The Constitution Party held a presidential convention on April 27, and nominated Randall Terry. He defeated Joel Skousen by a vote of 144-80, and there were 40 votes for other candidates. That may not seem close, but the outcome was partly dictated by the party’s rules. They permit some solitary delegates to cast many votes. If a state has the right to have 34 delegates, but it only has a single delegate, that single delegate can cast all 34 votes. Terry received all 34 votes from Florida, but only one delegate from Florida was in attendance, so that one delegate has disproportionate power.
The new rules, effective in 2028, limit each delegate to only one vote. If that change had been effective in 2024, the outcome might have been different. In each of the last two presidential conventions, the party’s national choice has been rejected by multiple state Constitution Parties. This year, the ballot-qualified Constitution Parties of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming, have all refused to list Terry on the ballot.
Similarly, in 2020, the ballot-qualified Constitution Parties of New Mexico, Oregon, South Carolina, and Wyoming wouldn’t list the national convention’s choice, Don Blankenship. It is unprecedented for any nationally-organized minor party in U.S. history to have chosen a presidential nominee in a national convention and then had as many as four ballot-qualified state units of the party refuse to list that candidate, two elections in a row. Clearly the Constitution Party in recent years has a big problem with party disunity, and perhaps a different nomination process at the national convention might help in the future.
I can understand Don Blankenship, but why don’t several state parties like Terry?
I guess the last Constitution party nominee that experienced party unity was Castle?
And yes, one voter having the power of 34 votes is extremely undemocratic lol.
@Progressive Leftist they probably dont like him due to the fact that he wasnt a member until 2024
Did Wyoming nominate Skousen?
Richard,
Back in 2008, at Kansas City of the CP I was the the elected head of the AIP CA delegation. Deemer claimed he was in that head. Clymer as Chairman recognized me. Wm Shear’s daughter thought the proxy’s of her late father
Though they were good so she got staff to giver her the ribbon for all positions for Arizona and California.
We had a floor fight and I won out over both Wm. Shears daughter with her father’s proxy and Deemer Claim.
I took a poll of the CA delegation.
80% backed Alan Keyes. 1 person wanted to vote for himself, namely
Don Grundmann (who could find no one
Other than himself to vote for him).
I was told by Clymer that I could do unit rule and cast all votes for Keyes
from Clymer’s wife.
The bottom line Alan Keyes got 80% of the vote. 20% went to another. Don Grundmann went into a fit of rage on the floor and withdrew form being consided in the mix and cast his vote against Keyes.
The Chairman of the Independent American Party of Nevada contacted Noonan and suggested both party’s leave the Constitution Party. AIP
did. Then King sued Noonan and three
Lawsuit began between 2008 – 2010. KIng lost all three of the lawsuits.
Terry was not consided on last Thursday vote because Don Grundmann is the Chairman of the Constitution Party of California. Grundmann caused a disturbance at the 2010 convention of AIP so Sacramento Police was call by Vincent May to have Grundmann removed from the hall Grundmann was told to live the hall by police once I showed the police they lease agreement for the hall.
Wyoming Constitution Party has no presidential nominee.
Constitution members will probably just vote for Trump this year and be done with it. Constitutional has never fully recovered from the American Independent Party breaking off support in 2012.
Thecommander Jeff on,
it was in 2008 and not 2012. It is my understanding that the main issue of the break was Don Grundmann. No one at AIP wanted anything to do with Grundmann.
Richard Winger,
Any idea why Wyoming Constitution Party has no presidential nominee?
Richard, From where you are getting this information? The CP’s national committee only meets twice per year, once in the spring, and once in the fall. Their next meeting isn’t until November after the election. The Executive Committee meets in between the national meetings, so perhaps this rule change is something they are planning to introduce at the fall meeting, but it wouldn’t be a done deal yet.
@Progressive leftist
“I can understand Don Blankenship, but why don’t several state parties like Terry?”
