The Short Answer Is Fear

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks working through resolutions from the precincts in our senatorial district and creating amendments and additions intended for the state platform. I headed the Education subcommittee in my SD, so much of my attention was there.

Rep. Tom Oliverson dropped in to speak at our SD7 Convention
on Saturday, a couple of days after announcing his intention to
seek the House Speaker position. (Wish I had better photos, but my precinct was
seated far back and to the side. And I forgot to get photos of any committee work.)

Our very large SD does things as a mini version of the state platform committee. And since rule changes from last biennium, we had open meetings. We also took testimony. It turns out, Education is where much of the testimony was aimed.

Two years ago there was a huge push for more parental rights and controls, and included in the many rights of parents is school choice. That became a governor’s priority, but it nevertheless did not get through the legislature, even during four special sessions (add-on month-long sessions for specific purposes).

Why is there pushback, especially among Republicans, against school choice? The short answer is fear.

At the state Republican convention two years ago, we were in permanent committee, taking the last hour or two of testimony before final deliberations. All of the testimony time for the Education section taken up by anti-school choice delegates. (I wrote about this here.) It gave the impression that there was a huge sentiment in that direction from across the state. But that was an illusion. Those people were organized to get their names on the list to testify. But there were literally hundreds of precincts around the state that had submitted resolutions in favor of school choice. The anti-choice people almost caused the plank to be taken out, but it was rescued by the Education subcommittee chair at the last moment, describing the overwhelming testimony for school choice.

So, moving ahead two years, we got the same organized group of vocal anti-school choice people (I don’t know if they’re the same individuals, just the same sentiments) taking nearly all the testimony time. This was in our temporary subcommittee, and again during our permanent committee at the senatorial district convention last Saturday. We gave them far beyond their allotted time. I wanted to fully understand their arguments. There’s actually a fair amount we agree on.

We want options to be available to all. They say there already are options, which they want to keep: those options are public school, charter school, private school, or homeschool. I personally do not think that is anywhere near enough choice—and most people don’t even have those choices available to them. I’ll get back to this.

What these opponents fear is that, if you have money follow the child anywhere away from public or charter schools (charter schools are a public school entity; it’s complicated), then you allow government influence into wherever that money goes.

Our platform already says that the money must follow the child with no strings attached. These opponents say you can’t have the money follow the child without strings. And, they claim, this is a back door to government getting control within private schools—namely, church/parochial schools, but also homeschools—where they have no oversight now. Any time the federal government gives money, they attach strings.

Our platform already states that we want to abolish the federal Department of Education. We do not intend for any money following the child to come from a federal funding source.

When we asked the testifiers, what about families who are trapped in public schools that are failing their children—people who are paying taxes for that education they’re not getting—who can’t afford to also pay tuition elsewhere, there were two responses: that isn’t paying double (um, yes it is), and who is deciding the schools are failing—that’s a government entity trying to get more control (um, no; in my case it was me observing and experiencing the failure to meet my children’s specific needs, so I as the parent decided to call that a failure, and I pulled them out).

In other words, they do not care about parents whose children are trapped in schools that do not meet their needs. They will insist that those parents continue to pay taxes with no promised benefit. Tough luck.

These people write books and give presentations (there’s one nearby this week). They will go through the history of education—as I have done (here’s a sample I wrote and presented in 2019, and a part 2 on related info here)—and show the growth of indoctrination over time—again, as I have done. And then they conclude that, because we haven’t yet stopped the indoctrination, we never will, so the only solution is to keep the status quo in order to protect homeschools and private schools.

And that is where we diverge. We haven’t yet stopped the indoctrination—but, while some of us have had that mission for a long time, most parents just woke up in 2020, when the schools utterly failed their kids. This army of newly awakened parents spoke up. In 2022, the call for parental rights and school choice were loud enough to be deafening. We’ve been successfully flipping our school boards to conservative majorities. And so far, since that awakening, we’ve only had one legislative try—and there’s a lot of opposition to overcome there. But we already have the state senate on our side, and we have turnover this year in the House (ousted in the Primary a number of rino-Republicans who had voted with Speaker Phelan to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton without presenting evidence; Speaker Phelan is on the verge of being ousted in a runoff, and Rep. Tom Oliverson, from here in our area, is stepping up to take on the speaker role, and he's on our side).

And the parents are continuing to call for their rights—including their right to choose concerning their child’s education.

