Buchanan Loses Vote by Reform Party Leaders

Reform Party leaders voted unanimously Saturday to remove Pat Buchanan’s name from the party’s presidential ballot amid allegations of campaign fraud and disregard of party rules.

The vote by the executive committee, however, is not binding and could be overturned.

Buchanan was “hijacking the party” and thus had eliminated himself as a legitimate candidate, Reform Party Secretary Jim Mangia told colleagues at a meeting at an airport hotel.

“We are a party that was created on the principles of reform--integrity and accountability,” Mangia said. “It’s astounding . . . these kinds of dirty tricks.”

Seven of the 10 members on the party’s executive committee attended the meeting--the majority of whom are supporters of party founder Ross Perot. They discussed Buchanan for about two hours before voting.

Buchanan spokesman Brian Doherty dismissed the effort as frivolous and called the allegations “false and outrageous.”

“They’re just doing everything they can to obstruct us or impede Buchanan’s nomination,” Doherty said Saturday before the vote. “They can’t defeat us legitimately, so they go about it trying to defeat us in other ways.”

Even though the committee’s decision places Iowa physicist John Hagelin as the party’s presumed candidate for president, the vote is not binding.

Under party rules, the 164-member national committee will review the executive committee’s decision when it meets Aug. 8 in Long Beach. By a two-thirds vote, members could reverse the executive committee’s decision.

“Anything the executive committee does today is a publicity stunt if anything,” said Bob Belcher, the party’s Alabama state chairman and a professed neutral.

Buchanan left the Republican Party in October to seek the Reform nomination.

Buchanan and Hagelin are competing for the party nod in the primary, which is a mail-in vote for party members and others who have asked for a ballot. Hagelin and Perot loyalists accused the Buchanan camp earlier this week of illegally padding the lists of ballot recipients with people from his Republican donor lists.