RPT Convention Debrief

I spent last week (May 20-26) at the Republican Party of Texas Convention in San Antonio. I intended to have this debrief done a week ago. But I didn’t finish. Then I spent two days doing a careful edit of the platform (along with other editorial team members). Then my computer cord finally gave out (it has been threatening for some months) and wouldn’t turn on. It spent a day in the shop. By then my other regular weekly assignments were urgent. So here we are.

Exhibit Hall at the RPT Convention, Tuesday, May 21, before it was open

I’m not the only one taking this long to debrief. Luke Macias, of Texas Scorecard, did his video podcast debrief just yesterday. He covers three main topics: the runoff that just happened, the state party chair race (which relates to the runoff races), and rule changes. These he covers with a lot of inside knowledge. He just touches on the platform. But I recommend spending a half hour listening to him. Here I’m mainly giving my perspective and experiences. (And, bonus—or “so sorry,” depending on your viewpoint, this makes up for not writing last week by being way way way too long this week. If you read through it all, thank you so much!)

Need to find someone after general session?
Try telling them to meet at the elephant.

This convention is, as we’re often reminded, the biggest political gathering in the country—and probably, therefore, in the world. It’s bigger than the Republican National Convention. Everything’s bigger in Texas.

Still, for a presidential year, it seemed pretty low-key. There were about 7,000 delegates, plus visitors, vendors, elected officials, etc., but we could have accommodated over 9,000 delegates. I only spent about 20 minutes in the exhibit hall, but it seemed smaller, less full of booths, and less full of people than some I remember in the past.

Senator Ted Cruz gave a good speech on Saturday, May 25.

This was my tenth RPT Convention as a delegate. But the previous three I was editing the platform, which kept me occupied day and night at least through Friday of the convention, and then of course varying lengths of time afterward. This time I just advised those I’d passed the assignment on to, and I did some help with document prep. Then, as I mentioned, I just spent a couple of workdays in a semifinal careful edit. But mainly I was just a regular delegate this time around.

I testified in a temporary subcommittee on Tuesday. I didn’t do well (did I mention, our power had been out because of the derecho that struck Houston derecho that struck Houston May 16, so I hadn’t been able to write and print out a speech, which is kind of necessary for me). Oh well. The platform is just one way to get a message out. The next step is contacting legislators about how we want legislation written. Just another day in the life of an individual grassroot.

As a (not very brief) debrief, I’ll talk about some of the business accomplished at the convention.

Party Chair and Other Races

The biggest candidate decision was the new RPT Chair. Chairman Matt Rinaldi, who has held the position for the past three years (after Allen West stepped down to run for governor), announced he wasn’t going to seek reelection. I had liked Rinaldi. I don’t know what political pressures led to his decision not to run. There are always political details I do not understand. I am a policy person more than a political person.

RPT Chair Matt Rinaldi conducts business on Saturday of convention;
CD 38 was seated too far back to see the stage, so we watched screens.

The RPT job covers a lot of territory, but mainly it is there to get good Republicans elected and then to get good Republican policies passed into law. There’s a lot of fundraising involved in the election of candidates. And there’s a lot of managing, somewhat neutrally, the differing factions within the party.

Matt Rinaldi was more focused on policy than previous RPT chairs that I have been aware of. (He did a pretty in-depth interview with Luke Macias here.) To me, that is a good thing. He was also very vocal about Speaker Dade Phelan’s work against the party’s priorities—which come up from the grassroots at the convention, with the platform and legislative priorities voted on by the delegates. Along with that, he was against Phelan’s prosecution/impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton at the tail end of the last legislative session.

It was a relatively short campaign season for RPT Chair. There were several candidates I was getting emails and texts from for a couple of weeks—and inundated with during convention week. I was previously familiar with only one, who was local, Dr. Dana Myers (she’s an MD, before taking on other careers). She had been the incumbent RPT Vice Chair and announced she was running for chair before Rinaldi announced his decision not to run. However, Rinaldi and many strong conservatives recommended Abraham George. The preference seems to be the balance of policy over fundraising—but without neglecting the necessary fundraising.

I had listened to a candidate forum, held here in Harris County a week or so before the convention. I crossed one candidate off my list (would have to consult notes to know who that was). At least three seemed OK to me. During the last couple of days before the vote, there were some vile attacks against Abraham George; I don’t know where they came from. Dana Myers made it clear it wasn’t from her. (She also received a fair number of attacks.) There were at least two candidates who announced the week of convention; my guess is it was from one of them. I don’t know when/if we’ll ever know.

