival, Trump did so well among Rhode Island’s GOP voters in the April 26 primary that most of the state’s delegates are die-hard supporters who were elected to represent him.

“I suspect there are probably a dozen or so members of the convention rules committee”, Mr. Ash said on C-SPAN Wednesday.

Mr. Trump has support from a majority of delegates, but that support would slip if delegates were freed to back any candidate for the nomination.

The “unbinding” resolution goes to the full convention as part of a broader rules package, with a recommendation that it pass. Approval requires support from half of the 2,472 delegates. The convention’s presiding officer – who at times will be Priebus or House Speaker Paul Ryan – has clout to decide who to recognize on the convention floor to make procedural motions.

In the Republican primaries, around 16 million voted against Donald Trump.

If they do, said Unruh, “It will be on global TV that they ignored” the rebels and their interpretation of party rules.