For the first time in party history, members of the Republican National Committee have called their own unscheduled meeting without the aid of the Washington-based party apparatus.

Organized by North Dakota Republican Party chairman Gary Emineth, the meeting will convene for the specific purpose of hosting a forum for candidates running to chair the national committee. Members will meet at an as-of-yet-undecided location in Washington on January 7.

According to those familiar with party rules, individual members have never called a meeting under the arcane rule.

Emineth said he wanted to call the meeting because the contest is likely to be complicated, and so that members of the committee could hear from candidates well before they had to vote.

“Most Republicans do not know who the RNC chairman is or anything about this process. The more exposure of the candidates, their values and how they intend to turn the party around is good for public input and debate,” Emineth told The Hill. “I think Republicans are ready for a new era without Karl Rove calling the shots.”

“The crowded field of candidates will definitely [mean] a multiple ballot election,” Emineth said. “The winning candidate is going to have to have a strategy to consolidate support.”

Several RNC watchers who did not sign on to the meeting but who support it nonetheless say the meeting is a victory for those running to unseat incumbent chairman Mike Duncan. The meeting will give the other five prominent candidates an opportunity to campaign amongst the 168 voting national committee members in advance of the election, which takes place during the last weekend in January.

A candidate forum is the sole agenda item aside from procedural matters to call the meeting to order.

When voting begins, Duncan is expected to start the first round of voting with the highest total, though the incumbent is not expected to reach the 85 votes necessary to win outright.

Those who signed the letter requesting the special meeting are either undecided voters or are backing other candidates. Several are public supporters of former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell or of South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson. Dawson himself is among the signees.

Others are privately supporting their own candidates. Most notably, several private supporters of former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele were enthusiastic backers of the special meeting, and many signed on to make it happen.

The meeting in Washington will come two days after Americans for Tax Reform holds the only scheduled public debate between the candidates, set for January 5 at the National Press Club and to be broadcast on C-SPAN. The following day, the Conservative Steering Committee, a group of prominent conservative members of the RNC, will host candidates at a private forum in order to test whether they meet strict ideological standards.

The steering committee meeting is seen as a dangerous forum for Steele, widely viewed as the most centrist candidate running for RNC chair. Some view the steering committee as an opportunity for Duncan to prove that he is acceptable to a large group of RNC members.

By setting the RNC meeting on January 7 instead of January 6, though, some said Duncan is smartly promoting the steering committee the day before to gain an advantage over Steele.

Still, some may wonder about Duncan’s control over the committee, given the unprecedented nature of the new meeting. The lack of a call from RNC headquarters in Washington give some members cause to wonder just how much control Duncan asserts over the committee he ostensibly leads.

Then again, Emineth said, echoing a number of other national committee members’ concerns, the call from members is the latest step in ongoing efforts to increase state leaders’ influence over the national party.

“I consistently heard that we need to be a ‘bottoms up’ committee rather than an ‘inside the beltway’ party,” he said. “The grassroots believe the core principles of the Republican Party and are frustrated with issues from the bail out to Washington’s inability to get things done.”

Steele, Dawson and Blackwell support the special meeting, while Michigan Republican Party chairman Saul Anuzis, another leading contender for the RNC post, has not taken a position. A spokesman for Duncan would only say that the chairman supports members’ rights to hold such a meeting. A spokesman for Saltsman could not be reached late Sunday night.