TAMPA IIb: Constitution Party Refused To Uphold Its Own Constitution/Platform On Abortion
Part IIb, A continuation
Jim Clymer
In his letter of resignation from the Executive and National committees of the C.P., Chuck Baldwin says Jim Clymer has been “doing a terrific job as our national party chairman!” This is not true. In an article he has written titled”THE CONSTITUTION PARTY REMAINS TRUE ON THE LIFE ISSUE: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT AND HEALING THE RIFT,” Clymer demonstrates that he is clueless at to what the Tampa debate was all about.
Clymer: “The Constitution Party continues its unwavering stand on the life issue. The Constitution Party platform has not changed [on abortion]….
Comment: No, the CP Platform on abortion has not changed. It was simply ignored in Tampa by those who voted to keep Nevada in the Party — Clymer being one of those who voted for Nevada. Thus, those voting for Nevada did more than “waver” on abortion, they said they did not care if Nevada was out of compliance on this crucial pro-life issue.
Clymer: “The issue being voted on was whether the personal opinions of the duly elected state chairman of the IAP, Chris Hansen, opinions which allow for some extremely rare exceptions to the pro-life position, were grounds to disaffiliate the whole Nevada party.”
Comment: The CP Party Platform does not allow any exceptions on abortion — period! In addition, in an email, Chris Hansen has said that his sister Janine supports the Mormon exceptions position on abortion and “so do most, if not all, of the 45 Nevada Party candidates.” Thus, the Tampa debate was notabout just the “personal opinions” of Chris Hansen.
Clymer: “The platform of the Independent American Party continues to be in full agreement with the platform of the National Party on the life issue. It stands clearly opposed to abortion and provides for no exceptions; in addition the IAP has adopted and approved the National Platform in its entirety. Chris Hansen’s exceptions position on the life issue is his personal view and not the official position of the party in Nevada.”
Comment: The issue in Tampa was not what the Nevada Party has said, on paper, is its position on abortion. The issue was what the Nevada Party has actually done. Remember what Janine Hansen said. She asked us “to apply the Biblical test — by their fruits you shall know them.” She quoted her Mother as having said: “Actions speak louder than words.” Well, amen! And when one looks at the “fruits/actions” of the Nevada Party their exceptions-on-abortion view is not in compliance with the CP Party Platform. And we’re not talking about “personal” views here. The Hansens are the Nevada Party.
Clymer: “The IAP, since its formation in the 1960’s, has been and remains a pro-life party. Many IAP leaders have long histories of work on the pro-life issue. On the state level they are the party that has been out in front fighting on the life issue.”
Comment: If you favor abortion exceptions you are not “pro-life.” You are pro-some-life which is a view not in compliance with the CP Party Platform.
Clymer: “The Nevada IAP was one of the handful of independent state parties that originally banded together to form the national party for the purpose of advancing our platform and principles nationally and supporting a presidential candidate. Just as independent, sovereign states in the 1700’s came together to form the United States government with limited authority, the CP was formed by the state parties who limited the authority of the national organization. The relationship between the national party and its state affiliates is such that, no matter how much it might want to, the national party cannot dictate who the state chairman is or which candidates they put up for public office. The State Party organizations placed stringent limitations on National’s authority in the Party’s Constitution and Bylaws wherein it clearly states that the National Committee has no jurisdiction over the internal affairs of the state party organizations, which certainly includes the officers they elect to represent them.”
Comment: More pettifoggery here that is, again, not relevant to what was being debated. No one on our side attempted in any way to tell the Nevada Party what officers they should elect to represent them. What was proved beyond a shadow of a doubt was that the Nevada Party’s “fruits/actions” showed this Party believes in exceptions on abortion which, one more time, is at odds with the CP Party Platform. And, again, Article 3 of the Constitution Party’s Constitution says: “The National Committee shall have the power to grant and revoke state affiliation status.”
Clymer: “National’s only recourse is the drastic step of disaffiliation, and those National Committee members who were present in Tampa made the difficult decision that the Nevada party has not violated its terms of affiliation.”
Comment: Indeed, this decision was made and it was flat wrong. In fact, none other than Jim Clymer himself, in Tampa, before the debate, confirmed that Nevada Party Chairman Chris Hansen was not in compliance with the CP Party Platform.
Reporting on a meeting he had with Chris Hansen, Clymer said, in part: “I will say that Chris was quite clear that he could not accept fully the pro-life plank of the National party platform.Again, he was honest about that — and said it was not where he was….he adopts the position of his [Mormon] church and that’s where he is on it, but that was not totally in conformity with the pro-life plank of the platform.He could not accept that as written.”
Then, incredibly, Clymer added: “Now, I’m not going to get into a debate about what that means.I’m simply reporting the facts — what he acknowledged to me in our meeting….”
