Stephen,
You are a passionate young activist, which is admirable. You are more than entitled to your opinion in the Mayor's race. However, I hope for the sake of your own credibility you will correct some of your comments related to the Duval REC.
I will give you a timeline of the events of the REC...
1. As Robin Lumb was preparing for his first meeting as REC Chair, he began receiving emails from members concerned that the party could not spend money for Lenny Curry unless they endorsed, so they asked to hold a vote at the next REC meeting to endorse Lenny. Robin Lumb set a threshold and informed the members that if what constituted as a quorum emailed him requesting an endorsement vote, the REC would hold one. The 10 day notice was sent out once this threshold was met by 70+ members requesting an endorsement vote.
2. At the REC meeting, three new members were sworn in at the beginning of the meeting. These were a Filipino couple and a very young UNF student- you know, the minorities and young people that you claim hate Lenny Curry and the GOP. These members had applied months before, back when everyone believed that the Tea Party candidate Michael Jackson would be REC Chair, and long before any endorsement vote was even discussed. There was no packing of the party for this vote, these were 3 organic new members who are passionate about politics and are beginning to get involved. These new members were sworn in and then told they could not vote.
3. The REC moved on to the endorsement process and gave both candidates equal time to speak. Then the membership (minus the 3 new members who were wrongly denied a vote), were allowed to vote. At the first vote count (which Jerry Holland presided over) it came back that not enough members voted for Lenny Curry for their to be an endorsement (the numbers were somewhere between 60-70 for Lenny vs. under 20 for Bishop, the exact numbers escape me.) As you can see the vote was not even close. The REC never voted to endorse Bill Bishop, as you claim. If the vote which Jerry Holland announced stood, there simply would be NO endorsement. However, Jerry handled the under votes in a way he would for a public election, but was incorrect in his interpretation under Roberts Rules of Order. Lenny was actually the endorsed candidate under Roberts Rules of Order, but this was not realized until later as the REC unfortunately did not have anyone there versed on Roberts Rules, which is admittedly a huge mistake.
4. After this, Lenny Curry's supporters began to question why the three new members were not allowed to vote, since they were sworn members of the REC. They then began asking for a revote. At this point, Bill Bishop supporters began running out of the room, led by their Tea Party crazy Michael Jackson (why the Tea Party members support a pro-HRO, tax raiser escapes me. Perhaps it goes back to Herman Cain, but I digress), in order to deny a quorum for a second vote in an attempt to disenfranchise these new members.
5. Ultimately, Jerry Holland requested that they do a new vote, which Lenny ultimately won.
So, I say all of that to say these few takeaways...
1.) The three new members of the REC were wrongfully denied their right to vote.
2.) Jerry Holland was wrong in his initial interpretation of the election results, and Lenny was ENDORSED in the first ballot, and Bill Bishop never was.
3.) If Robin Lumb is guilty of anything it is incompetence of how to run a meeting (it was his first meeting, so I cut him some slack here). He is not guilty of being some maniacal puppet master for Lenny Curry.
4. ) Bill Bishop's supporters are just of guilty of playing games in the REC meeting, as Curry's supporters- they just happened to be on the losing end of it, so now they get to portray themselves as victims. It's called politics, and in this instance they lost.
I hope this will clarify some things, and that you will make a correction to your post to reflect what really happened.
Have a nice day.
