A significant faction within the Massachusetts Republican Party has emerged that has concluded that we here at BMG were right all along about how to deal with Mark Fisher’s lawsuit.
To bring you up to speed: a week ago, a Superior Court judge ruled that Mark Fisher, who sued the Mass. GOP over its refusal to allow him on the September primary ballot for Governor, was entitled to proceed with his lawsuit and set a trial date of June 18, with discovery to begin tomorrow, the date by which the party is required to respond to Fisher’s written requests. The discovery process is of course the Mass. GOP’s worst nightmare, because it will require state party officials to testify under oath about what actually did and did not happen in the course of counting the ballots to determine whether Fisher got the required 15% of delegates to support him. If the discovery process goes forward beginning tomorrow, as scheduled, it will be one of the best gifts the local political press has gotten in some time. If the case actually proceeds to taking depositions (i.e., live testimony), which are set to begin May 19 … pass the popcorn.
What to do? As you know, we here at BMG are here to help, which is why we advised Mass. GOP chair Kirsten Hughes of the best way forward over a month ago:
Hughes should overrule [executive director Rob] Cunningham, go with her rules chair, and declare that Fisher got his 15%. That avoids a lawsuit (no way Charlie Baker would sue to keep Fisher off the ballot), it makes her look in-charge and decisive, and it’s the pro-small-d-democratic outcome. It’s also much better for Baker to have a primary, whatever he or the party Pooh-Bahs may think. Fisher is the perfect foil for Baker to prove to independent voters that he’s not the captive of the Tea Party, social conservative, RMG types who are probably the main reason Republicans do so badly in this state year after year. Also, a primary keeps Baker in the news, instead of ceding the free publicity to the Dems as they slug out their five-way battle.
Baker had no primary in 2010, and we all know how that went for him. He and Hughes should hold a presser to jointly welcome Fisher to the primary ballot. They’d both come out smelling like roses.
A couple of days later, in response to Hughes’s announcement that she was going all-in to keep Fisher off the ballot, we observed:
This is such a bad move by Hughes. Instead of inviting Fisher onto the ballot, thus appearing magnanimous and in favor of democracy and competition (isn’t the GOP supposed to like competition?), she’s going to (a) spend a pile of money she can’t afford on a lawsuit that (b) she is probably going to lose, all the while (c) letting the media write about the lawsuit rather than Baker, even though the whole point of keeping Fisher off the ballot was supposed to be to keep the focus on Baker. If she does lose, she ends up looking ineffective and petulant. And even if she wins, what has she achieved? She avoids a primary that Charlie Baker would obviously win anyway, thereby depriving him of the ability to boost his appeal to independent/moderates by contrasting himself with the tea-partying Fisher.
I’d respectfully observe that my prediction in part (c) is exactly what has happened. There’s been a lot more press about the Fisher lawsuit than there has been about anything Charlie Baker has said or done lately.
Well, thank goodness that at least some elements in the Mass. GOP have taken our advice to heart. Today’s Globe reports:
Members of the Republican state committee — some of them Charlie Baker supporters — are calling for a special meeting to discuss putting gubernatorial candidate Mark Fisher’s name on the ballot in an effort to resolve a lawsuit that is causing rancor within the party…. Brock Cordeiro, a state committeeman and a Baker supporter from Dartmouth, said the negative publicity from the disputed convention is casting a “dark cloud” over the election season.
You can read more from Cordeiro himself at RMG. And I do love this bit:
A spokeswoman for the party, Emmalee Kalmbach, said the party was not yet aware of the petition [to force a special meeting] early Wednesday night.
Dang, they haven’t even brought Hughes into the loop yet? One has to wonder at this point whether Scott Brown’s handpicked party chair continues to command the allegiance of the party faithful.
Hughes won her post by a 41:39 vote and there were some irregularities around that, though at the end everyone agreed that the final result was accurate. That’s not exactly a base from which to show strength in a party dispute.
that Hughes, who took office by a disputed vote, now finds a disputed vote to be the highest-profile event since she took over.
On Broadside this was mentioned:
http://www.necn.com/04/25/14/Tea-Partys-Fisher-on-lawsuit-against-GOP/landing_broadside.html?blockID=865611
Is that in the judge’s decision someplace? I didn’t see anything like that and thought maybe NECN misinterpreted something.
There’s nothing like that in the judge’s decision (nor could there be – judges can’t just convert cases from civil to criminal).
Fisher says that “the judge raised criminal.” It’s pretty clear he meant that the judge mentioned there could be something criminal, not that the judge somehow converted or “raised” (?) the case from civil to criminal. No idea why someone would write the article the way they did.
…that Fisher is proceeding with collecting the requisite 10,000 signatures? If he doesn’t get that this is moot. It’s always struck me as odd that the GOP has their convention before the signature deadline anyway.
Really, the party has put him in a very unfair position. It’s hard for him to gather signatures since the party has already said that he can’t be on the ballot, and if the party gets overruled in court, that won’t happen for a while, and he still needs his signatures.
He has a status on his website:
http://www.markfisher2014.com/
I talked to one in front of the grocery store.