But, why did Clymer say he didn’t know the meaning of what Chris Hansen said when the obvious meaning is that on the pro-life issue Hansen is not in compliance with the CP Party Platform?!
The night before our Tampa debate, at dinner, I made our disaffiliation case at our table with Bill Shearer, Howard Phillips, and Jim Clymer. I told Howard about the Nevada Party’s exceptions-on-abortion voting guide and how that Party had supported candidates who also favored exceptions. I also told him I thought Janine Hansen had lied to me in Nashville by withholding this information when she knew about it. Howard asked Clymer what he thought about these things I was saying, if they were true? Clymer smiled saying he would want to know “the state of mind” of the Hansens when they did these things. I told him that if was implying that an insanity defense might be made for the Hansens, I didn’t think this would work.
Now, back to that Clymer article:
Clymer: [Those who voted against disaffiliation] did so because they realize it is not the Nevada Party’s policy to espouse an exceptions position on the life issue. That does not mean that those present voted to endorse the fact that the Nevada party continues to support Chris Hansen as chairman. Chris Hansen is running for Governor this year, and, needless to say, the Constitution Party National Committee will not be supporting him in any way.”
Comment: Now, this is truly absurd. If Clymer voted to keep the Nevada Party in the CP, why in the world would he be against supporting Chris Hansen for Governor?! This makes no sense at all. And Clymer is wrong when he says those who voted to keep the Nevada Party in the CP were not approving the exceptions-on-abortion position of Chris Hansen/the Nevada Party. That is exactly what the pro-Nevada people were voting for!
Clymer: “On both sides of this issue are Godly people of conviction and principle.”
Comment: Allowing abortions for rape, incest, fetal deformities, life/health of the mother is not a Godly view. No way!
Clymer: “No one in Tampa voted in any way to weaken the Constitution Party’s pro-life stand, or in any way to support a compromise on the life issue.”
Comment: Not true. Everyone who voted to keep the Nevada Party in the CP voted, wittingly or unwittingly, to weaken the CP’s pro-life stand! The votes of these people was a “compromise.”
Clymer: “No one on either side is in favor of a ‘big tent’ approach to party growth at the expense of principle.”
Comment: Not true. As noted previously, Bill Shearer, in his Feb 2006 newsletter, denounced those who accused him of a big tent philosophy asking rhetorically: “Who ever built a viable political party in a pup-tent? Or by limiting freedom of expression only to a few shrill voices howling in the little tent?” And yes, by not caring about Nevada’s abortion exceptions position Shearer was advocating “a ‘big tent’ approach to party growth at the expense of principle.”
Clymer: “There can be no denying that this issue is also horribly complicated by the fact that some of the most outspoken on the pro-disaffiliation side are in favor of a religious test, do not believe that Mormons have any place in the Constitution Party, and are using this as a vehicle to get rid of a state party that is largely Mormon. This is not something that is merely alleged; it is fully documented.”
Comment: Yes, the “religious” issue was a sub-text, a factor in the Tampa debate. True. But, the resolution being debated was whether, on the abortion issue, Nevada was out of compliance with the CP Party Platform. They clearly were and are. Thus, within the context of the resolution, there was nothing “horribly complicated” at all.
Clymer: “Religious tests have come up before. For example, several years ago a majority of the leadership of the CP in Illinois (the predecessor to the currently affiliated CP of Illinois) supported the exclusion of Catholics from leadership positions in the party or from membership positions altogether. At the 2004 National Convention of the Constitution Party in Valley Forge, there were platform amendment proposals submitted proposing a religious test for party membership. In both of these instances the CP rejected efforts to exclude certain religions from participating in the party.”
Comment: Hmmmm. But, the CP already has, implicitly, a “religious test.” Indeed, Clymer, in this article, goes on to note: “We welcome people to become members, to apply to their state parties to run as candidates, and to run for positions of party leadership because they support our platform and will work to ‘limit the federal government to its delegated, enumerated, Constitutional functions and to restore American jurisprudence to its original Biblical common-law foundations’”
And he fails to mention that the Preamble to the Constitution Party Platform reads, in part: “The Constitution Party gratefully acknowledges the blessing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as Creator, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States. We hereby appeal to Him for mercy, aid, comfort, guidance and the protection of His Providence as we work to restore and preserve these United States. This great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Sounds like a “religious test” to me.
Clymer: “One can debate the issue of whether a political party should have an exclusively Christian membership and what form of Christian would be allowed until the cows come home, but the fact remains that it is not part of the mission of the Constitution Party.”
Comment: Read again, please, the Preamble to the CP Constitution. It is Christian.