Instead of doomsaying, maybe we ought to open our minds to more possibilities. We know that whenever the free market solves problems, it does it with higher quality and lower price than a government monopoly. So let’s see if we can inject some actual free market into the school system. And let’s do it by cutting strings to indoctrination sources—like the federal government, the teachers’ unions, the nonprofits offering “help.”

In our platform, the first Education plank already called for choice. We clarified what we mean—a lot more choice than what kind of classroom the child sits in. Who know what the state committee will do with it, but here’s our SD’s version of the plank with our amendments. Black is wording from the 2022 platform. Red indicates our additions. Green with strikethroughs is what we deleted:

101.  School Choice: Texas families shall be empowered to choose from public, private, charter, or homeschool options, or any combination thereof, including private tutors, lessons, therapies, online courses, technical schools, apprenticeships, certification programs, etc., for their children’s education, and the funding shall follow the student without strings attached, meaning accountability is measured by the parents, in place of any state or federal oversight. We also support tax credits and exemptions for education and choice within the public school system. Public Schools from which funding is removed when the funding follows the student elsewhere shall be prohibited from being replaced by funding with revenue collected from taxpayers or from state or local governments.

We deleted that green line, because the idea of putting choice within the public school system is now expressed in the “or any combination thereof” idea, so it became superfluous and confusing.

The last red sentence was an amendment during floor debate (when we present our platform to the body at the SD convention). The person who suggested it was dealing with that free-market idea. If an entity isn’t providing value, they should suffer the consequences, rather than be subsidized in their failures. I didn’t think the sentence was necessary, and I was concerned it might detract from the good we did earlier in the plank. But I agree with his idea. If they don’t provide the quality, the students leave, and the schools, who get paid according to attendance, lose money. So they are incentivized to improve.

There’s always concern about whether the schools have enough money, and there was another legislative change that made it so there could be quite a shortfall this year. But, as I have mentioned a time or two (or ten), in our district maybe we could empty out that brand new multi-level office building for administrative staff—who do not work in schools! No school district ought to have so many admins. So, let go of any non-essentials (I don’t know, maybe all but a dozen), and if that doesn’t cover the shortfall, then rent out the building as office space.

The mission is not about preserving the public school system; it is about providing the education every individual child needs—without indoctrination, sexualization, data mining, or any of the other things parents are rightly alarmed about.

(This photo is from a source no longer available; I previously used it here.)
We live not far from the bus barn, where lines of school buses come out onto
the street at certain times of the day. Back during homeschooling years,
my kids thought it was funny to hum the Darth Vader march from Star Wars
when we saw these.

But how can you have both freedom and accountability? You leave the accountability to the parents. You don’t need a huge bureaucracy to hover over the parents and examine their decisions. Think about how a health savings account works; you choose how to spend the money, but it can only be spent on healthcare. It’s up to you what out-of-pocket healthcare expenses you use that money on. Or, think of a GI bill, which can be used for higher education. The government doesn’t tell the veteran what to study, or where to study. It can even be used at a religious school, even to become a minister or chaplain. The only stipulation is that it be used for higher education. That’s the kind of choice we’re looking for in school choice.

Can it be done successfully? It can. Will it? I don’t know. But I’m not willing to keep children trapped in the status quo because a small but vocal minority has made it their life mission to prevent school choice—because of their fears.

Lowest Level Primary Election Campaign Debrief

Our Primary in Texas was on Super Tuesday, along with many other states. All in all, it was a good day.

The race I experienced most closely was my own—for precinct chair. It’s the lowest elected political office there is. I represent my neighborhood at the Harris County Republican Party meetings. There are somewhere around 600 of us in the County. My total constituency, including all voters of any party, is around 3300 (precinct size varies; mine is probably a bit over average size). Of those, about half are Independent voters—meaning they have not voted in a Primary, where party is declared, so we don’t know how they vote in a general election. Of the remaining, I think my precinct is about 54% Republican, which is solid but not stellar.

Republicans are more active here, though. Often the Dems have trouble hiring someone to run their Primary; two years ago the County notified us in the middle of the night that they had no one, and we’d have to run their Primary in addition to our own. This year they had a good person—from well beyond the precinct. And as far as I know things went smoothly. My husband and I were not allowed to run the polling location, because I was on the ballot.

