“However You Feel About It, What Happened in Cleveland Was Important”

“HOWEVER YOU FEEL ABOUT IT, WHAT HAPPENED IN CLEVELAND WAS IMPORTANT”

Colorado’s Oral History of the 2016 Republican National Convention

LAUREL KAY TEAL HASTINGS COLLEGE Supervised by Dr. Glenn Avent, Dr. Rob Babcock, and Dr. Michella Marino This senior capstone is dedicated to the only other mountaineer, politico, and Hibernophile in our department: my friend, Nick Musgrave. See you on the Hill. Cheers!

Early in the morning on July 23rd, 2016, Republicans in Colorado House District 29B woke up to an email from their district captain, Dan Green.1 With a send time of 4:13 AM, Rocky

Mountain Standard Time, Green’s email has the weary urgency of someone who has spent a long night thinking. To be sure, he had a lot to think about; in this email to his neighbors, Green effectively summarizes his past week as a delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention.

The email reads like a Netflix political drama. Descriptions of underground grassroots movements, vocal and physical struggles on the convention floor, and bullying by “uncharacteristically efficient” Donald Trump campaign operatives and Republican National Committee members abound.2 As he recounts, all of these things culminated not only in the selection of Mr. Trump as the Republican presidential nominee, but also the “troublemaker” Colorado delegation’s name pillar being accepted into the Smithsonian Institute.3 Summarizing the thoughts of many in his delegation, Green concludes his red eye email by urging, “However you feel about it, what happened in Cleveland was important.”4

From July 18th to July 21st, 2016, Republicans from around the United States gathered in

Cleveland, Ohio for the quadrennial ritual that is the selection of a presidential nominee at party convention. However, the 2016 Republican National Convention would signify a major break from a long history of party precedent and from what is considered proper democratic practice. This is a break carried out both by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee. At the very least, this is what was witnessed and remembered by members of the Colorado delegation to

Cleveland. Partially for their attention-getting “walkout,” but most assuredly because of their role

1 Colorado House District 29B consists of Westminster and the outer Denver/Boulder suburbs. 2 Dan Green, email to Colorado House District 29B Republicans, July 23, 2016. 3 John Frank, “Sign from ‘Infamous’ Colorado Delegation at RNC Heading to Smithsonian,” The Denver Post, July 20th, 2016. 4 Ibid.

2 in the grassroots movement to unbind national delegates from state primary results, the Centennial

State became a focal point of the 2016 RNC.5 It is through their eyes that the workings of this historic turning point for the nation and Republican Party are made clear—a turning point that perhaps marks the first of many in a brave new world unhindered by any historic or democratic precedent of the American political system.

To understand how 2016 breaks from longstanding political standards, one must become acquainted with the convention system and with the Grand Old Party’s role in American politics.

As the renowned historian and political scientist Theodore White often found himself re-iterating in his The Making of the President book series, the national convention system is perhaps one of the most unique quirks of American democracy. While it is admirable in its ability to effectively present a nominee without the cost and frivolity of a national primary, it is also “uniquely and particularly American, drawn from no handbook of political theory, designed by no master philosopher.”6 The practice of party convention, after all, was born out of a happy accident: an

1831 invention by anti-Freemasons frustrated by their lack of voice in the party system.

Consequently, national party conventions exist, or should exist, as the climax of a long, educating process to incorporate all voices of the party. It should be “the final, flexible coupling in a year- long adventure of many men, in many states, whereby the fixed, parochial preferences of each state are finally bargained out on one site, at one time.”7 However, this coming together of states, people, and ideology at convention also serves a more useful—and powerful—purpose beyond the ironing out of party differences. It is also where the only legal vote for president occurs prior to the general election in November.

5 Colorado had 34 delegates to convention. 15 agreed to be interviewed for this project. 6 Theodore White, The Making of the President: 1968 (Harper Perennial, 1969), 363. 7 Ibid.

Indeed, as White once smirked in the face of remarks regarding the chaos of the Goldwater nomination at the 1964 RNC in San Francisco, “here, if anywhere, there should be combat and clash.”8 This is especially true for Republicans. According to 20th century political party historian and contemporary Republican think tank analyst, Geoffrey Kabaservice, “many of the GOP’s proudest achievements were typically the result of negotiations among the GOP’s factions. Internal dispute, for the Republican Party, was often an indication of its vitality as a national force.”9 For the GOP of the 20th Century, this certainly is the case. Kabaservice and White both point to the acceptance of various factions of conservatism during the Eisenhower administration, Goldwater convention, and grassroots movement of the 80s and 90s as being necessary—albeit unsettling— catalysts for strength and unity in the party. Moreover, these actions also allowed for the emergence of presidents such as Nixon and Reagan, “who understood that they had to mediate between a conservative party base and a moderate public… who reserved a role within the party

[for factions] rather than expelling them for ideological heresy.”10 To infight, it would seem, is the Republican way—and one which produces powerful results.