Clymer: “References to the CP platform as a “covenant” in the purely religious sense, to not being able to be in “fellowship” with people of other faiths, and expressions of discontent at being “unequally yoked” have no place in this party and nothing in our founding or official pronouncements can be taken to indicate otherwise.”
Comment: Political parties inescapably involve covenanting, fellowship and yoking regardless of what you call all of this.
Clymer: “Anyone who feels they must be in religious “fellowship” with someone to work with them to achieve common political goals and to save our country should start another party made up of only his particular type of Christian. With such an attitude, Madison could never have worked with Franklin or Witherspoon with Jefferson. I am glad they were able to put aside differences of theology to give us the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
Comment: Seems to me all the signers of the Declaration were in agreement on the same “theology.”
Clymer: “Too many on the pro-disaffiliation side of this dispute were clearly not out to heal a rift, but to get rid of the Nevada party at all costs.”
Comment: By favoring numerous exceptions to abortion the Nevada Party disaffiliated itself. The Nevada Party caused this rift.
Clymer: ” Even before the meeting they were saying that if they didn’t get their way in Tampa, they would work to destroy the Constitution Party and encourage as many state party organizations as possible to leave. E-mails that were being sent all over the place were ill-considered, full of misinformation, and seemingly designed to stir up discord.
Comment: If the CP has been destroyed, it has been destroyed by those who sided with the Nevada Party.
Clymer: “Articles published since the meeting have been of that same ilk, and publishing the names of those who voted not to disaffiliate Nevada as being “pro-abortion” is shameful and disingenuous.”
Comment: Not at all. It is perfectly rational to assume that those who sided with the Nevada Party, which is for allowing abortion for rape, incest, fetal deformities, life/health of the mother, do not object to these exceptions. Thus, in this context, the pro-Nevada voters are “pro-abortion.”
Clymer: “However, others on the pro-disaffiliation side had no knowledge of the other implications tied to the vote in Tampa. They had no desire to hurt the Constitution Party, and theirs was a vote solely of conscience and solely based on the life issue.”
Comment: Thank you. This is true.
Clymer: “Many of them will continue to work through the Constitution Party, and, while I wish it were not the case, some will choose to leave, but, I pray, continue to work alongside us. I also pray that as they see that the CPNC has not wavered and continues to stand by its pro-life principles, they will rejoin our efforts.”
Comment: By voting to ignore the Nevada Party’s pro-abortion exceptions the CP has “wavered” on the pro-life issue. In fact, the CP collapsed on this issue.
Clymer: “I am particularly saddened to now see Howard Phillips being pilloried. Howard was the founder of the Constitution Party and has made huge sacrifices to build the party, including when he ran three times as our presidential candidate. I have worked with Howard for many years, he has had a huge influence on me, and I have a very high regard for him. Howard’s patriotism has truly been a labor of love, and to see people turn on him so quickly is appalling. I shouldn’t need to say that he is not a man of compromise, and certainly not a man to compromise on the life issue. His record speaks for itself.”
Comment: In Tampa, Howard chose poorly on the premier moral issue of our time — abortion. He did compromise. That is now part of his record. And it is understandable that many people would be extremely upset by his compromise on the pro-life issue.
Clymer: “The Constitution Party National Committee has not changed its position on the life issue, and it has not abandoned its mission or its principles.”
Comment: Repeating this no-compromise mantra doesn’t make it true. And it isn’t true.
Clymer: “I, for one, will continue to work alongside the many people on both sides of this issue who have paid the price in time, work, and money to save our country to the huge detriment of their material circumstances. These are people who have affected me and changed my thinking in profound ways and I know I walk the high-road because I serve alongside them.”
Comment: Those who voted to keep Nevada in the CP took the low-road. They put Party over principle.
Clymer: “I appeal to all of you to desist from recrimination, bind up our wounds, and continue together in the fight to save our country. The freedoms of future generations may very well hang in the balance.”
Comment: The wounds to the CP, possibly fatal, were inflicted by those voting against disaffiliating the Nevada Party. These wounds can be healed only by the pro-Nevada voters repenting of their sinful votes and asking for forgiveness. These wounds will not be healed by mindless, mystical appeals for togetherness. Such Godless appeals are “broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).
Chuck Baldwin
In Tampa, Baldwin voted for disaffiliating Nevada but he did it grimly, through clenched-teeth, telling me he would vote this way because he had promised to do so. He did not seem happy about having to keep his promise. But, he did keep his promise.
Following the Tampa debate, Baldwin wrote a column titled “Can Constitutionalists Ever Come Together?” — some of which deserves comment.
Baldwin: “It seems very clear to me that if conservative constitutionalists ever hope to regain national influence, it will take a combined effort. Currently, constitutionalists are fragmented and splintered to such a degree that, for all practical purposes, they are entirely ineffective. Moreover, they will continue to be ineffective unless they learn how to work together for a common cause.”
