LOS ANGELES — With Republican candidates in California this week for the second presidential primary debate, another showdown between state party members has been quietly bubbling behind the scenes — one that could indicate larger rifts in the Republican Party heading into 2024.
At the California GOP’s convention set to take place this weekend, delegates will engage in a potentially contentious debate over proposed changes to the state party’s platform that would soften the language against abortion and same-sex marriage.
The new proposal removes language in the current platform that specifically states that the California Republican Party believes “life begins at conception.” It also removes language that says, “it is important to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.”
A draft subcommittee passed these suggested changes in July, arguing that rethinking the party’s official position on these social issues could help the GOP attract new members in a state where a Republican has not won a statewide election since 2006.
But a number of longstanding state party leaders are now fighting back, and it all could come to a head as delegates gather in Anaheim beginning Friday.
“I absolutely think it could get contentious this weekend because these are big issues that divide America and therefore divide Republicans in California,” Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor and MSNBC columnist, told NBC News.
“To the extent that the establishment of the Republican Party feels like their party is being taken away from them, I think you’ll see fighting to keep that party,” she said. “And to the extent that younger people, more diverse people, feel that the party has become too narrow, and they are essentially suffocating the party, I think you’ll see really strong fighting to say we’ve got to broaden out in order to survive.”
One of the people supporting the new changes is Charles Moran, a delegate from Los Angeles County and the president of Log Cabin Republicans, the country’s largest organization representing LGBT Republicans.
Moran, who served on the draft subcommittee, called the current platform “exclusionary” and said those pushing back on the new changes are “living in fantasyland.”
“The Republican Party of California needs to get with the times,” Moran said. “We need to get modern.”
He pointed to voters’ overwhelming support last cycle for Proposition 1, which codified abortion access into California’s state constitution, and to national polling showing that a majority of Americans opposed the overturning of Roe vs. Wade and are supportive of same-sex marriage.
“The plank is still pro-life, but it’s not vitriolic and demonizing people who do choose to have an abortion,” he said of the draft platform. “It still talks about the necessity to have a two-parent household and to have two people in a committed relationship, but it doesn’t necessarily say that if you are pro-gay marriage or even support traditional marriage that you don’t have a home in the Republican Party.”
But this position is riling up many members in the state’s GOP. In recent days, a group of state party leaders have been emailing delegates urging them to reject the new platform.
“Bud Light, Target, and the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts learned hard lessons when they embraced leftist extremism and forgot their base,” read one email, which was obtained by NBC News. “California Republicans cannot afford to make the mistake of capitulating to the woke left instead of standing firm on our traditional values and core principles.”
Harmeet Dhillon, National Committeewoman of the Republican National Committee for California, is among those pushing to keep the platform “as is.”
“A platform is not about politics or pandering to what’s vogue. It’s about principles,” Dhillon told NBC News. “It is both unprincipled and political folly to attempt to be more like Democrats in this state. It literally takes away some of the reasons people support us.”
She said she views the party platform as “an aspirational set of principles” and not a “litmus test” for candidates, and that its most important role is that it’s a “selling point” for their party’s core supporters and volunteers.
“They really care about it. We cannot afford to lose them,” she said. “And it is the wrong thing to do to be Democrat-light.”
At the convention, a full draft committee made up of more than 200 state delegates are set to debate on whether to ratify the new changes or keep the current platform.
Dhillon believes the smaller, draft subcommittee was disproportionately made up of people who do not reflect the broader beliefs in the state party, and predicts most delegates will choose to keep the current platform. Both Dhillon and Moran have been working to whip votes ahead of the meetings on Saturday.
The old vs. new platform
Moran said the draft platform is also part of a national effort by some in the GOP to trim down party platforms, and instead allow more space for candidates to define their positions. Dhillon said candidates can already do that and are not required to adhere to the platform.
“There’s literally no purity test,” she said.
The California GOP’s current party platform is 14 pages long. The new one is just four.
In the current platform, marriage is addressed in a section titled “Family.” It states, in part: “We support the two-parent family as the best environment for raising children, and therefore believe that it is important to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.”
The draft of the new version softens the language and removes the line about defining marriage as between a man and woman. Instead, it says: “We support the family unit as the best environment for raising children, but most importantly affirm that a loving, safe home for all children should be our society’s top priority.”
In the section about abortion, titled “The Right to Life,” the current platform says, in part: “The California Republican Party is the party that protects innocent life because we believe life begins at conception and ends at natural death.”
It also says, “we support laws that protect unborn children from partial birth, sex selection, and taxpayer funded abortions, and abortions performed as a form of birth control or on minor girls without their parents’ notification and consent.” And “we support adoption as an alternative to abortion and call on lawmakers to reduce the bureaucratic burden placed on adoptive couples.”
The new draft platform is significantly shorter. It states: “We value protecting innocent life and want to see the number of abortions reduced. We support adoption as an alternative to abortion and call on lawmakers to reduce the bureaucratic burden placed on adoptive couples.”
Part of a national division
Law professor Jessica Levinson said that while all political parties have infighting, the debate happening in California is a microcosm for a larger discussion within the GOP about the future of the party.
“I think Californians here, as in other states, are looking at voters and looking at voters who are rejecting anti-abortion proposals, and who are rejecting anti-same sex marriage proposals, and realizing that the sands are really shifting from under their feet,” Levinson said. “They’re saying, this may not be the way to win. We may have to broaden out or soften our position.”
“And so, absolutely, if you look at where younger voters are, you look at where more diverse voters are, if you look at where female voters are, it is difficult to win very big elections and be staunchly pro-life right now,” she added.