Karamo official says Detroit MIGOP convention is canceled, but some plan to meet Up North

LANSING — The man who served as executive director of the Michigan Republican Party under Kristina Karamo said Friday that a planned Saturday convention in Detroit to elect delegates to the Republican National Convention has been canceled.

Though that announcement was good news for Michigan Republican Chair Pete Hoekstra, the party remained fractured Friday as the chairs of both the 1st congressional district and the 4th congressional district made arrangements to meet separately from Hoekstra's convention in Grand Rapids, but also away from Detroit, to accommodate delegates who were refused Grand Rapids credentials after county chairs missed deadlines.

Jim Copas said the decision was made to cancel the Detroit convention in light of a judge's ruling Tuesday that Karamo, who called the convention, had been lawfully removed by state committee members on Jan. 6.

"I got an email from the general counsel's office," Copas said.

Hoekstra, who is recognized by the Republican National Committee after he was elected Jan. 20 to replace Karamo, is holding a Saturday convention in Grand Rapids for the same purpose.

The Friday announcement from Copas canceling Karamo's Detroit convention, however, was soon followed by announcements of two additional alternative meetings Saturday.

The Michigan Republican Party's 1st Congressional District, which takes in the Upper Peninsula and the northern Lower Peninsula, announced Friday that the district will hold its Saturday convention in Houghton Lake — not in Grand Rapids or Detroit.

The news release said the last-minute announcement is an attempt to "accommodate the voting rights of their disenfranchised delegates who were denied credentials to attend the Convention of the Districts at the DeVos Place in Grand Rapids."

The Free Press reported Thursday that more than 20 county Republican parties — many of them located in the 1st District, were denied credentials to Saturday's Grand Rapids for the delegates elected at their county conventions, because they missed the Feb. 21 deadline to send their delegate lists.

"The newly declared administration of MRP appears to be inviting dissent and disregarding rules with the consent of their Republican National Committee allies," said Daire Rendon, chair of the district.

"We will not play that game by falling into their confusing messaging and backtracking. Denying the majority of the delegates elected at county conventions in the 1st Congressional District their right to be heard at the State District Convention is not acceptable."

Then, later on Friday, Ken Beyer, who chairs the 4th congressional district, announced that he had arranged for elected county delegates from his district to meet separately in Battle Creek, for similar reasons.

"Just yesterday, on Feb. 28th, we learned that a majority of the counties in the 4th Congressional District were denied credentialing privileges for their delegates to attend convention," Beyer said in an email obtained by the Free Press.

"In order to participate in the 4th District Convention process and to accommodate the delegates who have been denied entrance to the Grand Rapids convention, we have made alternative arrangements for our elected delegates."

The Grand Rapids convention is mainly intended to select 39 of the party's 55 presidential delegates to the Republic National Convention. Hoekstra and his supporters note that the RNC has endorsed his leadership and only delegates elected at the Grand Rapids convention will be seated.

Rendon told the Free Press earlier that many delegates from counties in her district had already made travel arrangements and booked hotels in Detroit before the judge's ruling.

Last Tuesday, a Kent County judge ruled that Kristina Karamo was lawfully removed as chair of the Michigan Republican Party on Jan. 6. She had called a Saturday convention in Detroit to elect delegates to the Republican National Convention in July. Though many county chairs had attempted to credential delegates for both conventions, while a court ruling was pending, more than 20 only attempted to register for the Detroit convention.

Hoekstra said Thursday his administration "bent over backwards" to try to get the impacted counties to send their slates of delegates until it became logistically too difficult to get that done before Saturday.

Rendon said the denial of credentials is "the type of leadership that Karamo was falsely accused of," and "the grassroots are watching their party being stolen from them."

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on X, @paulegan4.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Kristina Karamo official: Detroit MIGOP Saturday convention canceled