Fight over delegate seating at state GOP convention

With the nominating conventions for both parties scheduled for this weekend, the Michigan Republicans are having a spat over seating delegates at that convention. The Detroit News reports that the state GOP last week refused to seat dozens of delegates from Oakland County, home of Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, who is now running for Attorney General.

Dozens of Oakland County Republican delegate nominations — including the parents of attorney general candidate Mike Bishop — were denied Thursday night a seat at the state convention.

Organizers said they’ll try a second time next week to approve the nominees, many of whom were from Bishop’s home town of Rochester, as well as others elected from Rochester Hills, Troy and Waterford Township.

Bishop, the outgoing Senate Majority Leader, suspects supporters of his opponent in the attorney general race — former Appeals Court Judge Bill Schuette — may be behind the dustup. Many of the discarded delegates would likely have voted to nominate Bishop at next weekend’s state party convention.

Apparently, challenges were filed against a slate of delegates elected from Oakland county and some of those challenges were successful:

The committee decided not to seat the delegates after 17 challenges were submitted, and 11 upheld as valid, said Jennifer Hoff, spokeswoman for the state GOP. She said most of the challenges had to do with parliamentary procedure.

“The severity of the situation and all of the challenges … made it incumbent that the credentials committee take action to remove any cloud or doubt,” Hoff said.

A new convention will be held Thursday, Hoff said.

In an e-mail sent to The Detroit News, Bill Bidwell of Rochester said he challenged the validity of the delegation “because the method of selecting the R.H. delegation was corrupted.” Attached to Bidwell’s e-mail was a copy of a letter he wrote Aug. 15 to the Michigan Republican Party asking that delegate nominees be invalidated.

In his letter, Bidwell wrote that 23 delegates and 23 alternates from the Rochester Hills caucus were elected as a group during a meeting at which no other motions were allowed for consideration “and the slate of delegates and alternates approved themselves.”

Schuette says he had nothing to do with it because he has no control over the seating of delegates. Bishop says he may go to court to get an injunction if those delegates are not seated. Whether they are seated or not, this could be a very interesting week and there could end up being a court fight over the matter.