The vote happens in the Senatorial District Caucus, early Friday morning. There had been some form of rule change about how these caucus votes happened. Our SD7 has people from two counties, and they needed to do their votes separately. The counties and SDs are weighted differently. Then, using math, these are combined into one weighted SD vote. These votes are turned in to the Nominating Committee, which then gives a report in a general session. That session was supposed to start around 10:00 AM Friday, but it couldn’t begin until all the SDs were finished caucusing. It got underway around 1:30 PM. And even then, the Legislative Priorities were discussed first, because the Nominations Committee still had to do all their math and prepare their report.

One side of the room during our Thursday first SD7 Caucus

There were people complaining that this was the least organized convention they’d ever seen. But, literally, no business beyond hearing speeches could be done when those caucuses were still meeting. Organizers could do nothing to change that. A rule change to hasten that type of caucus vote next time might be needed.

Eventually the Nominations Committee announced the winner, whom they put into nomination, as Abraham George. Then the floor was opened up to other nominations. A candidate has to have won in at least three SDs in order to be eligible to be nominated from the floor. There were three that first round of voting: Abraham George, Dana Myers, and Weston Martinez. These were the three I liked best from the candidate forum.

party chair vote tally underway, on Friday, May 24

A floor vote takes a long time. The delegates have to be seated and verified (to make sure no non-delegates get to vote). They have to be seated in their SD, but in separate counties, which is a little challenging. (Despite loud announcements and a long enough time to get there, there were delegates locked out during the first round of voting. They got in by the second round.) Then everyone gets a piece of colored paper on which to write their vote. The votes are gathered and counted, and the math is done to give them their weighted strength, and those are reported one SD at a time (there are 31 SDs). And then more math is done to verify the winner.

The floor vote got us down to Abraham George and Dana Myers. So we had another floor vote, using a different color of paper.

My phone was dying, so I used the counting and reporting time (about 45 minutes per round of voting, after the time to verify delegates in their seats and have them vote) to plug into a wall, and to entertain myself by editing the platform—the printed copy of which had just been handed out. We were supposed to be doing platform debate in this afternoon general session, but we had to do this vote first.

Abraham George was the winner of that second round. I think he’s from India, immigrated (legally) with his family when he was about 17. I voted for him, and I wish him well in this tough job.

Abraham George is the new RPT Chair

Then came the Vice Chair vote. The Nominations Committee showed D’Rinda Randall as far in the lead, but there were three candidates eligible to be nominated from the floor. (The fourth candidate was male, and party rules require the Vice Chair to be the opposite sex of the Chair. If Dana Myers had won for Chair, he would have been the only eligible candidate for Vice Chair.) Because of the time it was taking, one who was put into nomination was going to decline, to save the body a floor vote. But when the other one was put into nomination, she rescinded her decline. That meant there would be at least two floor votes.

But there wasn’t time. There was a gala scheduled for Friday evening that many delegates had paid good money for. I think the featured speaker was Rep. Matt Gaetz. (Maybe Senator Ted Cruz too; I’m not sure.) But without getting the SD business done that day, we wouldn’t have a vice chair or a platform. So they decided to call a late-night session at 9:00 PM Friday, after the gala. I was heading to Bulverde to have dinner with friends—because no business was supposed to be scheduled that night. As we adjourned around 6:45, I was already quite late. And there was no way I could come back. Since Platform is what I’m most interested in, I was pretty irate about that. But I just had to let it go, and my friends and I had a lovely evening.

It turned out the delegates held the votes for Vice Chair, and D’Rinda Randall won. 

D'Rinda Randall is the new RPT Vice Chair

And then they had platform discussion—adding three planks from the floor; I’ll get to that. But they chose to postpone the voting until Saturday afternoon. The voting is an up-or-down vote on each individual plank, with each delegate filling out a scantron form for their vote. The scantron included voting on Legislative Priorities as well. So I was pleased that I didn’t miss that.

The other SD Caucus business that happened in the Friday morning caucuses was to elect the SREC (State Republican Executive Committee). Each Senatorial District elects an SREC Committeeman and Committeewoman. There was no general assembly needed for these, since they represent the SD level. We had only some mild competition in ours, even though our committeeman had decided not to run for reelection. Again, any divide seems to be between conservative policy people and what you might call big-tent people (which translated into welcoming the Log Cabin Republicans; I had long been welcoming of them in our party on economic issues, until the last few years of LGBTQ pressure, which there just is no place for in a party trying to conserve our Constitution and our civilization. If they give up the pressuring, they could be welcome, but I don’t see that coming.) Anyway, I think in our SD we can all still be friends afterward.

first Congressional District 38 caucus, Thursday, May 23

On Saturday afternoon, we were seated in Congressional District Caucuses, to do business related to national business: National Committeeman, National Committeewoman, Delegates to the National Convention, and Electors to the Electoral College. (Yes, the electors are real people, and this is the process through which they get that privilege.) The CD Caucuses happened at 8:00 AM, again. A similar process was gone through—but without the separation into counties. So the Nominations report was relatively prompt.

