National Policy Conference to Feature Stuart Taylor on His Latest Book

The RNLA is pleased to host Stuart S. Taylor, Jr., of National Journal at the 2017 National Policy Conference on Friday, May 5, for an address on his latest book, The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America's Universities:

In recent years, politicians led by President Obama and prominent senators and governors have teamed with extremists on campus to portray our nation’s campuses as awash in a violent crime wave—and to suggest (preposterously) that university leaders, professors, and students are indifferent to female sexual assault victims in their midst. Neither of these claims has any bearing in reality. But they have achieved widespread acceptance, thanks in part to misleading alarums from the Obama administration and biased media coverage led by the New York Times. 

The frenzy about campus rape has helped stimulate—and has been fanned by—ideologically skewed campus sexual assault policies and lawless commands issued by federal bureaucrats to force the nation’s all-too-compliant colleges and universities essentially to presume the guilt of accused students. The result has been a widespread disregard of such bedrock American principles as the presumption of innocence and the need for fair play.

This book uses hard facts to set the record straight. It explores, among other things, about two dozen of the many cases since 2010 in which innocent or probably innocent students have been branded as sex criminals and expelled or otherwise punished by their colleges. And it shows why all students—and, eventually, society as a whole—are harmed when our nation’s universities abandon pursuit of truth and seek instead to accommodate the passions of the mob.

Mr. Taylor has agreed to sign copies of his book immediately following his address, and books will be available for sale at the National Policy Conference.

We look forward to hearing from Mr. Taylor on this important issue and hope to see you there on Friday, May 5!  There is still time to register or sponsor.

The RNLA's Ballot Access Initiative Featured in the National Journal

The National Journal reported yesterday on the RNLA’s efforts to ensure that every Republican Candidate has an opportunity to get on the ballot in each of the 50 states and 6 American territories.  The Ballot Access Initiative, spearheaded by Co-Chairs Stefan Passantino and Peter Schalestock with help from their team of RNLA volunteers, have come up with the most sweeping ballot-access project in GOP history.

Getting on the ballot as a candidate seems like a simple task, however, each jurisdiction has different rules, which can cost a campaign a lot of money.  According to the article:

How much money?  Ac­cord­ing to Stefan Passantino, a Wash­ing­ton, D.C.-based at­tor­ney who served as co­chair­man of the Bal­lot Ac­cess Ini­ti­at­ive, the num­ber reaches eas­ily in­to the six fig­ures.

It typ­ic­ally costs “tens of thou­sands of dol­lars in dir­ect re­search costs to the cam­paign,” Passantino said. “When you com­bine that with the ad­di­tion­al costs in­curred in hav­ing to hire pro­fes­sion­al sig­na­ture-gather­ers be­cause of an in­ab­il­ity to fully al­loc­ate vo­lun­teer re­sources at the out­set, the amount un­doubtedly ex­tends to six fig­ures.”

RNLA President Larry Levy, who served as gen­er­al coun­sel to Rudy Gi­uliani’s 2008 White House bid as well as RNLA Chairman Randy Evans, a senior advisor for Newt Gingrich’s 2012 Presidential Campaign recognized the difficulties presented to counsels for a candidate to get access to the ballot in all of the states.

“We both had ex­per­i­ence in rep­res­ent­ing pres­id­en­tial can­did­ates and re­cog­nized how dif­fi­cult and time-con­sum­ing it is to get on the bal­lot in every jur­is­dic­tion,” Levy said of him­self and Evans.

Evans, re­call­ing his ex­per­i­ence with the Gin­grich cam­paign, ad­ded: “I know how pain­ful it was in Vir­gin­ia when we couldn’t muster enough sig­na­tures to get on the bal­lot. It’s im­port­ant for can­did­ates to know what the rules are.”

The RNLA launched the Ballot Access Initiative back in January of 2015 after the midterm elections.  

In the past, one of the challenging hurdles for even the strongest candidates has been the legal technicalities of actually getting their name on the ballot in all 50 states and 6 territories. In fact, during the last cycle there was one state where only two candidates' names were on the ballot even though more viable candidates remained in the race.

The RNLA thanks all who were involved over the past nine months to help accompany the goals that the Ballot Access Project set out to accomplish.