I won! After Early Voting and Ballot by Mail (BBM) were counted, I was leading with 70% of the vote. That decreased to 67% in the official count. I actually did better on Election Day than Early Voting, but my BBM percentage was 86%, so, while that number was few, it had helped my percentage to look high. Still, 67% is a huge win. The ballot doesn’t indicate the incumbent, and I was listed as the second choice, so random votes (no name recognition but voting anyway) would have gone against me. I’ll need more data to know for sure, but I also think we had a relatively good turnout in our precinct for a Primary.

Election results provided on HarrisVotes.com/Election-Results. 

This was very nearly my first experience with intense block walking and electioneering at polling places. Add to that texting every known Republican voter who had not already voted. I also had a website, and business cards, and flyers.

I got a lot of help from friends. In the area that comprises our school district, there were eleven races with challengers. Most of us had worked hard to flip the school board to conservative. Some of the challenges came because someone didn’t like that. Two on our team were challenging incumbent precinct chairs who had worked against us (supported a different conservative candidate who split the vote and caused one loss out of four school board seats in November). We teamed up to help each other block walk every Republican voter in every precinct. And we got help building the website, designing business cards, covering electioneering for Early Voting, and doing a few timed mass texts. I had done only small amounts of those things until now, although I had helped with various races in small ways. It was kind of a new experience to meet so many voters—outside of duties as an election clerk, where you don’t talk views at all.

All eleven of us who worked together won, by the way.

I’m going to share a few memories of this campaign experience, which is maybe a micro version of what any higher office campaign goes through.

Let’s get the few negative ones out of the way first, and then enjoy the good ones, for dessert.

Block Walking Adventures

While block walking, most people were either not home or very gracious, and many were friendly and welcoming. But there were some exceptions. We were aiming at houses with known Republican voters; we don’t need to talk with Democrat voters about a Republican Primary. So, there was a house where a man came to the door. The app on my phone told me two female Republican voters lived there, but sometimes people move, so we make a note of that. Anyway, I offered him my flyer, and he said, “I’d never vote for a Republican!” I laughed. I thought he was kidding, because I believed I was knocking on a Republican’s door. He wasn’t kidding. He said all Republicans are—the usual list of horrid things. And then, he’s looking at me and seeing I am none of those things, and he says, “But thank you for being involved and caring.” And I left. It could have been worse.

Some of the block walking crew; I'm so glad we could help each other.

There were two houses with a similar story. In one I was block walking with a friend in her precinct, near the end of our route. We pulled up in her car. I got out sooner and rang the doorbell. The woman answered and I began to offer the flyer. She said, “Tell me who won the 2020 Presidential Primary.” OK, weird question. But I said, “Well, I think Trump won,” and began to finish, “but here we are.” And she said. “Liar! I’m a Christian, and I won’t tolerate any more of these lies.” OK, I didn’t lie; I am the expert on what I believe, and I spoke the truth about what I believe, although I didn’t argue. Then she started to rant about how women need to get abortion rights back. Um. Christian? Calling me a liar when I didn’t? Expressing her hatred toward Trump and Trump voters? Insisting the urgent Christian priority is killing babies in the womb? (She wasn’t, by the way, anyone who would be facing that in her life going forward, since her childbearing years were in the rearview mirror.) By the time most of this happened, my friend had joined us, and quickly extracted us. This was not a voter worth a conversation.

The second similar story was in my precinct—block walking with the same friend. Vicki had gone to this house and left a flyer when no one answered the door. But we were walking back from further down the block when a woman came out of the house to the mailbox. So we approached her. She said she was a Democrat—and her husband wouldn’t be voting Republican anymore either, because women need to get back their abortion rights. OK. Noted. Again, this is a married woman beyond childbearing years, whose priority is getting those babies killed before they can be born. Apparently our constitutional liberties, our border, or economy, our First and Second Amendment rights, and just about anything else we care about is unimportant, but we need to get those babies killed. Hmm.

 

Electioneering Adventures

There were a few negative encounters while electioneering at polling sites, but a large percentage were positive. During Early Voting I spent time at three different polling locations. They are not set up for electioneering (approaching voters before they go in to vote). Unless the main parking areas are full, as when it’s really busy, then every voter is already beyond our reach. It was frustrating and fruitless.

But when voters were available, those tended to be good encounters. We were giving people information they weren’t getting from the various organizations that send out their ballot recommendations. Those didn’t include precinct chairs; that would be too granular for a mass mailer. So, unless someone had filled out their own sample ballot, they wouldn’t even be aware of precinct chairs. And a lot of people don’t know what such a position does. So we were giving them information they didn’t have, and most people seemed to appreciate that.

