Opponents of Donald Trump are pushing for a rules change that would deprive the presumptive Republican presidential nominee of the power to choose the vice presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention, according to a new report.
“The preference of any candidate seeking nomination for president of the United States shall have no bearing upon the submission of names for nomination for vice president of the United States nor the recording of votes for the same,” says a draft rule obtained by Buzzfeed.
Trump hasn’t named a running mate, and some of his reported potential candidates have withdrawn themselves from consideration. Presidential tickets have united rivals many times, but such a rule change would have echoes of the earliest presidential campaigns, such as when political archenemies Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr served as president and vice president, respectively.
“It’s a counterweight to Trump,” a Free the Delegates source told Buzzfeed. “It’s the grassroots saying if you’re going to do this, you’re going to do it with our pick.”
Rep. Raul Labrador, an Idaho Republican who has reluctantly acquiesced to Trump’s victory in the Republican presidential primaries, wants the real estate mogul to select Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, as his running mate. “That would be the only way of getting the party together and getting two guys who got 70 percent of the votes,” Labrador told reporters Thursday.
The draft rule would make a nomination over Trump’s objections possible by lowering the threshold for the number of state delegations required to nominate a VP choice. It would also establish that if the a vice presidential candidate didn’t win the support of two-thirds of delegates, then the voting would continue on the convention floor.
Of course, the rule that would need to be revised is the same one that governs the rules for nominating the presidential candidate, and so the changes might set a precedent for revisions that targeted Trump himself. That campaign has struggled to gain traction due to the lack of a political figure willing to challenge Trump at the last minute; a vice presidential hopeful who has demonstrated the support of a majority of delegates might pose more of a threat.
