Anti-Trump leader now says RNC options are ‘very limited’
CLEVELAND — One of the central players behind the effort to allow delegates to the Republican convention to vote their conscience said any options for further protests this week are “very limited.”
Dane Waters, with Delegates Unbound, told Yahoo News on Monday that his group of anti-Trump and pro-grassroots insurgents had run out of options after the Republican National Committee squelched a revolt by several hundred very noisy delegates.
“It’s very clear that it is rigged against the delegates,” Waters said. “So what’s our next steps? They’re very limited at this time, I can assure you. But I can also assure you that these delegates, in some capacity, will make it clear how they feel about Donald Trump.”
But Waters said any such efforts would be organic and not organized. Over the past several days, there was genuine energy behind the effort to unbind delegates from their state primaries’ results. But the RNC and the Trump campaign were more organized, and with the control of the Rules Committee and the chairman’s gavel in the convention hall, they were able to out-organize the rebels and crush their efforts.
Waters and his group have encouraged delegates to abstain from voting if they do not want to support Trump. But Monday’s events on the floor demonstrated that it takes herculean effort and many voices to even get recognition from the chair.
Additionally, if delegates do abstain from voting for Trump, most state delegation chairs will ignore their abstention and report their state’s tally as fully supportive of Trump. Rebellious state delegations are likely to not even be called on by the chair.
But Waters insisted that delegates should not abdicate their role in the primary process.
“We are encouraging delegates to continue to vote their conscience,” he said. “The Republican Party is a private association. [Delegates] have the right to choose the head of the private association. Everything I’ve done in my life is about respecting the rule of law.”
“Preference primaries is not the rule of law. It’s a private association,” Waters said. “These delegates should have the right to exercise their authority in a private association.”
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