Indeed, it would appear that this has been the case for well over a century. As historian

Heather Cox Richardson argues in her book, To Make Men Free: a History of the Republican

Party, the GOP has been forever locked within its own swinging pendulum along the political spectrum of centrist/progressive and far right, reactionist ideology since the cessation of the Civil

War.11 For example, a quick glance between the late 19th and early 20th century alone can demonstrate this: within a mere decade, the same party that once defended the unregulated

8 Theodore White, The Making of the President: 1964 (Harper Perennial, 1964), 201. 9 Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: the downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party (Oxford University Press: 2013), 399. 10 Ibid. 11 Specifically, Richardson classifies this pendulum as the struggle to preserve individual liberties vs. the struggle to preserve individual property.

4 capitalism of robber barons was able to pivot under Theodore Roosevelt to break up their monopolies.12 According to Richardson, these shifts have always come from within the party’s own ranks—always as a solution when old states of affairs could no longer last, and always manifesting as discourse and clash between the party factions. It would seem then that the GOP is always in a constant state of remaking and has been since Lincoln. Were the party then to ever deny their own infighting—an infighting that usually occurs at convention—they would effectively be denying their own ability to grow and change with the nation, as they have done for well over a century.

However, when speaking on Cleveland, Dan Green lets off with “this is a major break from the way we’ve done things in the past.”13The voices of the rest of the Colorado delegation certainly lend credence to his case. To be fair, some things remain the same as conventions in the past. For many, the end of the week in Cleveland devolved “more into the normal convention atmosphere that people are used to,” as State Representative Kim Ransom remembers following Thursday’s nomination.14 Yet, for almost every member of the delegation, memories of the week’s start carry the sharpness of a tense break from expectation of what convention should be. Instead of the celebration and excitement of previous conventions, State Representative Justin Everett remembers “more doom and gloom and dissention and anger than I had ever seen in the Republican

Party.”15 Rather than the delegates feeling they had a voice and role to play, Anil Mathai remembers “a situation where it was supposed to be all business, and the business didn’t get done...

I had barely been involved in the party.”16 Most frighteningly, rather than the clamorous presence

12 Heather Cox Richardson, To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party (Basic Books, 2014), 163 13 Dan Green. 14 Kim Ransom, telephone interview by author, Douglas County, Colorado, September 22, 2016 15 Justin Everett, telephone interview by author, Littleton, Colorado, September 12th, 2016. 16 Anil Mathai, telephone interview by author, Fort Collins, Colorado, September 26th, 2016.

5 of all of the GOP’s notorious factions in debate, Rules Committee member Guy Short recalls witnessing silencing of all groups but one.17 For Short, this was an “unholy alliance of former enemies” between the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee—one that was “able to come together to crush any type of conservative opposition.”18 Cleveland, undeniably, was to be a different kind of convention.

For Republicans in Colorado, the long adventure to convention began months before, as the Centennial State went to neighborhood caucus on the evening of March 1st, 2016. Unlike their

Democrat neighbors, Colorado Republicans did not participate in a straw poll for presidential candidates. Rather, the only votes casted were for local and state issues, and to elect representatives to the state convention on April 9th. As the Stay at Home Mom turned State Representative, Kim

Ransom, explains “there are two paths to becoming a national delegate here in Colorado. The first is through the Congressional districts. They elect three delegates and three alternates…those happen several weeks after caucus.”19 The other way, of course, is for representatives to the state convention to run for national delegate. Ransom, like many, chose to run “at large” through state convention route—representing not one Congressional district, but the entire state.

At said state convention, conducted in Colorado Springs under the imposing shadow of

Pikes Peak, it soon became clear that supporters had come out full force on caucus night for the only Westerner left in the presidential race: Ted Cruz of Texas. As George Teal, a town councilman from nearby Castle Rock, describes,

“Donald Trump really did not attend at the state assembly here in Colorado, so it was kind of the case that we had a straight shot. … We ran it as a Cruz Slate…We had a very

17 This is Short’s 6th convention as delegate, 2nd convention serving on Rules Committee. Served on Platform Committee in 2012, and served on Committee on Arrangements in 2004. 18 Guy Short, telephone interview by author, Erie, Colorado, September 14th, 2016. 19 Kim Ransom.

aggressive campaign plan going into the state assembly. More so, quite frankly, than many of the individuals that were attempting to secure the nomination for the United States Senate [chuckles].”20 This appears to be the result of months of work. As Regina Thompson, the state director for the

Cruz campaign notes, the campaign had been calling supporters and urging them to show up at caucus for months.21 The calling clearly worked. Indeed, it seems the bulk of the Trump supporters representing Colorado at the RNC only did so as alternates.22 This victory by the Cruz slate garnered attention almost immediately. Within a matter of days, Donald Trump declared the state party system in Colorado to be rigged by a “crooked” and “totally unfair process.”23 This claim was quickly dismissed by the state party.

According the Chairman of the state party, Steve House, accusation by Donald Trump very quickly meant “the Colorado delegation being known for its anti-Trump perspective.”24 House consequently found himself fending off the media for months going into convention. While some in the delegation were adamantly against Trump, it seems that a bulk of the delegates simply preferred another candidate: namely, Ted Cruz. Regardless, the delegation was unlikely to break their allegiance to Cruz. After all, it was a constituent issue; at state assembly, Coloradans had pledged themselves to represent their constituents, and said constituents—almost overwhelmingly—seemed to prefer a candidate other than Donald Trump. As a result, the delegation entered Cleveland under the perception by both media and party that they “might be a menace.”25Colorado consequently found itself quietly seated in the back of the convention center,

20 George Teal, telephone interview by author, Castle Rock, Colorado, September 3rd, 2016. 21 Regina Thompson, interview by author, Aurora, Colorado, September 19th, 2016. 22 Ibid. 23 Valerie Richardson, “Trump blasts “rigged” GOP system after latest setback,” The Washington Times, April 11, 2016. 24 Steve House, telephone interview by author, Denver, Colorado, September 23rd, 2016. 25 Libby Szabo, telephone interview by author, Arvada, Colorado, September 15th, 2016.

