T-R PHOTO BY NICK BAUR Republican National Committeewoman Tamara Scott (left) and State Central Committee member John Strathman at Friday’s weekly meeting of the Marshall County Pachyderm Herd.

The Marshall County Pachyderm hosted a special guest speaker at their weekly meeting on Friday with Tamara Scott, one of Iowa’s Republican National Committee members, coming before the local conservative group to talk about grassroots organizing and ongoing political issues facing the Republican Party.

The national committeewoman has hosted radio and cable TV programs since 1998. With a weekly show called “Tamara Scott Live” broadcast online and on 99.3 FM KTIA, she is also a guest host on WHO 1040 AM radio, features on Fox News, and speaks at commencements, national conferences, rallies, political forums, college campuses, and church auditoriums across America.

Yet, on Friday afternoon, Scott fielded questions and even some concerns from local Republicans about the state of affairs in the party.

Notable among these is the growing movement inside the party to call a convention of the states, which is one of two methods authorized by Article V of the United States Constitution where amendments may be proposed. Two thirds of the State legislatures (34 out of 50) may call a convention to propose amendments, which become law only after ratification by three-fourths of the states (38 of the 50). The Article V convention method has never been used.

The political group leading the charge, aptly named Convention of States Action, is headed by Republicans Eric O’Keefe and Mark Meckler, who claims the convention “would only allow the states to discuss amendments that, ‘limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, impose fiscal restraints, and place term limits on federal officials,'” per their website.

While the movement for a convention of states may be growing in the party, it found very few legs to stand on in the meeting on Friday with Scott and the Marshall County Pachyderm.

“This is such a dangerous proposal,” Scott said. “The Convention of States is all about stirring unrest.”

The primary driver for the convention is the installation of term limits on federal officials, according to its leaders, but Scott wasn’t convinced.

“You don’t have the ear of [Chuck] Grassley like Joni [Ernst] did in her first year when you do that,” Scott said, mentioning the possibility of lame duck officials potentially pushing through legislation in their waning days of office. “If you have term limits, how many House members (and) Senate members are not going to be running again, and they’re going to be looking to somebody else to come in and say, ‘Our group may have a place for you to help us pass this.’ We had term limits in the Articles of Confederation, and they ousted them because they saw the dangers of them. You put term limits in and the bureaucrats, which are part of the problem and are unelected, will rule the day.”

Attending and speaking at the meeting alongside Scott was Iowa Republican Central Committee member John Strathman, who spoke about statewide Republican efforts in Iowa.

“The number one priority is going to be school choice. That was the top priority in the Governor’s State of the State this year,” Strathman said in an interview after the meeting. “She’s worked hard on that. So I think we will get something there, what that something is, when you get down to the end of all the negotiations, I don’t know. We’ll get some improvement in giving parents the opportunity to choose where they get to send their kids to school.”

Looking ahead to 2024, the Republican Party will still be holding its first in the nation caucus in Iowa, but as far as likely candidates to emerge from the contest, Strathman said the party is taking a hands off approach to the potential field.

“We’re messaging to those candidates now that the state party will not try to put our fingers on the scales,” Strathman said. “You come here, it’s your field and you talk to the voters directly. You sway people, and we’ll just help facilitate the conversation.”