We CAN Hold Them Accountable

QUESTION:
WHY do 9000 Texas Republicans take time away from their job and family to pay their own travel expenses and convention fees every 2 years to serve as a delegate to the largest political event in the world; the Texas State Republican Convention?  There are 3 action items that are required to be completed according to the Party Rules:
a.) Election of delegates and alternates to the National Convention (in presidential election years)
b.) Election of certain Party officials
c.) Adoption of a Texas Republican Platform (busy work for useful idiots, or enforceable?)

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A PLATFORM if not enforceable?

  • Grassroots Republicans are the reason that our Republicans are elected to office.
  • Grassroots Republicans expect our elected to follow through on their campaign platforms.
  • Grassroots Republicans expect those elected through the benefit of running as a “Republican” in Texas to follow the Texas Republican Platform.
  • Grassroots Republicans have the tool to penalize elected “Republicans” who violate the Texas Republican Platform. This is our way to publicly hold them accountable!

CENSURE (RULE 44) – Texas Republican Party Rules
Republican grassroots respect the pressures our Republican state Legislators are under when the Republican Governor issues his legislative priorities and his declared “emergency” items. We understand the power of money, whether it be from a deep-pocketed industry lobbyists or a threat from the Governor of putting up a Primary challenger for any legislator who fails to follow his orders.

We understand and we hope that each Republican legislator will also understand that we who block walked for you, phone called for you, gave what we could to your campaign funding, are here watching you, supporting your good deeds, and very willing to let you know when your deeds are in violation of our Principles set out in the Texas Republican Platform. That’s why I am counting on all Republicans to support the Principles listed in the 2018 Texas Republican Platform:

  • The traditional family (Preamble)
  • American and Texas sovereignty (Principle #3)
  • Limiting government power to those items enumerated in the United States and Texas Constitutions (Principle #4)
  • Personal accountability and responsibility (Principle #5)
  • Having an educated population, with parents having the freedom of choice for the education of their children (Principle #7)
  • The inalienable right of all people to defend themselves and their property (Principle #8)
  • A free enterprise society unencumbered by government interference or subsidies (Principle #9)

RULE 44 provides for a Republican Precinct Chair to propose a Resolution to Censure their Republican House Representative and/or Senator for voting “for” ANY of the dozens of bills in this legislative session that have a detrimental effect on the fabric of our families through the psychiatric assessments of our children without informed consent, on our local public school campus! See referenced footnotes below for more information on SB 10 – to convert our local public schools into “community mental health providers” for university departments of psychiatry to perform psychiatric assessments on children in the name of research and training.  The governor calls it “school safety”.  We call it evil.

A Censure Resolution can be presented by a precinct chair to their County Executive Committee for presentation at one of the meetings, and passed by a vote of at least two-thirds of those precinct chairs present and voting.

If the Governor can threaten our good Republicans into violating our Republican Platform, we must find out if we will be block walking for that legislator in the next Primary (2020), or someone else. Is this a threat? It could be.  Rule 44 is there to Hold Them Accountable!

Let your Republican House Representative and Republican Senator know that you do NOT support SB 10 and the dozens of mental health bills being considered in the legislature right now!  Call their Capitol Office: https://wrm.capitol.texas.gov/home

March 28th PRESS CONFERENCE:
The Coalition for the Protection of Parental Rights, on SB10 and SB 11:

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The Texas State Republican Platform – The Process

The Platform is either busy-work for us useful idiots, OR it can be a tool to Hold Them Accountable.

Tens of thousands of man-hours are spent on the drafting of the State GOP Platform every 2 years, beginning at the precinct conventions after the state Primary Elections in every even numbered year.

Those precinct resolutions approved at the precinct convention bubble up to the County/SD resolutions committees.

The County/SD resolution committees spend thousands of hours organizing resolutions, holding public hearings, discussion, and voting on the hundreds of proposed amendments (resolutions) to be submitted to the County/SD convention which is held within weeks after the Precinct Convention. THIS is a very tedious, time consuming process that must be done in a transparent fashion in a very short amount of time.  I know.  I have served on four SD-8 Resolution Committees, chairing the last two committees.

The reports from the several County/SD Resolution Committees advance to the County/SD Conventions, for yet more discussion, amendments, and final votes from convention delegates to approve amendments (resolutions) to advance to the State Convention,  held about 2 months later.

At the State Convention, each of the 31 senate districts appoint one delegate to represent that SD on the State Committee on Platform.  The State Committee on Platform begins their duties on Monday before the Friday/Saturday convention, holding hearings, debating, and finally vote on the proposed amendments to submit to the 9000 delegates at the State Convention. This Report from the State Committee on Platform is several pages, printed on paper for every State Convention delegate/alternate delegate, to review.

At the State Convention, all 9000 delegates are asked to review, discuss, and VOTE on each and every proposed resolution from the Committee on Platform that proposes an amendment to the State Platform approved 2 years earlier. Regretfully, this business of discussion and vote on amendments to the State Platform by the entire body of 9000 grassroots Republicans is pushed to the last day of Convention and historically is always cut short by a floor motion to end debate and vote before all delegates have an opportunity to voice support/opposition to amendments. Yes, there is a time to appear before the Committee on Resolutions on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and maybe Thursday. But the majority of delegates don’t arrive at convention until Friday. Hence, most delegates miss the opportunity to speak on an issue.

In summary, if the Platform has no enforcement, what’s the purpose?

I’m not instructing anyone to use Rule 44 at this time, but I do recommend that your contact your Senator and ask them why they voted “for” SB 10. ALL 31 senators signed on as authors of SB10 and voted it out of the senate on March 5th.  The bill is currently in the House Committee on Public Health.  At this time, we should all be contacting our House Representative and reminding them that if they vote affirmative on SB10 or any of the many other bills that propose to cast a wide net and perform mental/behavioral assessments on our school children for research and training of psychiatric college students, they could be facing Rule 44 Censure.  Or, we can be content as useful idiots claiming membership to a conservative “Party”.

Barbara Harless, Collin County resident