Charlotte host committee blasts GOP after RNC moves to Florida

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte’s host committee for the Republican National Convention lashed out at the “broken promises” of GOP officials Friday, saying their decision to move most of the event to Florida is “devastating” for Charlotte businesses that had counted on it.

The host committee statement came less than a day after Republican officials formally moved the most public part of the convention to Jacksonville, leaving only some low-profile business in Charlotte.

“We need to stop pretending there’s any part of the convention that will remain in Charlotte,” the committee said. “Our good faith efforts to carry out our obligations under agreements made two years ago have been met with broken promises and disregard of the significant commitment from many partners across our region.”

The host committee, led by Republican John Lassiter, a former Charlotte City Council member, was charged with raising $70 million and recruiting thousands of volunteers for the convention as well as contracting venues for what organizers once expected to be 1,200 related events.

Only the first day of the scheduled four-day convention — Aug. 24 — will be held in Charlotte, though the GOP says other convention meetings will take place in town starting Aug. 21. The Republican National Committee will meet in Charlotte Aug. 21-22.

The convention speeches and pageantry will take place over three days in Jacksonville.

The convention is moving after Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper told Trump last month that continued concerns about the coronavirus meant he couldn’t guarantee that delegates and their guests could fill the arena in August. That prompted Trump to tweet last week that he would move the convention to another city.

It was unclear Friday whether the city or host committee might take legal action. Officials have been poring over contracts and exploring options. Republicans blame Cooper for failing to guarantee a full convention.

“I don’t know how we can be violating any contracts when the governor has said time and time again that we needed to scale back our convention and that we could only have 10 people in any given room,” Republican national chair Ronna McDaniel said Friday on Fox News.

“We’ve worked in good faith with the Host Committee and with the mayor, Vi Lyles. We wanted to be in Charlotte, we want to stay there for the business portion of it. We want to bring as much revenue to that city as possible but we had to scale it back and we want to have the celebration portion in Florida where we can have a fullscale convention.”

The Charlotte Observer reported Thursday that only 336 delegates - out of around 2,500 - will come to Charlotte for convention business that will include a meeting of the credentials committee as well as the formal nominations of President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. The delegates in Charlotte will cast proxy votes for other delegates.

RNC attorneys said more delegates could attend the Charlotte business meetings if state restrictions are further relaxed. They outlined their plans Friday in a letter to the host committee, the city and Mecklenburg County.

“We are pleased that North Carolinians will have front row seats to this historic occasion as the Convention is formally called and the assembled delegates hold the roll call vote to nominate (the president and vice president) Monday,” they wrote.

They also said they no longer need the Spectrum Center. The arena, once expected to be the site of the convention, had been scheduled to be taken over by convention officials in midJuly for a multimillion-dollar renovation. They asked the host committee not to make “any additional payments” to the Spectrum Center.

It was unclear Friday how much they’ve already spent. Host committee officials could not be reached.

“Along those same lines,” the GOP lawyers wrote, “we also hereby request that the City and CLT Host 2020, Inc. refrain from incurring any additional costs that are no longer necessary, including hotel rooms, venues, transportation, and security, as well as any marketing, public relations, media, signage, and professional fees.”

“Considering the fact that this event was stolen from us purely because of politics, I would love for our industry and our community to move on and focus on reopening our businesses and doing whatever we can to get our economy back on track,” Mohammad Jenatian, President of the Greater Charlotte Hospitality & Tourism Alliance, said in an email.

“Since securing this event 2 years ago, thousands of businesses have been working tirelessly to help Republicans have one of their best national conventions in Charlotte. It is sad to see all of that hard work going to waste, but our industry is resilient, we will survive.”

But Mayor Pro Tem Julie Eiselt, a Democrat, said, “I think a lot of people are relieved.”

“I supported the convention,” she said, “but . with all that’s going on in our community right now I don’t think that it’s a bad thing that it’s going somewhere else. This wasn’t going to be the economic benefit that it was initially expected to be. (And) we’re living in the middle of a health crisis.”

Eiselt said while businesses will lose money in the short run, if the convention brought another spike in COVID-19 that would hurt them as well. “Long-term it might have been a death knell for them,” she said.

Some Republicans blamed the governor. In a fundraising email, U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop, a Republican, said, “Cooper just used the Coronavirus to cancel President Trump’s Republican National Convention and attempt to sabotage the president’s reelection campaign.”

Republican council member Ed Driggs said he’s heard from both sides.

“There’s a (difference) of opinion among other people I talk to whether we’re better off not having the convention here,” he said. “Clearly what we were looking forward to cannot occur because of the virus. There was always the question of what (the convention) would look like in the context of the virus. And there have been all these protests which rekindled apprehension about what kind of demonstrations might occur at the convention.”

It will be the first time since 1860 that a national convention will take place in two different cities. In their letter, the Republican lawyers alluded to the president elected that year.