From the Texas GOP Convention

From the Texas GOP Convention

I attended all three days of the Texas Republican convention held June 15-17 in Houston. The Texas GOP convention is actually larger than the national convention and is the largest political event in America. I had never attended a state convention, and this commentary will my "new guy’s" view of the trip through the party process. I hope it encourages other conservatives to become involved in reclaiming our party and working to reclaim America.

Getting There

The Texas system is different from what I remembered of the Tennessee system. The Texas GOP proudly claims that their system allows the "grassroots" to have better access to decisions. This claim is somewhat true, and I am thankful for the chance to participate. However, like any other large organization, much of the real power must be held by the organization.

The first step was attending a precinct caucus that began half an hour after the polls closed on primary day in March. To participate in this caucus, one must vote in the Republican primary. The caucus does two things. The first is pick delegates and alternates to the senatorial district convention in April. Representation is determined by how many votes the Republican gubernatorial candidate received from that precinct in the last election. The second part of the meeting is passing platform planks. Anyone can propose a plank, and it will be argued and then voted up or down.

The second step was attending the senatorial district convention. The Texas Republican party is organized by state senatorial district, and each district meets to repeat the precinct caucus on a larger scale. Delegates and alternates are chosen for the state convention. They are chosen by precinct again, but each precinct gets fewer delegates. The senatorial district convention also argues about the platform planks again. Between the precinct caucus and senatorial convention, a committee takes all of the planks that were passed at the precincts and forms them into a platform. The real power appears to be in this committee, but I don’t know how to join. After a morning of sitting in an auditorium while the chairman recites necessary but irrelevant procedures, the delegates spend a few hours in the afternoon arguing over the planks again. The senatorial district convention is the most tedious part of the process.

The Convention

The convention was comprised of big meetings, little meetings, and booths. The big meetings involved all of the delegations and always started in the early afternoon. The first little meeting started late on the first day, and the others started in the morning. The big meetings involve mostly sitting in the convention hall listening to speeches or other entertainment while waiting for a committee to decide something or report a decision. The big meeting deals with the platform one more time after another committee reconciles all of the senatorial district platforms. The little meetings focus on electing people to various party positions.

My Participation

As an alternate delegate, I felt more freedom to do as I wished, and I skipped most of the boring, "red-tape" parts of the big meetings. Instead, I represented Free Republic (www.freerepublic.com) at their convention booth and spent a great deal of time telling people about the website and the activities of "Freepers" (people who frequent the website and participate in events). From the booth area, I could hear most of the speeches anyway.

The most worthwhile part of my duties as an alternate delegate was casting a few votes for people running for party positions. In all of the small meetings, I was seated in place of a missing delegate and had full voting privileges. In the first meeting, we had to elect someone to an office which one older gentleman called "taking a piece of paper downstairs." A young guy who was pro-life was running against an older lady with many years of party service. While the office may have been largely symbolic, I was glad to cast a vote for a pro-lifer over a pro-abortioner. In another meeting, I was able to vote against the guy whose letter inspired my commentary Lying RINO Alert. I also voted against someone who is popular but in my opinion is a weak representative of conservative principles. Finally, I voted for a very polished 19-year-old alternate delegate who was homeschooled and has worked in foreign missions.

None of these were close votes, and nothing important would have changed without my individual presence. On the other hand, without conservatives taking the time to participate in the party processes, the liberals would be able to further their agenda within the party. The message of this little report is that participation isn’t always as boring as monthly party meetings, and conservatives should look for opportunities to become involved.

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June 30, 2000

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