7 next to Texas, and with the media bunker immediately behind them—constantly watched, while at the same time, too far out of earshot to be heard from stage without a microphone.

The first Coloradan to set foot in Cleveland appears to have been the aforementioned Steve

House—one of three automatic super delegates, given his status as chairman. That previous summer, the ex-healthcare consultant had made national headlines thanks to a Wild West style confrontation by fellow party members. At the Warwick Hotel in Denver in the July of 2015, three state party leaders unhappy with his short track record attempted to blackmail House, forcing his resignation.26 Rather than doing so, House turned right around and reported the entire confrontation to local media.”27 Almost a year to the day of his forced resignation attempt, he was now arriving in Cleveland—two weeks earlier than the actual convention start date—to attend

RNC meetings with fellow party chairmen and chairwomen from across the country. Among these tasks was the formal approval of Colorado’s 9 Electoral College members.28 Staged in a room with one massive desk, and flanked by the flags of all fifty states, Electoral College members’ names are handwritten down by the state party chair before being given to leadership for approval. House describes the ritual as “bizarre to watch, in some respect,” saying,

“you’re just kind of there watching this: the majority leader, the Speaker of the House, signing the documents that you just signed… and [I] know that every one of those 9 people that I put on that piece of paper… if Trump wins the state, they are all going to end up deciding, voting, and signing their names on who the next president of the United States is going to be.”29

26 Namely, these accusations were fired by State Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, Pueblo County Chairman Becky Mizel, and former congressman Tom Tancredo. The three threatened to go public with information about House cheating on his wife—an accusation never confirmed to be true—unless he resigned. 27 Ben Terris, “The Colorado soap opera that could be a major 2016 headache for the GOP,” The Washington Post, July 15, 2015. 28 In Colorado, these members are nominated at the state party convention along with delegates to the national convention. 29 Steve House.

Party formalities aside, the first real drama Colorado found itself in occurred about a week prior to actual convention. It was during this time that delegates appointed to the Rules,

Credentials, and Platform committee met to formally create not only the standards for running the convention, but also that of the Republican Party itself for the next four years.30 For some, it was an exciting and drama free environment—as it was for State Representative Justin Everett, who prided himself on lending a Coloradan influence to the new, remarkably “constitutionally conservative” party agenda made in Platform Committee.31 On the Credentials Committee, Regina

Thompson recalls the only major contest being a complaint filed by some Coloradans who had run for delegate and lost accusing the state party of conducting “a real sloppy process” at state convention.32 By all means, it seemed that business as usual was taking place in Cleveland.

However, as the week progressed it became increasingly clear that any real struggle in Cleveland was to be the result of the Rules Committee proceedings. Rules, of course, being the committee where the actual rules governing convention are shaped. As representatives to Rules, Colorado chose to appoint the aforementioned Guy Short, an efficient Congressional staffer—and Kendal

Unruh, a high school government teacher and mountaineer with eight conventions under her belt.

Unruh would eventually be the one to draw the eyes of the nation upon Colorado during the next two weeks. This attention came as a result of her movement to “unbind” national delegates through a conscience clause to the rules. To briefly explain, the notion of delegates being “bound” or “unbound” refers to wither or not a state or party law exists dictating that delegates to convention

30 Rules committee concerns itself with the actual structure and rules of the convention itself. Credentials is responsible for making sure each delegate has been duly elected and received. Platform creates the Republican Party “message” and agenda for the next four years. 31 Justin Everett. 32 Regina Thompson.

9 must cast their nominee vote for the winner of their state’s primary election. Colorado, having no formal primary vote for president by Republicans, consists of forever “unbound” delegates.

However, as Teal recounts, “language that had been put in the last convention in Tampa, back in

2012” had essentially locked in almost every other state in the union to casting their vote for nominee in a way that reflected their state’s primary election outcome.33 This unbinding movement was especially important for Never-Trumpers and Cruz supporters like Unruh, Thompson, and

Teal—who presumed that if only other delegates could also “vote their conscience,” a nominee other than Donald Trump could be selected “and change the outcome of the election.”34

For her part, Unruh argues that the idea for drafting a conscience clause in Rules Committee

“wasn’t something that [I] made up,” as

“it has been upheld by the Supreme Court that a right to conscience cannot be infringed... I was trying to figure out how to draft this clause within the context of it being Constitutional, because of course I knew immediately if it wasn’t… that it’d be shot down.”35 While the media almost immediately became intrigued, fellow committee member Guy Short remained skeptical. As Short recalls “I was convinced [it] would fail, although I wasn’t unsympathetic.”36 Short’s cynicism appears to be merited. As he witnessed, “the Trump and the

RNC coalition always voted no, regardless of what it was” and strongly encouraged others to do the same.37 Unruh claims that this “encouragement” by the coalition to push their view was especially forceful. Even after the “firestorm of support” her movement generated, fellow committee members told her “privately, repeatedly, ‘I wanted to vote for this… but we were told not to,’’” and that “the RNC started pealing them away… giving whatever threats the RNC could

33 George Teal. 34 Kendal Unruh, telephone interview with author, Castle Pines, Colorado, September 9th, 2016. 35 Ibid. 36 Guy Short. 37 Ibid.

