FLOYD: BREAKING THE RULES LESS IS STILL BREAKING THE RULES

Columbia, SC – Friday, April 1, 2011 – South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Karen Floyd today issued the following statement after Florida Republican leaders offered a “compromise” of moving their primary date to late February – a timeframe still in violation of RNC primary calendar rules:

“One should not get credit for breaking the rules of our Party ‘less,’” Floyd said in reference to the letter she sent to the RNC yesterday. “The RNC rules are crystal clear – no state outside of the four carve-out states are allowed to have their contests before March 6, period,” Floyd said. “What Florida is suggesting now is akin to being pulled over for going 90 miles per hour in a 60 mile per hour zone, and telling the police that you are willing to slow down to 70. Rules are rules, and hopefully my colleagues at the RNC will reject this idea on its face, and continue to insist upon tough and meaningful sanctions that could include the loss of the convention.

“While any number of Republican leaders in Florida want to make this debate about the importance of their place in the primary calendar, they are a little late to the dance for that. The fact is that the RNC went through an exhaustive, two-year process during which the nominating calendar was discussed, debated, and ultimately adopted by a two-thirds vote of our membership.

“Numerous forums and other opportunities for Florida to have made a case for an earlier date were held over the past two years, during which I and many other party officials from many states presented ideas about the 2012 nominating calendar. I am not aware of Florida Speaker Dean Cannon or anyone else from Florida’s legislature bothering to show up to make the arguments they are now so stridently making. To be frank, those arguments are now irrelevant to today’s discussion – a rule has been adopted, and that rule should be followed.

“The RNC cannot endorse – even tacitly – the idea of Florida holding its contest any time before March 6. Doing so sends a terrible message to other states that legislative temper tantrums will be rewarded rather than punished – and it flies in the face of everything we believe in as a Party about the rule of law.

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