By DOUG E. IBENDAHL • April 9, 2019
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The Illinois Republican Party is in a deep rut. It has been for a long time. There’s no energy and few people even think of volunteering. In too many cases, if someone from the rank-and-file even knows who their local party officials are, they feel little connection.
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President Trump and his winning agenda is what Republicans do care about. That’s where all of the energy is. Trump’s reelection campaign does have Republicans excited.
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Donald Trump is not only making America great again—he’s made politics fun again. And politics should be fun. But it seems no one in the Illinois GOP gets that.
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The good news is there’s a fundamental reform Illinois Republicans can accomplish which would immediately revitalize the Illinois Republican Party. And it’s actually easy to do. The only thing standing in the way are selfish players from the past who would rather keep failing and losing ground to the Democrats than allow Republican voters to have a voice again in their own state party.
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For over a century, really from the time of Abraham Lincoln, Illinois Republicans directly elected the persons who represent them at the state party. Members of the state central committee were elected every four years in the GOP primary.
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Republicans still directly elect the members of their county GOP’s central committee, specifically precinct committeemen in 101 counties, and township and ward committeemen in Cook.
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Having the same right to directly elect the members of the central committee of the state party, the organization that is arguably more powerful and more important than any single county organization, would just seem to be common sense. Or at least that’s how it was viewed for over a century.
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But then 30 years ago a handful of GOP bosses decided it was too much of an annoyance for the Republican rank-and-file to have a say in picking the top state party officials. So they forced a change down Republicans’ throats and instituted a new cockamamie system that was easy to rig.
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The result was a disaster. Illinois has been a Blue State ever since Republicans were told they weren’t smart enough to choose their own state party leaders.
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Today, the Illinois Republican Party bears little resemblance to a political party. In truth it’s more of a pity party where title holders sit around complaining about the Democrats acting like Democrats, and the rank-and-file (especially conservatives) sit around constantly complaining about how state GOP officials are screwing them and refusing to listen to what they have to say.
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We could all sit around and keep the pity party going for yet another election cycle. OR we could take a page from President Trump and actually work to solve an obvious problem.
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I and others have pushed for the restoration of direct election for the state central committee for years. In the past we’ve always hit a stonewall erected by misfit party bosses who spend most of their time working against Republican voters, because God knows they don’t know how to beat the Democrats in Illinois.
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The difference now is we have a real leader in Donald Trump. This direct election reform is right up his alley. No one understands how swamp dwellers exploit a rigged system to keep themselves entrenched better than our President.
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Republicans can restore direct elections for the state central committee themselves, but it has to be by the majority vote of the delegates in attendance at a state GOP convention. If the state central committee and its chairman don’t have the good sense to call a SPECIAL convention this year, that’s fine. By law, there has to be a state Republican convention next year (it will be a month or so before next summer’s national GOP convention in 2020).
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Maybe I’m being overly optimistic, but if Trump supporters would flood our state convention as state delegates (something that’s easy to do), and if restoration of direct elections was on the agenda, President Trump might actually have a reason to come to our state GOP convention next year.
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Absent the possibility of that kind of real innovation and progress, I can’t imagine that our President would even think about wasting his campaign time in Illinois. Every honest person knows Illinois is a lost cause right now for the Trump campaign, especially with no one in the Illinois GOP lifting a finger for our President, the one Republican who is actually getting things done.
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To be clear, I don’t pretend to speak for our President. There’s certainly no guarantee he would travel in for our state GOP convention in any case. He’s a busy man. I’m simply saying that if Illinois Republicans were prepared to do something historic, something that would give his campaign a fighting chance in Illinois next year, our President would at least have a reason to join us. Right now, the Illinois GOP is giving him no reason to bother with Illinois. Zero.
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I’ve written a lot on the direct election reform over the years. This piece from 2012, written in advance of that year’s state GOP convention, has a lot more analysis on why this reform is so needed and why it’s long past due: Here’s how Direct Elections will revive a lifeless Illinois GOP.
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Doug Ibendahl is a Chicago Attorney and a former General Counsel of the Illinois Republican Party.
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