10 give. That is, “we will withhold money from your Congressional candidate if you support the conscience clause.’”38 Unsurprisingly, the conscience clause subsequently died in committee.

However, word travels fast. As the rest of the Colorado delegation arrived into Cleveland on Sunday, news of the struggle the week before in Rules was gaining attention and sympathy.

Like many in the delegation, State Senator Ted Harvey “held out hope that there might be an effort… to open up the convention to allow delegates to vote for Ted Cruz or anybody else” if not in Rules, then on the floor itself.39 Kristie Brown recalls watching the rules committee online and getting the sense almost immediately afterwards “that we were going to do something about it.”40

Indeed, according to Ransom, almost as soon as she had arrived in the city, she was informed “that there would be motions made the next day regarding Rules” by Colorado, resulting in her showing up remarkably early that Monday morning “to make sure I was on the floor where I needed to be.”41 Colorado, clearly then, had arrived ready for a fight over Unruh’s failed unbinding attempt.

House was especially tense. As he remembers of going into convention week when dealing with media and the RNC itself,

“it was really, really important for me to provide Kendal with an opportunity to express her First Amendment rights and what she believed... I focused on that a lot, especially that first day. I had meetings with her and with Congressman Ken Buck (the delegation chairman)… There were concerns that people who were anti-Kendal would try to take the microphone that was provided to us in our delegation and prevent her from getting to that microphone.”42

However, if they weren’t bracing for a fight over Unruh’s clause, many Coloradans were bracing for a fight in general. Mathai, for example, cites that his main concern when representing

38 Unruh. 39 Ted Harvey, telephone interview with author, Highlands Ranch, Colorado, September 23rd, 2016. 40 Kristine Brown, telephone interview with author, Denver, Colorado, September 9th, 2016. 41 Kim Ransom. 42 Steve House, telephone interview with author, Denver, Colorado, September 23rd, 2016.

11 constituents back home was to keep Rules free from establishment control and representative of younger, millennial Republicans—a struggle that, like Unruh, he remembers the party losing in

2012.43 Outside of actual convention practice, Joy Hoffman, an alternate who was bumped up to delegate on Tuesday, reminisces, “everyone said there was going to be all these protests, all this chaos, that it was going to be Chicago 1968.”44 State Representative Perry Buck similarly remembers she “felt very stressed while I was there because I just wasn’t sure what was going to happen, because this is, to me, a very different political year from what we’ve had in the past.”45

However, many found themselves pleasantly surprised by the security in Cleveland—and by the lack of protestors. Indeed, of those interviewed, the only substantial protest seems to have been a flag burning witnessed on a downtown Cleveland street by House that Wednesday.46 The only other notable account of protestors comes from Everett, who while noting that there were only six protestors to the demonstration he witnessed “The press were the ones causing violence for the most part… you had like 300 reporters there, and an old lady got knocked out of the way because the reporter was trying to get a better angle!”47It would seem that drama of the 2016 RNC was to stay behind closed, convention hall doors.

Sure enough, Monday brought a renewed attempt to revive the unbinding conscience clause—this time, in the form of a roll call vote request on the Rules package. By now, Unruh’s movement surrounding the conscience clause, known as “Free the Delegates,” had merged with

Thompson’s similarly intended “Delegates Unbound” pack to pool resources and “educate the delegates to the fact that they had the right to go to convention and vote their conscience.”48

43 Anil Mathai. 44 Joy Hoffman, telephone interview with author, Greenwood Village, Colorado, September 20th, 2016. 45 Perry Buck, telephone interview with author, Windsor, Colorado, September 16th, 2016. 46 Steve House. 47 Justin Everett. 48 Regina Thompson.

Finding additional allies in Senator Mike Lee of Utah and Former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli of Virginia, Unruh now searched for a new way to prevent Trump from reaching threshold for nomination; the solution was a second, roll call vote on the Rules.49 That afternoon, when the package of rules that had survived committee came to a vote for approval the floor, states in favor of unbinding were to request a roll call vote, which requires a state by state count, rather than a vocal “aye” or “nay” vote—as is usually done at convention. Presumably, with the rejection of the rules package, a new debate could then ensue on the floor itself over unbinding which, again, could result in a new nominee.

However, for many it wasn’t just about finding a new nominee. As Brown insists, “a lot of people think it was only the Cruz delegates who were doing it. That’s not really true. There were

Cruz delegates, and Kasich delegates, and even Trump delegates who just really didn’t agree with the system of shutting down the grassroots voice.”50 Regardless, the pro-unbinding states eventually came to include Texas, Alaska, Washington D.C., Washington, Wyoming, Montana,

Virginia, and Iowa. As Randy Corporon, a Denver radio personality bitterly recalls of the struggle to bring gathered signatures from said states to recognition before the RNC “the secretary of the party was hiding out in the bathroom and then behind armed guards to avoid receiving petitions” before gingerly accepting the signatures for consideration.51

Within an hour of signatures being submitted, Trump whips started appearing on the floor.