Better than being in this position:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/05/03/massachusetts-republicans-embroiled-internal-battle-election-day-approaches/jf61GGFP1bZx73PreXxQGN/story.html
This is a point for our side, and demonstrates how Republicans act. People like Scot Lehigh, Joan Venocchi, and the Herald in general are all ready to pounce on the Dem State Committee for engineering an election result. Those in the know, know it is not so. Letting the contrast stand without any assistance from our side to change it is the correct political road. This was not a matter of a strict convention rule, but a highjacking of Mr. Fisher’s right to be on the Republican primary ballot. There should be no appearance or quarter given that they have seen the light when it will be only a face saving decision by letting the TP candidate participate in the primary. The Republicans didn’t screw up. This is who they are, and the public should know it. They only seek power and benefit for those who don’t need it. Mr. Fisher paid $25,000 to try his hand at getting on the ballot. He did, but the Party pooh bahs made sure he was thrown off and at a high price. No more help from us please, and if they reverse their decision at GOP central it should not matter. They should be exposed for the undemocratic frauds they are.
It is interesting to note that the current chair was the convention chair when Christy Mihos tried to get 15%.
Those convention ballots were audited (at a fee paid by Mihos) and there were irregularities in them. But both candidates made the mistake of not challanging them at the time and demanding that the delegations be polled (ask Kamal Jain, who gained the ballot against Mary Z. using that technique). As fast as delegates were leaving after the Fisher/Baker ballot was cast, if that had been done there would have been a different result.
The crux of the suit is if there is any relief from the 15% rule which is a party bylaw, shared by both parties, which is not MGL but a partisan matter designed to allow the parties to have some say as to bears their designation. Mihos’ lawyers thought not, but were willing to file to settle the matter.
Mihos had similar grounds to Fisher, but chose not to press forward with a suit. Instead, he chose to support and campaign with Baker.
I object to the ‘this is who they are’ meme being floated when two candidates in identical circumstances produced such different results. This is who Fisher is – a candidate with only a tangential relationship to the party. It says more about the man than the party, but in no way excuses the incompetency of the Convention/Party chair who oversaw these fiascos.
In the case of Mihos had the convention been adjourned prior to business having been concluded? That is what Fisher alleges.
If polling the delegations is the same as a recount then that is a thing Fisher asked for. He was told that the rules did not allow for a recount.
As I understand it, Fisher did contest certain blank ballots and initially his challenges were accepted and those blank ballots were tossed (delegates who weren’t present I believe). Later challenges on the same grounds were denied, the appearance being that everyone saw which was the wind was blowing.
Christy also wasn’t close. He had 11% or so if memory serves. Much more a vanity lawsuit in his case.
Anyone blaming Fisher is, in my eyes, just blaming the victim. All the protestations coming from the party that the convention was transparent have been shown to be laughably untrue. I have little sympathy for the black eye the party has given itself. If they wanted to argue that mistakes were made but all results are final, that’s one thing. However, that isn’t their argument at all. They are arguing that the process was fair, the rules were correctly applied, everything was transparent and aboveboard. They have put themselves in a completely untenable position so much so that they forced the judge into thinking fraud was possibly at issue.
The party really needs to stop using that word.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/05/03/massachusetts-republicans-embroiled-internal-battle-election-day-approaches/jf61GGFP1bZx73PreXxQGN/story.html
My understanding was he was denied an opportunity to address this at the convention, which adjourned early.
If he did not exhaust his meaningful options at the convention, he’s probably out of luck.
And it was a good and passionate speech, up until the last 10 minutes or so when it went off the rails a little bit.
If Fisher did not exhaust his appeals to the convention at the convention he probably has no case, UNLESS he was denied the opportunity to raise the procedural issues that he is now litigating.
His right to seek relief from the courts generally begins only if he exhausts his rights to seek relief from the convention.
So, did he?
…not “address this at the convention”, so yes, she meant give a speech. From what I can tell the convention adjourned quickly. For reasons I have never understood the motion to adjourn takes the highest precedence in Robert’s Rules (which GOP convention rules cite as their default manual of parliamentary law). Therefore motions to adjourn can be (ab)used to shut down the possibility of anything inconvenient happening. (Another example I recall is the General Court meeting as a ConCon adjourning before they could address putting marriage equality on the ballot which would have only needed 1/4 agreeing to move forward.) If the vote was announced and adjournment moved immediately it would have to be taken up and if successful the convention would be over. At that point there would be no convention to appeal to and he would in effect be denied the opportunity.
You summed it up well, but Porcupine said Fisher “made the mistake of not challenging…at the time.”
This is a potentially fatal defect in Fisher’s complaint, but if the meeting adjourned before he was able to exercise his challenge, then game on.
Thus, as I said, my question. (Porky?)
PS I think there are actually two motions with greater privilege than the motion to adjourn under Roberts, though I haven’t had to wade through that parliamentary manual recently, thank goodness.
…is to fix the time to which to adjourn if held in multiple sessions or adjourn sine die to make sure the body never reconvenes. Obviously both are variations on the motion to adjourn. Chart is here for those interested.