Hoffa began seeking support for a run at the Teamsters' presidency in February 1994. Hoffa formally announced his candidacy on September 4, 1995. Carey and Hoffa battled fiercely at the Teamsters' convention in July 1996. Hoffa introduced a resolution to deny convention voting rights to 80 delegates from the union's staff, although this right had been given to all previous presidents. Carey ordered a voice vote on the motion, announced that the motion was defeated, and ignored calls for a division of the house. Throughout the convention, Hoffa and his supporters introduced resolutions and constitutional amendments intended to transfer authority from the president and give it to local and regional offices. Hoffa's supporters were well-organized and highly disciplined, and they defeated Carey on several minor votes. But once it became clear that Hoffa had a slim majority of the 1,900 delegates, Carey used the power of parliamentary procedure to delay or defeat the proposals, and his supporters brought the convention to a halt by offering amendment after amendment to Hoffa's proposals. Shortly after the convention ended, Carey trusteed 10,000-member Local 714 in Chicago, Illinois. The IRB had concluded that Carey supporter William Hogan was running the local for his own benefit, but Carey's action led Hogan to endorse Hoffa—a serious blow to Carey's re-election chances. Carey's re-election campaign was an exceptionally bitter and close one. Hoffa drew strong support from Teamsters members in the Midwest and the West (with New York state a battleground), and from union leaders unhappy with Carey's anti-corruption drive and his attempt to dismantle regional and local bases of power. Hoffa attacked Carey for being a "chicken" and a "scaredy cat", and blasted Carey's campaign literature as "slimy pieces of half-truths". Carey derogatorily referred to Hoffa as "Junior," and denounced him as a "flunky" of the "old guard", "the same old mobbed-up, on-the-take teamster his daddy was", an "imposter," and all "smoke and mirrors." The war of words became so heated that in late September Carey filed a libel suit against Hoffa. Carey repeatedly tried to link Hoffa to organized crime, and publicized the criminal past and mob ties of Hoffa associates and business partners. Hoffa accused Carey of overseeing the loss of 40,000 members, mismanaging the union's finances, agreeing to concessionary contracts, and corruption. Carey countered by claiming he had reversed the union's membership decline, balanced the union's budget for the first time in 10