Teal remembers that shortly after the submitting of Colorado’s petition, he had seen “Trump whips on the floor… [that] were pulling people aside saying, “hey, you signed this,” and you know,

49 Kendal Unruh. 50 Kristine Brown. 51 Randy Corporon, telephone interview with author, Denver, Colorado, September 11th, 2016.

13 twisting their arm.”52 While not outright confronted himself, Corporon remembers an especially odd encounter with one of the first whips to appear in Colorado’s midst. He recalls,

“somebody told me that the guy standing behind me was videotaping over my shoulder my texting with my wife. As soon as I turned around, he took off… I chased after him and confronted him down in the tunnel of the center there… the expectation was that the gentleman thought that there was a lot of strategy being texted around [by Colorado] and maybe I was in comm with somebody… I told him we shouldn’t photograph people’s private conversations.”53 By all accounts, whipping by the Trump campaign ranged from polite requests for removal of the signature to the insistence that the whip would “put a bullet in your head” if one didn’t change their mind.54 To remedy this, petitioning states started strategically placing prominent delegates before their microphones to block any assailment under the assumption that “they were going to be treated a little differently than the common man.”55 However, the presence of members of

Congress at the forefront of each delegation seems to have done little to dissuade Trump whips.

As Unruh recalls,

“you had the chairman of the Rules Committee, former Congressman Edith Michealson peeling off support from those petitions we had signed… it was kind of funny because Congressman Buck was standing near our microphone [when she arrived]. He turns to me and says, “I’m being whipped!” and goes back off and talks to Edith. He didn’t take his name off though.”56

Meanwhile, of course, convention as usual carried on stage—to include a speech by former state representative and Jefferson County Commissioner, Libby Szabo, shortly before the scheduled Rules package vote. While her fellow Coloradans and their unbinding allies scrambled in a last minute ditch to gather all signatures needed to request a roll call vote and fend off whips,

52 George Teal. 53 Randy Corporon. 54 Kendal Unruh. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid.

Szabo, in a turquoise dress, spoke to the convention. According to Szabo, the party had allowed her to talk about whatever she wanted for the most part; although, her speech writer did give some parameters. She explains, “they wanted to know a little about my history… you know, because

I’m Latina… I was speaking alongside other ethnic-group people. And just, you know, what I love about America.” Otherwise, it would appear the Jefferson County woman had free reign. As she at one point recalls, “I asked, ‘can I take some, you know, little jabs at Hillary?’ And they said,

‘Yes! If you’d like to, go for it.’ So, I couldn’t not do it.”57 For Szabo, the memory of delivering a convention speech to a crowd of thousands, with the delegation cheering her on from the back, is one of her most vivid from Cleveland. However, just as poignant as her speech is the memory of stepping down from the stage to rejoin Colorado in a state of “anxiety” and “tension” as a short recess was called. For Szabo, it was clear that this was “about when the rules vote was happening.”58

By the time Szabo had made her way to her delegation sitting in the back of the arena, the secretary of the convention was addressing the elephant in the room: the collection of signatures for a roll call vote. According to Everett—no stranger to parliamentary procedure—“you only needed 7 votes, or 7 delegations to get a roll call vote. They claimed it was 10. 13 were submitted.”59 Clearly, some states had backed out. As Corporon recalls, “we learned later that some of those states were threatened with losing their place in line as an early primary state. They were threatened with the loss of their funding. It was very dramatic, very brutal.”60 Regardless of

57 Libby Szabo. 58 Ibid. 59 Justin Everett. 60 Randy Corporon.

15 how it had happened, the convention secretary ultimately claimed an insufficient number of signatures, denying a roll call vote. The chair then asked for a voice vote on adoption of the rules.

For Anil Mathai, an accomplished engineer and first generation Indian American, the voice vote represented the moment his voice no longer at convention. Fuming, he remembers,

“everybody was screaming “yes” or “no”. It just was not transparent. It was a terrible process and there’s no way of knowing what the true contention was. I felt… that I had been punched in the gut.”61 Mathai’s anger appears to have been shared by many. “From where I was standing it was fairly clear that it [the voice vote] was too close to call. And then the chanting came,” remembers

House.62 He continues, “you know, “roll call vote!”… it became this noisy, chaotic environment with 15,000-20,000 people in the stadium… once that vote didn’t occur, it was like popping a balloon.”63 After several failed attempts by Congressman Buck at the microphone to motion for a roll call vote, the Colorado delegation then shared a glance and walked off the floor. Leaving only a handful of delegates behind to guard the microphones, Colorado retired to a nearby tunnel.

