Guest Opinion: Attending the Republican National Convention

By James V. Lacy

I’m delighted to be attending the Republican National Convention in Cleveland as a California state at-large delegate for Donald Trump.

This convention has 172 delegates and 169 alternates from California, which is the largest single delegation at the RNC.  Delegates in our state are selected by the Presidential candidate they support to either represent one of our 53 Congressional districts—from which three delegates are elected if the Presidential candidate wins that district—or as one of 10 statewide at-large delegates, if the candidate wins statewide.  Since Donald Trump won California’s primary overwhelmingly, with over 74 percent, he won all the delegates at stake.

Each delegate pays their own expenses to attend the convention and the RNC arranges hotels in the convention city to fit the state delegation. When delegates are seated they are treated to front row seats, as the California delegation, along with Donald Trump’s New York delegation.

I am the only delegate who lives in Dana Point, but there are three other delegates representing our same Congressional district including Congressman Darrell Issa, an old friend whom I met with on the first day as we gathered our floor credentials.  Darrell is originally from Cleveland and we chatted about that.

This is my fourth Republican National Convention.  As a young man in 1976, I served as a Reagan delegate representing an Orange County congressional district.  In 1976, the convention was in Kansas City and Reagan was challenging President Gerald Ford.  Reagan lost a close one, but then went on to win in Detroit in 1980 where I served as a volunteer aide to the delegation.  I also attended the 1984 convention in Dallas as a member of the Reagan Administration by then.

Especially at this time of domestic and international crisis, it is a great privilege to be able to participate again in this most democratic of processes, electing our next President.

James V. Lacy is author of “Taxifornia” and a frequent guest on Fox Business News channel’s “Varney & Company.”  He was a two term chairman of the Dana Point Planning Commission and served on the City Council from 2002-2006.