Utah is furious that despite doing everything they could to rig the convention in favor of Joel Skousen (holding the convention on his home turf and thus having the largest delegation in attendance, giving him 99 minutes of speaking time including an extra rebuttal and every other candidate only 18 minutes, trying to change the rules mid convention so that only delegates physically present could vote, etc.), Skousen still managed to lose.
Nevada apparently has enough mormons in its CP leadership that they also managed to hijack that party for Skousen.
Idaho had already disaffiliated from the national party before and has become a complete joke. They refused to even entertain the possibility of nominating Terry, out of spite towards the national party.
Wyoming, I’m not sure. Could be that they lack enough mormons to secure Skousen, but with other anti-Terry discontents added they do have enough to block Terry. I don’t know.
Blankenship wasn’t a bad nomination, by the way, especially at the time. I deeply regret not having voted for him instead of Trump.
“I guess the last Constitution party nominee that experienced party unity was Castle?”
Not even then. I don’t think there has been unity in the party since Peroutka, who was nominated unanimously in 2004. In 2008, when they decided to nominate Peroutka’s running-mate antisemite Chuck Baldwin over Alan Keyes, they lost the AIP. And they haven’t seen unity since.
“And yes, one voter having the power of 34 votes is extremely undemocratic lol.”
While I certainly agree that letting one delegate cast all the state’s votes is dubious, giving the state where the convention is held and neighboring states inordinate influence because they can more easily send delegates, is even worse. They should just hold primaries, or if that’s impossible, find some way for registered party members to vote remotely.
NUNA ON,
you are wrong, on one point at least.
CHUCK BAlDWIND was not “anti-semitic”.
I recall give him a kippa (Jewish skull cap) made in Israel, which was made in 2007. It was in the style of the Confederate
Flag in.the upper hoist of the State Flag of Mississippi.
My favorable view on Robert F. KENNEDY jr. Was to his posting on February 4,
2024 on X, viz., “As President, i’m
Going to order the CDC to take every step necessary to remove neurotoxic fluoride from American drinking water.”
An American Naval Officer named Dr. Clifford C. DeFord who joined the US Navy in 1929 and was a graduate of the University of Nebraska Dental School in 1927. Who was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral in 1955 and lived and worked in 1944 to 1945 as a Dentist in Moscow, USSR while he was spying on the Soviet Union. In 1944 he wrote a report on the plot of the USSR to place floride poison in the USA and Canadian drinking water. That is why
what Kennedy intention is so important.
The national convention itself changed the rule. Both Frank fluckiger and Jim clymer told me about it.
I was present at the CP Convention in SLC on 04/27 as a delegate from Nevada. There was a floor fight over the proxy vote and I offered a motion to table that because you don’t change the rules upon which the delegations relied during the convention. My suggestion was to keep the rule in place and have the National Committee address this at a later date. Obviously, the NC made the change as suggested. Terry is a one-trick-pony candidate. Abortion is all he cares about, and the Western states decided that would be the end of the party if we were to put Terry on the ballot. When we returned from the convention, we decided to use our ballot status for Joel Skousen. This may come back to bite us in the next convention, as our delegation will be reduced in size because we did not use our ballot status for Terry. So be it.
Would you please put up an article about what all state(s) Terry is on as an independent or anything other than constitution party or its affiliates? Wokepedoya editor’s won’t fix their map because there’s no source they can find in article from. Comments, even from the site author, don’t meet their threshold.
Idaho?
Any others?
The National CP can’t even get their act together on that. Their ballot access map has West Virginia in green even though the party there didn’t even have access in 2020.
Did you not say they submitted a petition this year?
@Mark Seidenberg
I’ll let Baldwin speak for himself:
https://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/3630/Zionism-Not-Islam-Is-Americas-Biggest-Threat.aspx
https://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/3740/Seventy-Years-Of-Turmoil-Treachery-Death-And-Destruction.aspx
https://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/3743/How-Zionist-Israel-Celebrated-Its-70th-Anniversary.aspx
In my opinion that certainly qualifies as raging antisemitism masquerading as anti-Zionism.
Yes, but it ommitted president.