According to Everett, it was the natural, Coloradan thing to do claiming, “Me… and all the other state legislators, when the Democrats try to pull this top down stuff and not let us be heard… we’ve walked out before. It’s sort of that kind of accepted peaceful protest you do that says, “we’re getting screwed over.”64 The “screwed over” sentiment seems to have been present throughout the convention hall. According to Teal, “we had half of the Iowa delegation walk out with us. My understanding is the Virginia delegation walked out as well.”65 Far from the maddening crowd, the delegation caught its breath. As Teal remembers,

61 Anil Mathai. 62 Steve House. 63 Ibid. 64 Justin Everett. 65 George Teal.

“I think it was Andy Jones, from Highlands Ranch, who turned to me and said, ‘so what do we do now?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I think we do what Kendal says to do.’ And Kendal is furiously communicating with somebody on her cell phone… she said, ‘they’re gonna recall the vote, and we need to go back in before they replace us with alternates!’ So we headed back in and took our seats. It wasn’t hard.”66 Sure enough, within a matter of minutes, Colorado and her allies were reseated and ready for whatever was to come next.

The expected recall vote didn’t happen. But the media, of course, made the “Colorado

Walkout” into the story of the day, reaping attention for the “anti-Trump” delegation for the next week. Ransom especially remembers the Denver Post article appearing the next day that featured a photo of empty seats.67 As she quickly corrects, “That was taken during the break… it wasn’t during the walkout. It was a couple of hours later.”68 Likewise, Brown scoffs, “The walkout got kind of blown up by the media in terms of ‘oh, they left the convention.’ … we came back in pretty quickly.”69 However, as Colorado collected themselves and returned to the floor for convention as usual, several unsettling facts about Monday’s rules vote started to become clear.

First, that all of the unbinding state’s microphones had been shut off. While Unruh had certainly predicted they would be shut off, Corporon was the one to experience it, remembering that while everyone else walked out “I stayed to defend our microphone… it turned out to be a useless task, because they never even turned our microphone on.”70 Second, it was soon revealed that the roll call request had caused discontent even among leadership. House remembers that as he walked off the floor, “a high ranking official for the RNC came up to me and said, ‘where’s

Kendal Unruh?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ They followed me all the way to the elevator to make sure

66 Ibid. 67 John Frank, “Colorado delegates walk out in anti-Trump effort at Republican National Convention,” The Denver Post, July 19, 2016. 68 Kim Ransom. 69 Kristine Brown. 70 Randy Corporon.

I wasn’t going to have a special meeting with Kendal… You’re thinking to yourself, ‘why is this so important?’”71 More unsettlingly, Perry Buck recalls that following the walk-out, she went off in search of her husband, Congressman Ken Buck. When she found him, he was speaking to an esteemed colleague—Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. According to Buck, Speaker Ryan was baffled and angry, saying, “I don’t know why we didn’t do a roll call vote. If that’s what people were asking, why didn’t we do a roll call vote? He [Reince Priebus] had nothing to lose.”72

Third, and perhaps most startlingly, it eventually became known to many that the voice vote had been tipped over by non-delegates. According to Steve House, who ventured up to the mezzanine level where alternates and spectators sat,

“I asked four different groups in four different locations, and all of them, each time, some members of the group said “I voted yes” or “I voted no.” … Only people on the floor are supposed to vote. To do it legitimately, you have to prevent people who are not delegates from voting, and clearly people who weren’t delegates voted that skewed what happened that day, on Monday.”73 This is especially of note because the majority of those voting spectators and alternates to convention were Trump supporters.74 Clearly then, wither planned or not, voice votes in Cleveland were being tipped in favor of the Trump campaign—effectively drowning out delegate voices for the bulk of convention. Indeed, by the time House rounded up his delegation on Tuesday to collect the votes for presidential nomination—one of the only roll call votes to take place all week—

George Teal supposedly snapped back, “oh, we actually get a choice?”75

Usually, however, the formal vote for nomination does not occur until later in the week.

As Teal continues, “it was a real surprise when the Trump campaign just wanted to call the vote

71 Steve House. 72 Perry Buck. 73 Steve House. 74 Kendal Unruh. 75 George Teal.

18 on Tuesday, because we figured he had it set. There was no doubt he was going to be nominee once the Rules challenge was done. He just didn’t want to take any chances.”76 By Tuesday evening, Donald Trump of New York had been chosen as the presidential nominee with many still bound to cast their vote for presidential nomination to the winner of their state primary. However, some delegates—namely those of Alaska, Utah, and Washington, D.C.—that had been in favor of unbinding decided to cast their vote for presidential nominee based on conscience regardless.77

Although Trump had technically won Alaska’s primary earlier that spring, a bulk of the delegation had actually been elected as Kasich and Rubio supporters. Still bound to their primary results by the RNC, Unruh recalls that her newfound allies in the north, “cast their ballots for

Kasich and Rubio, and of course the roll call that the chairman and the secretary put in is that they’re all cast for Trump.”78 Upon hearing this, delegates from Alaska quickly grabbed for their microphone to challenge their nomination vote report—100% of the delegation for Donald

Trump—as an inaccurate reflection of the state. While neighboring delegations certainly witnessed the brief rush to clarify their results, Alaska nonetheless remained ignored by the floor. After all, they had been a pro-unbinding state: their microphone was still turned off.79

The struggle over Rules, conscience clauses, and unbinding was over. By all accounts, the delegation was exhausted by the time they returned back to their hotel on the edge of town. This time, however, they did so with a new delegate: Joy Hoffman of Greenwood Village. Hoffman had been bumped up from her first alternate slot, replacing Regina Thompson. As she recalls, “I understand that [she] chose not to attend on Tuesday night… Never in a gazillion years did I think

76 Ibid. 77 Alaska’s state party rules dictate that their RNC delegation’s formal vote for presidential nominee be a proportional representation of the delegation itself. 78 Kendal Unruh. 79 Ibid.

