Morton Blackwell
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The information about this individual was current as of the 2016 Republican National Convention. Please contact us with any updates. |
| Morton Blackwell | |
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| Basic facts | |
| Organization: | Republican Party of Virginia |
| Role: | National Committeeman |
| Location: | Virginia |
| Affiliation: | Republican |
| Education: | Louisiana State University[1] |
| Website: | Official website |
Morton Blackwell is the national committeeman of the Republican Party of Virginia.[2] Blackwell is also the founder and president of the Leadership Institute, a group that seeks to increase conservative participation and improve the effectiveness of public policy.[3][4]
Blackwell has attended 13 Republican National Conventions and has served as a Rules Committee member at a number of conventions.[5] The Virginia Republican convention is April 29 and 30 and the state party will appoint committee members at that time.[6] As a long-time convention participant, Blackwell is poised to exert some influence over other members of the convention.
Career
Early party activity
Morton Blackwell attended Louisiana State University, where his career in politics began.[1] In college, Blackwell was College Republican state chairman and a Young Republican state chairman. He was a committee member of the Young Republican National Committee for 12 years and became the Young Republican National Federation national vice chairman at large. Between 1965 and 1970, he served as the executive director of the College Republican National Committee.[4] In 1972, Blackwell was elected to the Arlington County Republican Committee.
Leadership Institute
In 1979, Blackwell established the Leadership Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) based in Arlington, Virginia.[7] The institute is a conservative grassroots and public policy educational initiative that seeks to get more conservatives in political office.[3] Blackwell, after his experiences early on in his career with conservative youth organizations, began coordinating and educating activists in the 1960s. Prior to officially founding the Leadership Institute, Blackwell had been teaching his program and in 1968 Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Iowa Govenror Terry Branstad were among the first to graduate from the program.[8] Blackwell serves as the president of the organization.[4][2]
In 1990, Blackwell created the Conservative Leadership PAC, the political fundraising arm of the Leadership Institute. Blackwell, in his bio, describes the PAC as continuing the "Reagan Revolution by recruiting and activating students for conservative candidates, especially in congressional and gubernatorial races."[9]
Reagan administration
In 1980, Blackwell was a floor parliamentarian for Reagan and served as a special assistant to Reagan for the White House's Office of Public Liaison.[2] Blackwell also established the Reagan Youth Campaign in 1980, a grassroots pro-Regan youth organization.[10][2] Blackwell is on the board of directors for the Reagan Alumni Association.[2]
Republican National Convention
Blackwell began attending the Republican National Convention in 1964; at the 1964 convention, Blackwell was a delegate for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. Blackwell was an alternate delegate for Ronald Reagan in 1968 as well as in 1976.[4] In 1972, he attended the convention as an aide to former-U.S. Rep. Les Arends (R-Ill.) at the convention.[2] Since 1972, Blackwell has attended every meeting of the convention's Rules Committees and has been a member of five of those committees.[2][4] In 1980, Blackwell served as a delegate for Reagan.[4]
2016 presidential election
Ted Cruz endorsement
- See also: Ted Cruz presidential campaign, 2016
In late 2015, Blackwell announced his support of Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, describing the Texas Senator thusly:[11]
| “ |
I have decided to endorse Ted Cruz and to urge other serious conservatives to join me. He has consistently demonstrated his deep commitment to conservative principles. He works hard for those principles. He is very smart. He’s a world-class speaker. He has shown that he can raise the large amounts of money necessary to win the nomination and the November election. Ted Cruz has famously organized what is probably the best national ground-game campaign.[12] |
” |
2016 Republican National Convention
- See also: Republican National Convention, 2016
| Morton Blackwell | |
| Republican National Convention, 2016 | |
| Status: | RNC delegate |
| State: | Virginia |
| Bound to: | Unknown |
| Delegates to the RNC 2016 | |
| Calendar and delegate rules overview • Types of delegates • Delegate rules by state • State election law and delegates • Delegates by state | |
Blackwell was an RNC delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention from Virginia.[13] In Virginia’s primary election on March 1, 2016, Donald Trump won 17 delegates, Marco Rubio won 16, Ted Cruz won eight, John Kasich won five, and Ben Carson won three. Ballotpedia was not able to identify which candidate Blackwell was bound by state party rules to support at the national convention. If you have information on how Virginia's Republican delegates were allocated, please email [email protected].[14]
Rules Committee
In June 2016, Blackwell was selected to serve on the RNC Rules Committee at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Prior to his selection, he told Politico that he was considering accepting an appointment to the Rules Committee. He has talked about the consequences of changing the convention rules, noting that "[a]ny proposed change will be viewed as to which candidates would be helped and which candidates would be hurt. It’s a classic example of changing the rules in the middle of the game. It would be widely and correctly viewed as that outrageous power grab."[5]
Blackwell, with regard to Rule 40b—a rule that requires candidates for the Republican nomination for president to be able to demonstrate support from a majority of delegates in at least eight individual states in order to be considered for the Republication nomination for president at the 2016 Republican National Convention—opposes the eight-state threshold, but has said that it is too late to change the rule without consequences. Convention Rules Committee member, Sandye Kading (S.D.) stated that "despite her qualms with the eight-state rule, she intends to take most of her cues from Blackwell," indicating the influence that Blackwell might have over the Rules Committee.[5] In March 2016, Blackwell wrote an article for Red State, in which he outlined the his argument against rule 40b; he had also proposed an amendment of the rule in January 2016, prior to the start of the primaries, but the amendment was not adopted.[15]
Appointment process
The convention Rules Committee in 2016 consisted of one male and one female delegate from each state and territorial delegation. The Rules of the Republican Party required each delegation to elect from its own membership representatives to serve on the Rules Committee.