Electioneering at Radack Community Center, along with
House Rep. Lacey Hull's mom (right).

I had really good, long discussions with a couple of voters at one polling location—two different days. They were wide ranging but turned to religion. One man was into a particular preacher, who has a YouTube following, and I followed up and watched that. Interesting. I thought he had a few things right, and a few things I see differently, but I like to see what other people believe—especially about the times we’re living in. The next day, in the second of these conversations, a man gave me a book—that he had written about the Rapture and the Two Witnesses, talking about end times. I’ve been reading it; again, we don’t agree on all points. But I’m pleased to see he’s a good writer, and he lays out his points very clearly.

At my own polling place on Election Day, at the middle school, they assigned us to the gym, instead of the usual band room. The door into the gym is a bit further from the parking lot than the band room door, which meant the 100-foot line past which no electioneering can be done was more advantageous to me. I could encounter almost every voter who came.

It was a very hot day—our first day in the 90s. I set up a lawn chair and attached a very large umbrella to give myself some shade. I also brought along my mountain dulcimer and played music during slow periods (around 3:00 PM was slow). A few people asked about it. When school got out, some kids came and thanked me for my impromptu concert.

My electioneering oasis on Primary Election Day 2024

Later in the day, until the polls closed, I had company campaigning for the next precinct over (people can vote at any polling location, and ours attracts 3-4 nearby precincts). So that was good for conversations too, and for catching all the voters.

Electioneering with Heather Palomo (left), the new
precinct chair just west of my precinct.

There was something I noticed, anecdotally, but maybe it’s meaningful. We’re told in various news sources that 90% of blacks vote Democrat, but that may be going down. So I go up to any voter I can get to, because you never know. At the Early Voting locations, sometimes Democrat voters were rude, but very few at mine on Election Day. I would offer my information, about precinct chairs, the last race on the ballot for anyone in a precinct with a challenger. I let people know the people on the list I was providing were conservative Republicans. Nevertheless, people I thought might not be interested (if I were profiling) were polite and accepted the information, even thanked me. If they were voting Democrat, they could have said so, or said, “No thanks, not interested,” as some did. But a surprising number showed interest and appreciation. They could have been just being polite, but it seemed to me more than was needed for politeness. I had the impression that either there are more black Republican voters than we knew of, or there are more becoming Republican voters this year.

The most gratifying thing to me was encountering voters who are already on my email list, who thank me for providing good information. They so appreciate it. I love hearing that. Providing them with good information—so they will not only just vote, but have what they need to be informed voters—that is my mission in this position.

How to Write a Resolution

Once the primary election is over, then convention season is underway. At each convention level we choose delegates for the next level up, and we put forth resolutions for the platform. At the local level, our platform resolutions move on up to the senatorial district level (some places move up to the county level, but our county has many senatorial districts in it), where they are sorted, refined, and sent on up to be considered for the state platform. (Texas Republican Platform here.)

 

The Process

How do those ideas get started? If you’re new to the process, how would you go about putting forth an idea?

You write it down, take it to your precinct convention (or whatever version of that you have in your area), and present it to the other grassroots participants. They might like it as is. Or they might reject it. Or they might suggest amendments to make it something they could support.

The ones that get supported (by majority vote in your precinct convention) will get turned in for the next level up to consider. The ones that get rejected are also recorded, as part of the record of what took place in that precinct convention.

A resolution that came out of our precinct convention in 2022.

It used to be that you were required to bring several copies of your resolution: one for the precinct meeting chair, one for the secretary to turn in, one for you to read from. That would still be helpful. But less formal versions—even handwritten resolutions that you come up with during your meeting—are acceptable. That would make more work for those you turn them in to, because someone is going to have to type up what you wrote so it can be considered along with the other resolutions. So, be considerate, but don’t be discouraged by formalities.

It also used to be required that you write using formal resolution language. There’s a “Whereas” section, often several paragraphs all starting with “Whereas,” that explain the background for your resolution. The final, essential part is begun, “Therefore be it resolved that,” followed by what you really want to state.

The platform planks are likely to include only that part following the “Therefore be it resolved that.” The resolution can be accepted by your group without the “Whereas” section. If what you’re resolved to have happen has obvious reasons, then no “Whereas” section is needed. But if you need to convince people of the reasons, or explain the importance of what you’re suggesting, you might want to include that part. The platform committee will only consider the final statement as a plank, but they can and do turn to the “Whereas” section when they want greater understanding of the resolution’s intent.