I would be elevated. It’s an amazing, incredible honor.”80 With the tension of the week’s start behind them, convention then returned to a normal blur of endless speeches and aimless wandering of the city. Indeed, while all in the delegation remember the events of Monday and Tuesday in detail, very few remember much of the rest of the week—besides speeches by Senator Cruz and the Trump children, of course.

Colorado, after all, had been a Ted Cruz state from the start. Many in the delegation were excited for his Wednesday speech, and disappointed by the protest he received from those upset over the Senator’s refusal to endorse Trump. Making up one of the more brief moments of drama for the second half of the week, following Cruz’s urging to “vote your conscience,” Trump entered the floor for a quick appearance—drawing all attention away from Cruz and to him.81 Teal admits

“we saw that, and I know I booed that. I booed Donald stomping on Cruz’s speech, and unfortunately, I’m a little worried that’s what started Ted Cruz being booed off stage, because we were booing in Colorado, and D.C., and Puerto Rico, and Iowa, and Texas. [laughs] Holy hand grenades, the Texans were pissed!”82 Others in the delegation remember being far more interested in speeches by the Trump family. For Buck, this was very important, as “a lot of how I base a person is on the quality of the kids. I was very, very impressed with Trump’s kids… I thought

Ivanka did an incredible job.”83

However, by the morning of Thursday’s acceptance speech, the delegation still remained split between those who had resigned themselves to the nominee choice, and those who remained

“Never Trump.” Consequently, Congressman Ken Buck found it fitting to address the delegation

80 Joy Hoffman. 81 Nolan D. McCaskill, “Cruz gets booed after he declines to endorse Trump,” Politico, July 20th, 2016. 82 George Teal. 83 Perry Buck.

20 over breakfast. As Buck remembers of her husband, “I’m real proud of what Ken tried to do to reunite the delegation. You know, “we came here to support our guy. Our guy lost. We need to unite and get behind our Republican nominee.”84 By evening, many in the delegation did. As

Harvey puts it, he sat back and enjoyed the speech now that “there was nothing left to fight about.”85 Concurring, Brown elaborates, “as the week went, there were a lot more people that came to accept, ‘hey, he’s our nominee. Whether he was first choice or not, we’re going to have to get behind this if we want to defeat Hillary.’”86 For others, however, Trump’s nomination speech still carried the pain of Monday’s struggle of whips, dead microphones, and party intimidation. As an embittered Unruh remembers regarding the nomination, “I wanted to never forget that moment. I felt physically sick to my stomach. My party had been hijacked. You had an enabling done by the establishment. They facilitated a nominee that did not win this fair and square. … [we were] laying down our principles in order to win against Hillary.”87

Presidential nominee secured, for their last hours of their week in Cleveland, Colorado gathered on the floor for their official delegation picture and for the chance to all sign the state pendant—the tall, blue, ‘Colorado’ sign marking the delegation’s spot on the floor. It was at that time that House remembers being approached by a representative from the Smithsonian Institute.

According to House, the representative made it very clear that, “this delegation, this Colorado delegation is the one thing that stands out—for what was attempted here to change the rules and to protest this convention. We want a permanent record of it… we’d like to have the pendent.”88

While usually left to rot in state party offices back in Denver, House instead agreed to send the

84 Ibid. 85 Ted Harvey. 86 Kristine Brown. 87 Kendal Unruh. 88 Steve House.

21 pendant away to Washington, D.C. for a life in the Smithsonian. By this point of the week, it wasn’t just big name attention that the delegation was getting. Many of Colorado’s delegates had by now found themselves to be instant celebrities in the city.

Brown, for instance, fondly remembers how following Monday’s struggle she would often

“see delegates from [other] states coming up to us saying, ‘hey, are you guys from Colorado? We love what you guys are doing.’”89 This recognition seems to have existed even outside of the convention center. Short, who was in desperate need of a hair cut by Tuesday, vividly recalls being approached by local well-wishers in a hair salon. “I mentioned I was a delegate from Colorado,” says Short, “and these random women in the hair salon taking pictures with me! You know, “oh, can I get a picture with you?”90 However, some in the delegation gained a reputation for more than state affiliation alone. Everett recalls an instance where Arkansas State Representative Jason

Rapert began accosting Colorado State Representative Lori Saine on her delegation being

“unchristian” and “unprincipled” in their lack of support for Trump. As Everett remembers of the encounter that made him popular among many lower Midwesterners,

“Laurie’s about 5 ft. 2 on a good day. He’s about 6 ft. tall. I’ve never seen her back down from a fight, but she felt so uncomfortable that I stepped in… This guy—according to the press I talked to—does this to people all the time. Normally he comes with a gun when he doesn’t get his way. I got him to back down, which apparently he doesn’t do.”91 A video of the encounter leaked to the Arkansas Times, depicts Everett scolding the bulky

Arkansan, asserting “Sir, I just spent days drafting the most conservative platform we’ve ever had.