Comment: OK, so what must this “common cause” be in order to be “effective?” Must “religion” be relevant here? More specifically, will belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Bible be relevant here? Well, no.
Baldwin: “The cause should be the restoration of our constitutional form of government. As far as governing principles are concerned, the U.S. Constitution is the greatest source of protection against the Machiavellian propensities of power-hungry men that the world has ever known! If America had not had the Constitution, we would have already become a third rate nation. It is the Constitution which has preserved whatever semblance of freedom and federalism that remains.”
Comment: As a Baptist preacher who says he believes the Bible is God’s Word, Baldwin should know that simple belief in the restoration of our constitutional form of government is insufficient for us to work effectively to restore our Constitutional form of government. I say this because all of us in Tampa believe in the restoration of our Constitutional form of government but we did not work effectively together! I also believe that the credit Baldwin gives to our Constitution ought to be given to God, to the Lord Jesus Christ, because all good things come from Him.
Baldwin: “Without the Constitution (together with the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights), we would have little appreciation for religious liberty, the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, personal privacy, the right to trial by jury, or the right to keep and bear arms. America was founded upon the principles contained in the Constitution, not upon this mythical ‘two party system’ we hear so much talk about today!”
Comment: Amen! to the two-party system bit. But, again, Baldwin over-values the Constitution and our founding documents here coming perilously close to making them into idols. He gives credit to these documents for things which come only from the God of the Bible.
Baldwin: “In fact, it has been the ‘two party’ system that is largely responsible for much of America’s woes. The two major parties abandoned the Constitution years ago! The only thing either party is interested in is power! They could not care less whether or not America’s founding principles are preserved! Instead, over the past several decades, both parties have systematically and callously dismantled constitutional government with impunity!”
Comment: I disagree. It is the Church in America — those in the pews and pulpit, those who have claimed to be Christians — who are largely responsible for destroying our God-given liberties. As James Turner, Associate Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, documented-in-detail in his book “Without God, Without Creed: The Origins Of Unbelief In America” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985):
“Religion caused unbelief. In trying to adapt their religious beliefs to socioeconomic change, to new moral challenges, to novel problems of knowledge, to the tightening standards of science, the defenders of God slowly strangled Him. If anyone is arraigned for deicide, it is not Charles Darwin but his adversary Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, not the Godless Robert Ingersoll but the godly Beecher family” (emphasis mine).
Baldwin: “If personal liberty is to prevail, if any of our historic American liberties are to last much beyond this generation, it will only be because those constitutionalists who are left are able to put aside individual differences and work together (as did our Founding Fathers) for the restoration of our constitutional republic! We need a combined effort, a determined effort, a focused effort, and an indefatigable effort to do one thing: restore constitutional government to our land!”
Comment: Again, I disagree, strongly. God’s Word tells us (2 Corinthians 3:17) that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Thus, if we are to have true liberty, it will be where the Lord Jesus Christ governs. And here I must say something that will anger some and by some will be misunderstood. The Constitution was merely a procedural document designed to regulate an inner-directed, Christian people. When we ceased being a Christian people, the Constitution became a dead letter. We have lost our liberty because we are no longer Christian. Thus, the “one thing” we must be about is trying to re-Christianize our people.
Baldwin: “Constitutional government would rein in the abortion problem, the gay marriage problem, the illegal invasion problem, the federal spending problem, the American imperialism problem, the high taxation problem, the anti-religious freedom problem, the runaway judiciary problem, and most other national maladies. “Constitutional government would restore power to the individual States and liberty to individual citizens. It would stop this burgeoning Big Brother executive branch of government dead in its tracks, and it would put the House of Representatives back in charge of the country again, as the founders intended! “Constitutional government would break up the elitist makeup of the U.S. Senate and allow individual States to be truly represented in Washington, D.C. It would also permanently dismantle the Internal Revenue Service.”
Comment: No, no, no! We have all these problems because we are no longer a Christian, God-fearing, Bible-believing, Bible-obeying, Christ-glorifying people! And unless we once again, by God’s grace, become a Christian people, the Constitution will remain a dead letter.
Baldwin: “Again, the question is, can conservative constitutionalists put aside individual differences and reach a working consensus that would allow them to combine their energies and resources for the accomplishment of the goal of restoring constitutional government? I truly do not know the answer to that question. However, one thing I do know: if constitutional government is not restored soon, America is toast!”
Comment: But, again, upon what basis might we have a true “working consensus?” Can we have it apart from Christ? No!
Re-read John 15:5: “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (emphasis mine).
And America — any nation — is “toast” when it turns its back on the God of the Bible. As He warns us in Psalm 9:17: “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all nations that forget God.”
Amen! Thus saith the Lord.
John Lofton
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