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| D.C. Council member David Catania resigned as a member of the District
Republican Party Committee after the party chair refused to certify him as a
delegate to the national party's nominating convention. (Photo by Leigh H. Mosley)
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HOME > NEWS > LOCAL
By: LOU CHIBBARO JR. COMMENTS
In a development that sent shock waves through the D.C. Republican Party, gay
D.C. Council member David Catania (R-At-Large) on Thursday resigned as a member
of the party’s governing committee after party Chair Betsy Werronen refused
to certify his election as a delegate to the Republican National Convention.
Party loyalists received another shock hours later when Council member Carol
Schwartz (R-At-Large) resigned as a delegate to the GOP convention in protest
over Werronen’s decision to bar Catania from the convention by not certifying
him.
Werronen said she based her decision on Catania’s public statements
criticizing President Bush for endorsing a constitutional amendment to ban
same-sex marriage and vowing to work for Bush’s defeat in the November
election.
“At the end of the day, for us to certify a delegate for the convention,
you have to support the re-election of the president,” Werronen said. “That’s
why you are there.”
Catania said Werronen overstepped her authority. He said party rules require
her to certify duly elected delegates as long as they are pledged to vote at
the convention to nominate Bush as the Republican Party candidate for president — something
Catania said he had agreed to do. According to Catania and other members of
the D.C. Republican Committee, from which Catania resigned, party rules don’t
require delegates to back the party nominee in the November election.
“What she has done, on its face, is to hold me to a standard different
from everybody else,” Catania said.
He said he believes he could win a legal challenge to Werronen’s action,
but said he doesn’t plan to contest the decision.
“I resigned today because I don’t have the time or the energy
to deal with this drama,” he said.
D.C. gay Republicans have considered Catania one of the leading forces behind
an influx in membership in the local party among gay Republicans, who have
been credited with energizing the party in a city where registered Democrats
outnumber Republicans by a nine to one margin.
Catania had been a loyal supporter of Bush up until the time the president
declared his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would add language
to the U.S. Constitution banning same-sex marriage in all 50 states and U.S.
territories. Prior to Bush’s decision to back the FMA, Catania raised
more than $50,000 for the Bush re-election campaign and planned to campaign
for the president in the gay community.
He said he felt betrayed by Bush’s decision to support a constitutional
ban on same-sex marriage, saying the president had privately told him and his
domestic partner at a reception at Bush’s Texas ranch that he respected
the relationships that two individuals choose to enter. In public statements
in recent weeks, Catania has said he believes Bush’s support for the
FMA was a calculated ploy to gain votes from fundamentalist Christians and
social conservatives.
“I am denouncing him,” Catania said in March. “I will not
be supporting him. I will be working to defeat him.”
Earlier this year, Werronen and other party leaders picked Catania and other
local gay Republicans to run on an uncontested slate of delegates and alternate
delegates to the Republican Convention in New York City in late August. D.C.
Republicans elected the slate at a party caucus that same month. Werronen also
appointed Catania to represent the D.C. GOP convention delegation on the party’s
national platform committee.
After Bush announced his support for the FMA, Catania said he hoped to advocate
on behalf of gay civil rights and urban issues at platform committee hearings
and at the convention itself.
Werronen said she would replace Catania as a delegate with veteran gay Republican
activist Carl Schmid, who won election as an alternate delegate at the February
party caucus.
“He was next in line,” she said.
Schmid said he is anguished over whether to accept the position.
“I told Betsy I was against what she did,” said Schmid, in discussing
Werronen’s decision not to certify Catania as a delegate. “I considered
resigning but I feel I gain a platform and a voice on the issues David and
I care about by being a delegate.”
Mark Sibley, another gay member of the DCRC as well as a delegate to the convention,
said he is unsure whether he, too, will resign. Gay DCRC member Paul Dione
called Werronen’s action “very troubling” and said he was
weighing what, if any, action he and other members of the 12-member gay contingent
on the DCRC should do.
In a May 27 letter to Werronen, Schwartz said she could not stay on as a delegate
following Werronen’s action.
“David has been an enormous asset to us, ...
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