The California Republican Party’s Fall 2013 Convention begins in Anaheim at 8:30 AM today at the Hilton and continues through Sunday.

The party will hold elections for two-year terms three of the eight Regional Vice Chair positions (the other five were elected at the Spring convention).  The Vice Chair for the South region (Orange, San Diego, and Imperial Counties), Tony Krvaric of San Diego, was elected in 2011 and is now up for election, as is the Vice Chair for Los Angeles County, Adam Abrahms of Santa Monica, and the Vice Chair for the Inland Empire (Riverside, San Bernardino, Inyo, and Mono Counties), Adele Harrison of Temecula.

The Associate Representative position is also up for election, with Aaron Ginn of San Francisco and Liz Kolstad of Fresno seeking the position. This position is unique among Board of Director positions, as only the Associate Delegates can vote for this position.  All other positions are elected by the regular Delegates.  (For those less familiar with the state party structure, Associate Delegates are effectively alternates to the voting members.  While there are specific formulas for the number of Delegates that can exist, there is no limit on the number of Associate Delegates.)

The headline speaker of the convention will be Saturday’s dinner speaker, Texas Governor Rick Perry.

The more significant headline out of the convention is that earlier this week, Chairman Jim Brulte announced that the CRP’s seven-figure debt had been wiped out.  This is all the more impressive since Brulte, who was elected Chairman earlier this year, began his debt retirement drive just six months ago.

The most controversial item on the convention agenda will be the three competing proposals on how to handle CRP endorsements in a post-Prop 14 world.  A temporary arrangement was made for the 2012 elections, but that procedure expires before the 2014 election, so delegates will be implementing a permanent procedure going forward.

The three proposals are named for their authors:

• Mike Spence and Deborah Wilder propose that in any primary where there is more than one Republican, the state party will only endorse if 2/3 of the Board of Directors votes to do so after a request is made for the state party endorsement by the Chairman of each affected County Central Committee and only if each affected County Central Committee (by a 2/3 vote) has endorsed the same candidate.  Spence and Wilder also propose that any Republican who is the sole Republican on the ballot is automatically endorsed.  Spence and Wilder’s proposal does permit the CRP Board of Directors (by a 2/3 vote) and each affected County Central Committee (by a 2/3 vote in each County) to adopt an endorsement procedure in a district wherein every Republican registered to vote in the district (including overseas military personnel) can vote on the endorsement.
• Jon Fleischman proposes that endorsements be made by all voting delegates of the State Party and all County Central Committee members present at the state party convention in the Spring before the primary will vote to endorse a candidate, provided that “60% + 1” of those present and voting vote to endorse that candidate.  There will be no more than three rounds of balloting, and the candidate with the lowest number of votes will be dropped from the first round and again from the second round.  Should no candidate achieve “60% + 1” in the third round, there is no endorsement.  Unlike all other state delegate votes, there will be no proxy voting allowed (similarly, proxy voting is moot in the Spence/Wilder and Abrahms proposals since County Central Committees do not have proxy voting nor does the State Board of Directors).
• Adam Abrahms proposes that in any primary where there is more than one Republican, the state party will only endorse if 2/3 of the Board of Directors votes to do so, provided that the Board of Directors may not endorse any candidate whose opponent has been endorsed by at least one affected County Central Committee.  He also proposes that a majority of any affected County Central Committee may vote to preemptively veto a state party endorsement, no later than five days before a state party endorsement meeting.  Abrahms also proposes that any Republican who is the sole Republican on the ballot is automatically endorsed.  He also defines an affected County Central Committee is one where at least 5% of the precincts in the district are in that county.