By Mike Thomas
The RPV State Central Committee will have before it tomorrow the first opportunity since 2004 to end “slating” once and for all.
“Slating” occurs when a local mass meeting, party canvass or unit convention does not elect all candidates for delegate to a convention or to be members of a local Republican committee, even though there are open slots available. Slating can take the form of not electing just one or two qualified individuals all the way up to not electing several hundred.
Although somewhat rare in the last 20 years or so, slating was fairly commonplace in the 1970s and 1980s. Although slating was controversial even then, it resulted in some of the largest mass meetings in RPV’s history. For example, the 1980 Richmond City mass meeting saw nearly 1,000 participants turn out to elect convention delegates in a 3-way race for Congress. Henrico County saw even larger numbers that year.
Slating hit its high water mark in 1978, as delegates were elected to the RPV State Convention to nominate a candidate for U.S. Senate. Interestingly, even though slating was at its peak that year, we nonetheless had our third-largest convention ever, with over 10,000 delegates showing up.
After divisive nomination battles leading up to the 1981 and 1985 conventions, party leaders began using their influence to dissuade campaigns from using slating. Some leaders went so far as to require candidates to promise not to slate before they would commit to support the candidate.
Yet, every year or two slating has reared its head, most prominently in 2014 when it occurred in 3 localities. An amendment to the Party Plan to end slating, put forward by Tom VanAuken of Chesterfield County in the early 2000s, fell short of the votes needed to pass.
Now, after nearly two years of (often animated and always-passionate) discussion, the State Central Committee is poised to consider the issue of slating and its role in our party.
A proposal put forward by the Party Plan Committee, which I believe is proposed with good intentions, would make slating more difficult in some circumstances by requiring a 2/3 vote in order to slate the election of delegates by a unit mass meetings (where prefiling is required) and by unit conventions.
Although well-intended, this proposal really doesn’t do that much about slating. It doesn’t apply to mass meetings where prefiling isn’t required. It doesn’t apply to the election of delegates by a party canvass. It doesn’t apply to the election of county and city committee members.
If we need to amend the Party Plan to address slating – and I believe we do – why in the world would we address some slating and not others? What sense does it make to says that slating is so bad that we need to make it really hard to keep someone from being a delegate to a convention, but at the same time say its ok to slate them if they want to be a member of our county or city committee?
We need to simply get rid of slating once for all. If you’re qualified under the Party Plan, and there is an open spot available, then you get elected.
Because the Party Plan Committee’s proposal preserves slating, I am offering a substitute at the State Central Committee meeting that is simple and applies to all. This substitute eliminates slating altogether. Now. For good.
This substitute differs in several ways from the proposal put forward by the Party Plan Committee (PPC):
• This substitute actually eliminates slating. The PPC proposal does not.
• This substitute applies to mass meetings where there is no prefiling. The PPC proposal does not.
• This substitute applies to Party Canvasses. The PPC proposal does not.
• This substitute applies to the election of county and city committee members. The PPC proposal does not.
This substitute also includes language that requires minimal documentation whenever an individual is determined to be not qualified under Article I of the Party Plan.
We have been discussing “slating” and what to do about it for not just the last 1 1/2 years, but for well over thirty years.
It is just time to get rid of it.
I understand the arguments of allowing Republicans locally to decide who represents them at a convention. I also understand the argument that there may be instances where an individual has not outright disqualified himself or herself, yet has publicly harmed the Party or our candidates nonetheless.
But the amount of time, angst, anger and division that has arisen out of slating far outweighs any need to preserve the practice.
So, yes, we need to get rid of slating. But, we either need to get rid of it, or we need to accept it and stop complaining about it because our time and energy must be spent on more productive actions.
Mike Thomas is First Vice Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia and lives in Chesterfield County.
