Zachary Earl Smith

On August 9th the Maine Republican Party state committee voted on a resolution in support of American energy independence. The resolution was not without its detractors, but in the end the resolution secured a majority vote. Then there was an objection and a member claimed that the resolution required a two-thirds majority in order to pass. The Chair ruled in favor of that appeal and declared the motion had failed.  Below are relevant links:

• The resolution as amended that received a majority vote in the affirmative.
  (AMENDED RESOLUTION)
• The statement read into the record by Hayes Gahagan a key sponsor and the lead author of the resolution (deals not only with the resolution but address other concerns), along with am attached related article (On a side note this is HG’s letter to the editor published in the BDN 05-07, which sparked some controversy and many posts on this site, and I hope you’ll read it as you may find it interesting).
  (Statement for the record) (related article referenced in statement)

Many who had supported the resolution were dubious of the Chair’s ruling, but chose not to pursue appeal at that time (probably should have). Since then though I have been troubled by the ruling and so have many others. Over the past weeks I received several phone calls and emails from several members of the state committee who shared this feeling. Looking into Robert’s rules and Maine GOP party rules and bylaws I found nothing, absolutely nothing that would have required a two-thirds vote for the resolution to pass. This has been confirmed now by several others. I hope we can correct this situation so that we can begin to promote the resolution. This way we can send a clear message to Maine voters that the Maine Republican Party cares, has a plan, and is taking action.

I believe in order for our state party to take the majority after nearly forty years it will only be through decisive action, and clear demonstrations that we are distinctly different from the Maine democratic party. This distinction needs to be bold so that we can create a clear contrast and give voters a real choice (a feeling I don’t believe most voters think they have).  Anyway I’m curious as to what people think of the resolution, about what happened at the meeting, and how resolutions like this in its intent may help or harm our state party.

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