CLEVELAND — Virginia cannot impose criminal penalties on Republican convention delegates who refuse to vote for Donald Trump but the GOP can still force them to back the billionaire businessman, a federal judge ruled Monday.
Mr. Trump’s campaign said the decision clears the path for him to collect the nomination next week in Cleveland, saying Judge Robert E. Payne dealt a “fatal blow to the anti-Trump agitators.”
The agitators, however, said they live to fight another day, saying they always knew they would have to try to change the Republican National Committee’s rules at the convention. But at least now, they said, they won’t also have to worry about the additional penalties in state laws.
“The layers of the onion are being unpeeled,” said Carroll Correll Jr., a delegate to the convention who sued to overturn Virginia’s law.
With the opening of the convention a week away, delegates are already beginning to convene in Cleveland to hash out the party’s platform, to debate the convention rules and settle last-minute fights over the composition of the delegations.
The most intriguing delegation battle involves the U.S. Virgin Islands, where islanders are trying to unseat three delegates they say are interlopers who moved to the territory just to earn seats to the convention. That fight — one of only a handful of disputes over the makeup of delegations — will likely end up with the Credentials Committee later this week.
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On Monday, the convention’s Platform Committee fought over language on immigration, abortion and gay rights, with final decisions to come Tuesday.
But the major fight will be over the rules that bind delegates to vote based on the outcome of the primaries in their home states.
Mr. Trump won more than 1,440 bound delegates, and has the support of about 100 others who aren’t technically bound — far more than the 1,237 needed to claim the nomination.
But the businessman’s brash style and questionable commitment to conservative principles has sparked a rebellion among some delegates, who are looking for ways to unbind themselves from him and vote their conscience. They say there are enough of them to deny Mr. Trump the majority on a first ballot, which would then throw the convention open to other alternatives.
Until Monday, two things stood in their way: the party’s rules and laws in some 20 states that imposed penalties on anyone who ignored their binding.
Judge Payne’s decision could remove that second impediment.
He ruled that Virginia’s law, known as Section 545(D), which required delegates to vote for the winner of the state’s primary, was unconstitutional because the GOP’s rules split the delegates proportionally. Mr. Trump, who won 35 percent of the vote, won 17 of the state’s delegates. Sen. Marco Rubio, who won 32 percent of the vote, collected 16 delegates, and Sen. Ted Cruz, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson split the rest.
“Correll is entitled to judgment that Section 545(D) is an unconstitutional burden on his First Amendment rights of free political speech and political association,” Judge Payne concluded.
Mr. Correll has argued he and others with misgivings about Mr. Trump can vote their conscience, which would mean rejecting the presumptive nominee. He said the judge’s ruling is one step toward that.
“What this is, to my fellow delegates, is a permission slip. You need not fear the long arm of the state in compelling your actions within the Republican Party,” he said. “If your conscience and your love of country and your conservative philosophy says to you that you cannot vote for a maniac like Donald Trump, now’s the time to listen to it.”
But while the state laws may have fallen, the party’s rules remain in effect — and the RNC and the Trump campaign said Monday’s ruling only bolsters that.
“The court has confirmed what we have said all along: Rule 16 is in effect, and thus delegates, including Correll, are bound to vote in accordance with the election results,” said Don McGahn, the campaign’s lawyer.
Meanwhile, the Virgin Islands dispute will also test the RNC.
The case arose after John Yob, a political consultant, moved from Michigan to the Virgin Islands. Mr. Yob, his wife, Erica, and the wife of his business partner, Lindsey Eilon, were among the six delegates elected to attend the convention at the islands’ March 10 caucus.
John Canegata, chairman of the Republican Party of the Virgin Islands, says they arrived too late to be considered lawful residents qualified to vote, and he challenged their inclusion. He’s submitted an alternate slate of delegates without the three.
“They came to our islands to carry out the convention chaos detailed in John Yob’s self-published ’Chaos’ book,” Mr. Canegata said Monday. “By their own admission, John Yob, Erica Yob and Lindsey Yob were not qualified electors until March 27 — 17 days after the Virgin Islands caucus.”
Mr. Yob, meanwhile, is in Cleveland, and dismissed the charge.
“I have been going to the Virgin Islands for nearly a decade and began making offers on homes there in 2011,” he said in an email. “We bought an expensive home there, my children go to school there, and we intend to live there permanently.”
The Contest Committee held a two-hour hearing on the case Sunday. It will be settled at other meetings later this week.
Still, it’s been a quiet year for those kinds of challenges. In 2012, some 21 contests involving more than 200 delegates were filed, as supporters of Ron Paul clashed with Mitt Romney backers. This year there are just five contests, affecting some 35 delegates.
• S.A. Miller contributed to this report.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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