The Independent View: Judge Strikes Down VA Primary Bound Candidate Law

A Federal judge struck down an obscure element of Virginia’s Presidential Primary laws Monday, handing a symbolic victory to a Republican National Convention delegate who has refused to support Trump.

U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne permanently barred Virginia from enforcing a law that requires a winner-take-all system in which the first-place finisher of the GOP Primary would technically be entitled to all 49 of the State’s delegates. The statute conflicts with the Republican Party’s Primary rules, which allocate Virginia’s delegates proportionally based on the Primary results.

Carroll “Beau” Correll, a Winchester attorney who supported Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, argued that the State law violates his constitutional rights to free speech and freedom of association by requiring him and all other delegates to vote for Trump on the Convention’s first ballot.

Payne agreed that Correll, a delegate representing the 10th Congressional District, shouldn’t face criminal penalties for political activity at the Convention, where anti-Trump forces are planning a longshot attempt to stop the controversial businessman from being chosen as the Presidential nominee. But the judge did not accept Correll’s more sweeping theory that all delegates are free to support whomever they want regardless of Party rules.

Trump Campaign attorney Don McGahn said in a statement that the ruling is “a fatal blow to the Anti-Trump agitators.”

Before the ruling, 17 Virginia delegates were bound to Trump on the first ballot in Cleveland, Ohio, because of his victory in the State’s March 1 Primary. That will remain the case unless the anti-Trump forces can cause a change to Convention rules. The rest of Virginia’s delegates are bound to candidates who have dropped out, with stronger Primary finishers getting a larger share.

Michael Kelly, a spokesman for Virginia's Attorney General Mark R. Herring, said the opinion “is not expected to significantly change the practical legal landscape in Virginia” and reiterated the State’s position that it had no intention of pursuing criminal charges against Correll. “This has always been an intraparty fight within the Republican Party, but the state was unfortunately dragged into this fight yet again,” Kelly said in an email.

Trump Campaign Attorney and former FEC Chairman Don McGahn issued the following statement:

“The court has confirmed what we have said all along: Rule 16 is in effect and thus delegates, including Correll, are bound to vote in accordance with the election results. The court did not buy what Curly Haugland was selling, and noted that his testimony has no support in the rule’s text and was contradicted by his own book, Unbound. This case puts his unbound theory to rest, and is a fatal blow to the Anti-Trump agitators.”

On July 14, the GOP Rules Committee will start to work on the rules for the 2016 Convention. It will only take 28 Rule Committee members to force any rule change to be voted on by the entire Convention Delegates.