Now we’ve nominated a candidate that does not represent that platform. The party will remain.

Candidates come and go.”92 Consequently, Everett found his name recognition in Arkansas

89 Kristie Brown. 90 Guy Short. 91 Justin Everett. 92 David Ramsey, “Colorado state rep says Jason Rapert was bullying female delegate at RNC, calls for apology; Rapert disputes account,” The Arkansas Times, July 21, 2016.

22 rivalling that back in Colorado for the rest of the summer, causing him to joke “I could probably get elected to any office in Arkansas.”93

However, for many in the delegation, encounters like that experienced by Everett and Saine did not stop in Cleveland. Corporon, for example, remembers being cussed out by callers to his radio show for his role in the Colorado walkout noting, “how personal and petty and petulant the attack that the different factions have made on each other have been… it’s very saddening.”94

Unruh—notorious to Trump supporters for her attempt to unbind delegates—returned home to similar confrontation, remembering,

“I got thousands of death threats… it was just vicious. They were putting up my private information and inciting people to do acts of violence. People were coming up to my husbands office. They were physically and verbally accosting our employees. It was absolutely horrendous.”95 House, when interviewed in September of 2016, recalls having to “deal with phone calls… especially people from back home who are donors and supporters of the party, [saying] I owed them an explanation… it lasted until about a week or two ago.”96 Even for those in the delegation who did not face reprimands by various pro-Trump groups or by the party upon returning home, the experience still left a surreal aftertaste. Mathai describes the drive home being “contemplative in a sense. This is a beautiful state. … but it’s just so much under attack… you’re proud to see the

“Welcome to Colorful Colorado” [sign] but at the same time you’re wondering, you know, how long will this beauty last in regards to politics?”97

93 Justin Everett. 94 Randy Corporon. 95 Kendal Unruh. 96 Steve House. 97 Anil Mathai.

Luckily, that beauty may still last a long while. By all means, it would appear that the state is full of people willing to protect it. Indeed, 2016’s delegation to the RNC consists of what many insist were the best Colorado had to offer. As Everett puts it, “Wither it’s George Teal, or Kendal

Unruh, or me, or Guy Short, … or Kristie Brown, or Libby Szabo, these are the people that have a history of showing that they will do the right thing when everything is on the line.”98 Indeed, when considering their interviews, one is struck by how much the delegation’s prior life experience has influenced the principle demonstrated at convention.

As has been previously stated, Everett, Harvey, and Ransom all found walk-out to be a natural and effective response to bring attention to injustice: one refined by years in the state legislature. Likewise, it end up being Corporon, the radio broadcaster, who stayed behind to protect the state’s microphone access on the floor—their free speech, so to speak—and defend the actions of the delegation in the months to come. Szabo, a mother of four, emphasizes the importance of finding a way “for the voices of all to be heard.”99 And, of course, the entire delegation performed under the wing of House, who has been known to oust intimidation by party leaders to the press when it occurs, declaring in 2015 under such confrontation at the Warwick, “I will not give in to a vicious and vocal minority that seeks to bring down the Party from within.”100 However, perhaps the most fitting analogy for the learned principle of the delegation is explained by Unruh—who was training to climb the harsh, Himalayan summit of K2 prior to election as delegate.

Remembering a lifetime of political activism and a love of elevated terrain, she gushes,

“I love mountaineering! And skiing, by the way! You have to if you live in Colorado, right? … Actually, believe it or not, mountaineering has helped me in politics. People might not understand that…. I’m a mountaineer. [We] take one step at a time. I know where I want

98 Justin Everett. 99 Libby Szabo. 100 Ben Terris, The Washington Post.

to be. Don’t know if I’m going to make it, but I’m certainly going to take the next step… that training helped me keep my focus.”101 It seems unlikely that the Centennial state will be willing to give up their focus, or their principle, anytime soon.

Ultimately, recounting by the Colorado delegation makes clear that the 2016 Republican

National Convention represents a clear break from the expectation and experience of conventions past. Coloradan delegates claim to have been subject to abuse by what they saw as a manifestation of bullying, “top-down” management by the RNC and Trump campaign. In reality, they had become privy to a break from over one hundred years of Republican tradition. As is made clear through their accounts, the Grand Old Party has effectively silenced their inter-faction dialogue at convention—the very thing which has preserved the party in the past. Rather than the traditional

“chaos and clash” resulting in reconcilement of all party factions, the only voices tolerated in

Cleveland appear to be that of RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and Donald Trump. For this convention at least, delegates seem to have been reduced to little more than “window dressing.”102

Moving forward from 2016, control from the Republican National Committee and Trump camp is to be the governing rule of thumb in the GOP for the next four years. Normal politics and democratic practice, as it has been understood in the past, no longer applies. Moreover, given the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, it would seem that the style of politics utilized in Cleveland works and is unlikely to be laid to rest. Inevitably one is reminded once more of the early morning email composed by Dan Green. Clearly, “however you feel about it, what

101 Kendal Unruh. 102 Anil Mathai.

25 happened in Cleveland is important.”103 If nothing else, the 2016 RNC in Cleveland represents a clear turning point—both for the party and nation—in the months and years ahead.

Bibliography

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