Convention meeting
On July 14, 2016, Blackwell was involved in a closed door meeting with Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus. The Rules Committee had stopped proceedings for the closed door session, which included Sen. Mike Lee (Utah), Kendal Unruh (Colo.), Ken Cuccinelli, Solomon Yue (Ore.), Jim Bopp (Ind.), and Ross Little Jr. (La.). Unruh led the contingency of delegates that advocated for delegates to vote at the convention according to their conscience.[16][17][18]
Delegate rules
Delegates from Virginia to the 2016 Republican National Convention were elected at district conventions and the Virginia State Convention in April 2016. Except for the three unbound RNC delegates to the convention, delegates from Virginia were bound by state party rules to the results of the state primary for the first ballot of the convention. They were also required to sign a pledge indicating that they intend to support all nominees of the Republican Party during their term as a delegate.
Virginia primary results
- See also: Presidential election in Virginia, 2016
| Virginia Republican Primary, 2016 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes | Delegates | |
| Marco Rubio | 32% | 327,918 | 16 | |
| Lindsey Graham | 0% | 444 | 0 | |
| Ben Carson | 5.9% | 60,228 | 3 | |
| Rand Paul | 0.3% | 2,917 | 0 | |
| Mike Huckabee | 0.1% | 1,458 | 0 | |
| Ted Cruz | 16.7% | 171,150 | 8 | |
 Donald Trump |
34.8% | 356,840 | 17 | |
| Jim Gilmore | 0.1% | 653 | 0 | |
| Chris Christie | 0.1% | 1,102 | 0 | |
| Jeb Bush | 0.4% | 3,645 | 0 | |
| Rick Santorum | 0% | 399 | 0 | |
| John Kasich | 9.5% | 97,784 | 5 | |
| Carly Fiorina | 0.1% | 914 | 0 | |
| Totals | 1,025,452 | 49 | ||
| Source: CNN and Virginia Department of Elections | ||||
Delegate allocation
Virginia had 49 delegates at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Of this total, 33 were district-level delegates (three for each of the state's 11 congressional districts). District-level delegates were allocated proportionally in accordance with the statewide vote.[19][20]
Of the remaining 16 delegates, 13 served at large. At-large delegates were allocated proportionally in accordance with the statewide vote. In addition, three national party leaders (identified on the chart below as RNC delegates) served as bound delegates to the Republican National Convention.[19][20]
Media
See also
- Virginia
- Republican Party of Virginia
- Republican National Committee
- Ronald Reagan
- Ted Cruz
- Ted Cruz presidential campaign, 2016
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Leadership Institute, "Morton Blackwell’s Famous Foolproof Fundraising Formula," accessed April 8, 2016
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 GOP, "Morton Blackwell," accessed April 8, 2016
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Leadership Institute, "Mission," accessed April 8, 2016
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Leadership Institute, "Milton Blackwell," accessed April 8, 2016
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Politico, "GOP panelists eager to scrap rule that helps Trump," March 30, 2016
- ↑ Republican Party of Virginia, "2016 Convention," accessed April 8, 2016
- ↑ Guidestar, "IRS 990, Leadership Institute (2014)," accessed April 8, 2016
- ↑ Youtube, "Morton Blackwell speaks about 2014 election results," November 5, 2014
- ↑ Conservative Leadership PAC, "About," accessed April 8, 2016
- ↑ Salon, "My right-wing degree," May 25, 2005
- ↑ Ted Cruz 2016, "Cruz For President Announces Endorsement Of Morton Blackwell," accessed April 8, 2016
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Virginia GOP, "Complete Virginia National Delegates to the GOP Convention," June 23, 2016
- ↑ To build our list of the state and territorial delegations to the 2016 Republican National Convention, Ballotpedia relied primarily upon official lists provided by state and territorial Republican parties, email exchanges and phone interviews with state party officials, official lists provided by state governments, and, in some cases, unofficial lists compiled by local media outlets. When possible, we included what type of delegate the delegate is (at-large, district-level, or RNC) and which candidate they were bound by state and national party bylaws to support at the convention. For most delegations, Ballotpedia was able to track down all of this information. For delegations where we were not able to track down this information or were only able to track down partial lists, we included this note. If you have additional information on this state's delegation, please email [email protected].
- ↑ Red State, "Rules at the 2016 Republican National Convention," March 8, 2016
- ↑ The Columbus Dispatch, "RNC rules committee resumes but do they have a deal with Trump foes?" July 14, 2016
- ↑ Ballotpedia report, Republican National Convention, Cleveland, Ohio, July 14, 2016
- ↑ ABC News, "Anti-Trump GOP Delegates Negotiate Behind Closed Doors on Rules Revolt," July 14, 2016
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Republican National Committee, "2016 Presidential Nominating Process," accessed October 6, 2015
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 CNN.com, "Republican National Convention roll call vote," accessed July 20, 2016
Committeeman
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