At Monday’s Federalist State Party Convention, Federalists from all 10 counties of Boys State organized in a caucus to finalize their decisions on their nominees for state government positions. The convention did not have a scheduled ending time, but the 7:30 p.m. start time gave the party ample time to wrap up the proceedings in a timely manner … or so everybody thought.

Instead, a large faction of party members chose to stir up a spectacle by moving to impeach the Federalist Party chairman,  which ended in disorder, dragged out proceedings, and a lack of respect being displayed toward civil political discourse. 

For some background, the chairman was preceded by an acting chairman during the first State Party Convention, which occurred the night before. This chairman had great control over the convention and ensured that everything ran smoothly. Despite his aptitude for this position, he ended up opting to run for party secretary, vacating his original acting position. Thus, a new party chairman was elected — and whoever was to fill that position had undoubtedly big shoes to fill.

The new chairman, from Schieberling County, was elected in an extremely close race, but support for him was overall high at the end of the day’s elections. When we convened for next Federalist conferences in the afternoon, support for him quickly faded. The waning support occurred for a multitude of reasons. For one, he did not seem to be as adept in controlling a room as his predecessor. This led some to be frustrated with his leadership and doubtful over whether or not he could be trusted to make the convention run as smoothly as desired.

Additionally, after the conclusion of the speeches for comptroller, he was accused by some as attempting to influence the vote by telling the body to consider the fact that policy from Boys State can actually go on to higher levels of government — a point that was made exclusively by one of the candidates with regards to striking down Governor Hochul’s phone policy. These factors compounded to create a section of the population that was disgruntled with the chairman’s leadership.

A contingent of county party chairmen and other citizens went up to the microphone and began to motion for the impeachment of the chairman. As soon as this motion was expressed, the convention erupted into bedlam. Many seconded the motion, and discussion regarding it consisted of opinions from both ends of the spectrum (that being for and against the chairman). This is what took up the bulk of the time. Frankly, I believe that the exorbitant wasting of time that occurred as a result of this debate could have been avoided if it weren’t for a select group of people attempting to stir up trouble.

While it may have been true that the sitting chairman did not quite fill the shoes of the previous acting chairman, his performance was not objectionable enough to warrant the response that followed it. It seemed to me as if some people were attempting to grasp at any straw that they could find to create an issue over the situation; unfortunately, they succeeded — to the detriment of the rest of the party. Scapegoating of the chairman to the degree that it occurred was, in my eyes, disrespectful and superfluous.

Ultimately, this major disruption in proceedings combined with excessive and unnecessary motioning led for us to get out of the convention around 11 p.m. — a half hour after lights out, and an hour and a half after the Nationalist convention concluded. This event has surely contributed to myself and a large contingent of my fellow citizens to feel ridiculously drowsy and sleep deprived. Furthermore, previous events resulted in this outcome, as the citizen body voted to cut down the number of candidates for chairman to 2 as opposed to 4 when they were being elected. Citizens of future Boys State classes should heed the events of this convention as a cautionary tale: in the future, strive for civility so that the entire election process can move along smoother. I know we all want to go to sleep, right?