If the formal language is a barrier to you, just use plain language. You could start out, “Because…” which is what “Whereas” means, then give your explanation. Or just dive in and explain. Then, when you get to your final statement—the resolution—you could say, “Therefore,” followed by your resolution statement. Or say, “So, we should have a plank that says this:” and then give your statement. Or just give your statement without preliminary explanation—as long as you make it clear what statement you want to make.

What the minutes will look like for your precinct convention.

The Content of Your Resolution

What should you write a resolution about? What matters to you. You might have concerns that many others have, and putting ideas forth from many places in the state emphasizes how important it is to the people. Or you might have a particular interest, concern, or expertise that others don’t have, and you’d like it to be brought to the attention of people.

You probably ought to read the current state platform first. (Texas Republican Platform is here. There’s an index to help you find ideas.)

You might have an idea that’s already fully covered. Even so, you might want to state that this idea is still important, and you want the legislature to know it’s important to you and they should act on it.

Or you might find that there’s a close idea, but the current plank is missing a particular detail or nuance that you could add. In such a case, you could even have your resolution reference the existing plank and say you want certain wording added to it, or changed in a way that you state in your resolution.

Or you might be looking at an idea that has come up recently, because of things that have happened since the last platform was written. Maybe you’re the very person who has noticed and needs to bring this idea forward. There are planks in our platform literally brought forward by one person’s resolution out of the whole state. Others saw it and said, “Yes, that needs to be in our platform; we need to do something about that.”

 

My Possible Resolutions

I’m in the process of writing my resolutions to propose at our precinct convention on March 9. Here’s one, in the somewhat formal language, that I plan to put forward in my precinct. And following this one are some ideas I’ll be working on between now and the precinct convention. (You’re willing to take these and use them in your precinct conventions. We share ideas. The same resolution repeated from around the state can indicate a strong grassroots idea.)

 

Chaplains in Schools—Safety

Whereas the Texas Legislature passed SB 763, allowing school districts to decide whether to allow chaplains in the schools for mental health counseling purposes, and

Whereas individual school districts can decide what rules will apply in their district, and

Whereas counseling in schools is beyond the scope of authority given from parents to schools and parents have not delegated their right and authority to the care and upbringing of their child, and

Whereas parents have a right to know who and when any adult has influence on their child in school and whether indoctrination or influence against the parents’ will could be happening, and

Whereas predators can and do set themselves up with opportunities for access to children and may not be easily detected as a threat, and

Whereas a false accusation of abuse from a child against an innocent adult can have dire consequences for the adult, and

Whereas the safety of the child in the school is a paramount concern,

Be it therefore resolved that: Any school district choosing to bring in chaplains or other volunteers to the schools must set up circumstances for contact between the child and the chaplain to be only in public, or private contact with two adults present; and the parents must be informed that contact occurred.

 

Ideas I’m in the Process of Working On

·        Border security is a requirement of the federal government. Failure to protect the Texas border entitles Texas to not only protect its own border, but to require reimbursement from the federal government.

·        After the abject failure or fraud against the world population during the COVID pandemic should prevent any authority being given to WHO forever. Indeed, no submission to any international body will be tolerated by the American people.

·        Pornography in school is already unlawful. Any adult involved in placing or keeping such materials in schools—including but not limited to librarians, teachers and principles—shall be subjected to the full force of the law, which may include the permanent child predator label.

 

Here are two we put in our senatorial district platform last year, in the Education section. Some of the intent made its way into the final state platform, but I still like these and may submit them again this year.

·       Schools Are Not Families: Schools are hired to provide academic education, while parents retain every right to the child’s care and upbringing. Therefore we insist on the elimination in school of any Social Emotional Learning (SEL), mental health evaluations, sexuality education, gender-identity ideology, Critical Race Theory (CRT), socialism, Marxism, and other social indoctrination. Schools must be limited to teaching the Basic Standards as listed in the Basic Standards plank. All school districts, individual schools, or charter schools are prohibited from contracting with or making any payment to any third party for material concerning any of the above prohibited topics.

·        Parental Rights Reaffirmation: We insist that schools must not usurp the rights of parents. We recommend that there be annual training for all pre-K-12 personnel explaining and laying out the natural and legally encoded rights of parents in the care and upbringing of their children. We further recommend a brief printed delineation of parents’ rights to be provided to the parents at the beginning of each school year.