These Delegates Walked Out Of The RNC

Chaos has erupted at the Republican National Convention, and at the center of it is the Never Trump movement, which is working until the bitter end to oust Donald Trump as the party's presidential nominee. At the time of this writing, it is not clear exactly what is going on, as there is massive confusion on the convention floor. But we do know that Iowa and Colorado delegates have walked out of the convention following a fight over a vote on the event's rules.

Never Trumpers on the convention floor called for a roll call vote on the rules put forth by the rules committee instead of the traditional voice vote, in which the delegates just yell out "aye" or "nay" and the chairperson determines which calls were loudest. ABC News reported that delegates can force a roll call vote — in which each delegate's name is called out individually and their vote is recorded — if a majority of delegates from at least seven states support it.

Leaders of the group Delegates Unbound, which wants to change the convention's rules so that delegates may vote their conscience instead of being bound to the primary results, claimed they had sufficient support for the roll call. But according to the website Roll Call, three of the nine states submitting signatures didn't have a sufficient number of them, meaning only six had majorities supporting the vote.

The chair of vote procedures, Rep. Steve Womack, thus allowed the rules package to pass on a voice vote, stating, "The chair has found insufficient support for the request for a record vote." In protest of the decision, delegates from Iowa and Colorado walked out of the convention. Some level of unrest was expected, given the party's anything-but-conventional presumptive nominee. Never Trumpers were trying to unbind delegates as recently as Thursday before the convention, when the rules committee met to form the rules package to be voted on at the convention.

The rules package was really the last place to go for those looking to unbind delegates from the results of their states' primaries, effectively posing a challenge to Trump's nomination. The Republican Party rules state that most delegates are bound by the way their constituents voted in the primary or caucus in their state. Since Trump got a majority of pledged delegates through the primaries, he was slated to become the automatic nominee, unless the Never Trumpers succeeded in changing the rules. And on Monday, probably for the last time, they did not succeed.