Politics & Government

West County Caucus Cram Session

What you need to know about Saturday's township caucuses.

Saturday marks the first time in years that Missouri Republicans have used the caucus system to help determine which presidential candidate will receive the state's 52 delegates.

It's a process that starts Saturday, continues next Saturday in St. Louis City and the Kansas City area, and won't be completed until the congressional district-level convention in April and the state GOP convention in June. Therefore, Missouri results will not be known until at least June.

Patch spoke with Neal Breitweiser, a County GOP Committeeman about the process.

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Breitweiser said Missouri Republicans use the caucus sytem every four years to choose convention delegates, so that's nothing new. The political back and forth last year which ultimately rendered last month's primary meaningless as far as the delegate count has made the rest of the process something of an adventure.

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Queeny Township Republicans will gather at the Saturday morning. There will be a pre-caucus session beginning around 8 a.m. and the caucus begins at 10 a.m. Doors will close at 10 a.m. or when the facility reaches its 125 person maximum capacity. There are unconfirmed reports that Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum's wife, Karen Santorum, is scheduled to appear at the Queeny Township Caucus. 

Chesterfield Township Republicans will meet at where Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is scheduled to appear at 8 a.m. Saturday, with the caucus there set to begin at 10 a.m.

For a list of townships and their caucus locations, click here

Peg Koch, Committeewoman for the Queeny Township Republican Committee encourages attendees to arrive early. She said Queeny has been allotted 14 delegates, which breaks down to a total of 28 names for each of the District and the State Conventions. In the case of Queeny Township, that means selecting 14 delegates and 14 alternates.

If any person listed on a slate is not present at the Caucus, they must have given their prior consent to be considered for that delegate or alternate position. 

"These will be the rules of hte Queeny Township caucus, but every township's caucus can have it's own set of rules," Koch tells Patch.

She also tells Patch that anyone wanting to suggest changes to the platform must submit them in writing and deliver them to the Platform/Rules Committee before the caucus starts Saturday.

As far as how the Missouri caucuses will work overall, Breitweiser said the first job is to elect a caucus chair. Next up is to elect a slate of delegates to the congressional district level convention in April. 

The delegates selected Saturday do not need to declare for a presidential candidate, although they can do so. Breitweiser said he's been in touch with representatives for Mitt Romney, who have said the campaign will be active in every township.

He heard several months ago from Newt Gingrich's campaign, and has not heard anything from the Rick Santorum or Ron Paul, although he expects Paul's campaign to file a slate of delegates.

Breitweiser said the entire process Saturday could take as little as an hour or as long as 4 hours. The piece of business apt to take up the most time isn't the delegate selection process, but instead voting on and making amendments to the .

The St. Patrick's Day holiday was enough for some Republican caucuses to move to another day. It will also be the first Saturday of the NCAA basketball tournament, which could leave some people with a decision to make. But Breitweiser said he expects a "dramatic increase" in turnout this year because of the presidential stakes. In 2008 he said roughly 29 people participated. He expects between 50-60 on Saturday.


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