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What Is the GOP Platform and Is It Important?

July 15, 2016
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Is the Party Platform Important?

The Republican Platform and RNC Platform Committee, 2016

Ballotpedia.org reposted with permission July 14, 2016

With the fight for the Republican presidential nomination all but settled in 2016, the attention of the media and political operatives quickly turned to a document known as the “platform” that outlines the Republican Party’s official principles, policy stances, and priorities. The body responsible for crafting the platform is the Platform Committee, a 112 member body that will hammer out the details of the document and present it to the delegates of the 2016 Republican National Convention for approval. Some political observers expected the platform and the Platform Committee to form the backdrops for an ideological struggle among the varying factions of the Republican Party, including the respective camps of the GOP’s two 2016 presidential frontrunners, Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee, and Ted Cruz, whose supporters continued filling up national delegate slots despite Cruz suspending his campaign in early May 2016.

This article breaks down what the GOP platform is and why it’s important as well as the responsibilities and membership of the Platform Committee.

HIGHLIGHTS
  • The party platform outlines the official principles, policy stances, and priorities of the Republican Party.
  
  • It is important because it serves as a mechanism both for helping candidates up-and-down the ballot shape their messages and for holding candidates accountable to the broader party consensus.
  
  • The Platform Committee, a temporary 112 member body, is responsible for crafting the platform and presenting it to the delegates at the Republican National Convention for approval.
  

What is the platform?

The platform is a written document that describes in detail the Republican Party’s official principles, policy stances, and priorities. It is rewritten every four years at the party’s national convention and touches upon a wide range of different issues, including domestic policies such as tax and healthcare reform; social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage; and foreign policy issues such as the war on terror and international trade.

The text that emerged from the 2012 Republican National Convention was roughly 50 pages long with two columns of text on each page. It can be read in full here.

Is the platform important?

“On the one hand they are the most important documents that a political party produces. ... On the other hand, they are worthless pieces of paper,” wrote L. Sandy Maisel in a 1993 article analyzing the platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties.[1] Maisel’s point was that platforms are intra-party affairs in which party elites hammer out a coherent political identity—what the party stands for and represents. Average voters, by contrast, generally know very little about party platforms and their contents. Instead, voters are more interested in where the candidates themselves stand on the issues.

In the almost-quarter-of-a-century that followed Maisel's paper, his argument seems to have held up. In fact, at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, House Speaker John Boehner stated, “have you ever met anybody who read the party platform? I never met anybody.”[2]

Nonetheless, many convention fights in the past have revolved around the platform. Here are two reasons why:

  1. Even though voters might not be directly familiar with the contents of party platforms through reading the actual documents, they are still exposed to the platforms through the messaging and rhetoric of candidates who adhere to them. In 2007, two political scientists argued this point in an academic paper, saying that the platforms serve as key resources for candidates up-and-down the ballot “to frame their election rhetoric.”[3]
  2. That same paper noted that by articulating a party’s commitment to a stance on a particular issue, the platform also serves as a “mechanism of accountability,” meaning voters, party operatives, and interest groups can use the platform to hold candidates accountable to the ideas agreed upon by the party as a whole. Dean Clancy, the former Vice President of the conservative group FreedomWorks, put this same idea another way in 2012: “The politicians will ignore the party platform unless forced to pay attention to it. And it’s really our job as citizens to hold them accountable to the document. And if we have a good platform, we’re going to want to hold that over the politician’s heads.”[4]

What is the Platform Committee?

The Platform Committee is the body responsible for drafting the party platform. It is a temporary committee that meets every four years at the Republican National Convention. Its membership is described below. Broadly speaking, the Platform Committee has three basic responsibilities:

  1. To draft the actual text of the party platform. This involves pinning down the not only the issues that will be addressed in the platform but also the very language that presents the Republican Party’s stances on these issues. The process of drafting the platform begins several months prior to the beginning of the convention. National delegates are allowed to submit resolutions to the Platform Committee in writing without debate. It is common for advisers to the party's presumptive nominee to play a role in crafting the platform during this stage.
  2. To approve the text of the party platform by a majority vote of all committee members. This means that at least half of the committee members have to approve of the platform before it can be allowed to move forward.
  3. To present the platform to the convention for approval by all national delegates in attendance. A majority vote from the delegates at the convention is required for approval of the platform. This will take place after the convention approves the rules package presented by the Rules Committee and before the convention formally selects its nominee for President. If a majority of the convention delegates do not approve the platform, the committee returns to its meeting and begins working on finding a consensus.

Subcommittees on the platform

In 2016, the Platform Committee consisted of six subcommittees:[5]

  • Economy
  • National security
  • Government reform
  • Families
  • Natural resources
  • Constitutional law

Who sits on the Platform Committee?

The Platform Committee is made up of 112 Republican delegates to the national convention. Each state, territory, and Washington, D.C. has one male and one female delegate who sit on the committee. The delegates who serve on the committee are first elected or selected at state conventions in the Spring to serve as national delegates. Then, they are either elected by their fellow national delegates to serve on the committee or they are selected by a state executive committee.

The Republican National Chairman is responsible for appointing a chair and two co-chairs of the committee. The chair and co-chairs have traditionally been one governor, one U.S. Senator, and one member of the House of Representatives. In 2016, the chair is Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming. The co-chairs are Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma and Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina (NC-5). In 2012, the chair was Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, and his co-chairs were Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota and Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee (TN-7).

Footnotes

  1.  Maisel, L.S. (2003). The Platform-Writing Process: Candidate-Centered Platforms in 1992. Political Science Quarterly, 108, 671-698.
  2.  Townhall.com, "The Significance of Party Platforms," September 18, 2012
  3.  Azari, J. and Engel, S.M. (2007). Do the Words Matter? Party Platforms and Ideological Change in Republican Politics. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.
  4.  The Washington Post, "Do party platforms really matter?" August 23, 2012
  5.  Wall Street Journal, "Republicans Descend on Cleveland: What to Watch," July 11, 2016

This articleoriginally appeared on ballotpedia.com and is reposted by permission. It will be updated during the convention on that site.

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