The 2012 Louisiana Republican State Convention met on Saturday in Shreveport and elected 30 delegates to represent the state in Tampa, Florida at the Republican National Convention.
Under party rules, ten supporters of Rick Santorum were chosen. Five
delegates are official Mitt Romney delegates and one is for Ron Paul.
The other fourteen are technically unbound to any candidate and are
expected to support Governor Romney.
Louisiana receives 46 votes at the national convention. Thirty were
elected on Saturday. Three are automatic delegates. No one was
nominated for the final thirteen positions, which were left vacant and
may now be filled by the state party’s Executive Committee. The
positions were left open by a majority of the delegates participating
in the convention in order to facilitate talks with Ron Paul supporters
who refused to participate in the convention in order to protest state
party rules requiring presidential candidates to approve delegates
allocated to them.
Earlier this week, Rick Santorum sent a letter to state GOP Chairman
Roger Villere asking, in essence, that the party prevent “delegate
stealing,” an informal term that describes the maneuver used by some
presidential campaigns to put their supporters in spots won by opposing
campaigns. The Romney campaign also sent a list of five official
delegates and alternate delegates to Chairman Villere. The Party
Executive Committee passed supplemental rules requiring that positions
won by Santorum and Romney be filled with individuals approved by those
campaigns.