National Committeeman was unanimous: Dr. Robin Armstrong (also an MD). I don’t know whether he even had a challenger. I didn’t participate in any 8:00 AM caucuses, because I don’t function in mornings generally, especially when I can’t go back to bed later and also may need to do some long driving. Whenever I can’t plan for a long nap, I just have to forego morning activities. And, might I comment that, when you’re dealing with a large segment of the delegates being 60+, and many quite elderly, working from 8:00 AM to near midnight and starting up again at 8:00 AM is kind of a ridiculous expectation.

National Committeewoman took a floor vote, but it went relatively smoothly, and only required one round. The winner is Debbie Georgatos.

the only photo I got of Debbie Georgatos,
the new National Committeewoman

And then there was the reading of names of the delegates and electors. Beyond that, we had to fill out our scantron sheets for the Platform and Legislative Priorities votes. And that concluded Saturday’s business.

Rules

There was one important rule change worth noting. The Republican Party of Texas is calling for a closed primary. That was already in our platform, but it wasn’t touched by the legislature. Huffines Liberty Foundation, in particular, has articulated how we can make the change at the party level, even without the help of the legislature.

Mark Ramsey presents the Rules Committee report, Friday, May 24

There are only 16 states, including Texas, that have an open primary. I grew up and voted until age 26 in a state with a closed primary. Part of the registration process is to declare your party—instead of wavering up until election day and then declaring your party. You can’t vote in a primary unless you declare a party at some point; it’s a matter of well ahead of time or at the last moment. During the Dade Phelan race, there’s data to show that a significant number of Democrats crossed over to vote for Phelan, who allows them to accomplish their Democrat goals, or at least thwart the Republicans. The number was several times the difference of 366 votes in his race against challenger David Covey. Fifteen other Phelan supporters in the Texas House were defeated. It took big money and Democrats for Phelan to squeak out a return—and we hope this loss of support will result in a change of Speaker.

There are questions about how this change to a closed primary will be accomplished. Will we need everyone to register again? Will we query those who have a mixed record to ascertain their party as part of registration? Do we have an easy way for people to be recruited into our party, who want to promote conservative, constitutional ideas, to switch from Democrat? I hope these things are worked out. We have two years to make it happen before the 2026 primary. There has been precedence set in other states (Idaho, recently). And the legislature could ease the process with enabling legislation.

floor debate on Closed Primaries, during Rules report, Friday, May 24

But what should be obvious is that we don’t need or want people who do not support conservative, constitutional ideas to be choosing our primary candidates.

There’s a common complaint that one party is just as bad as another. That isn’t actually true, particularly at state and local levels. But as far as it is true, it is because of “can’t we all just get along” compromises, which always mean—in Spherical Model terms—going further south into tyranny instead of standing firm up in the freedom zone. If independents want to have a say in who they’re voting for, they could join a party that most closely aligns with their beliefs—or else let those parties decide on the candidates and just choose from among them.

We want to attract voters in the general election. But we don’t want to attract primary voters who are not aligned with our values and allow them to choose our candidates; that only makes the choices more likely to be squishes. What we want is to get the best conservative candidates we can, and then show how electing such people will benefit all voters.

Platform

The platform—pending results from the plank-by-plank voting of the delegates, which I haven’t seen yet—is 252 planks long. That’s down from 274 in 2022, which was down from 337 planks in 2020 (but not fewer words).  Wordcount appears to me to be up again this year, even though we have fewer planks. That usually means the ideas of multiple plans were consolidated into other planks. Occasionally an idea is changed. And frequently new ideas are added—which we want to have happen, based on what we see happening in our world. But seldom are ideas omitted.

There was another numbering difference. For the sake of scantron voting, we have needed to give plank numbers to the Preamble and Principles (made up of an introductory paragraph followed by 10 principles, for a total of 12). I always thought it was confusing to have a plank number in front of a principle number. This year they started plank numbering with the first plank in Constitutional Issues, and gave the Preamble and Principles separate numbers after the platform planks only for the purpose of scantron voting. But that means that 12 of the fewer planks were simply because we didn’t give plank numbers to the Preamble and Principles. So it was only a decrease of 10 planks, not 22 planks.

This year there was a concerted effort to identify planks where legislation had accomplished them. Sometimes even then the idea needs to remain, but sometimes those are ripe for deletion. And still it doesn’t happen.

The Permanent Committee was set up classroom style. I was actually quite close,
front row behind the committee, between the two sides. This was so
they could all see the screen, because internet failures didn't allow them
to see the work live on their own computers. The photo makes it look very far,
but the setup did feel very distant.

Article 5 Plank

Let’s start with the three that were added during floor debate Friday evening. As I said, I wasn’t there for this discussion. And there may have been other amendments from the floor that I haven’t seen yet. (When I edited, it was prior to the convention secretary providing his floor debate file; the past two times, for reasons that escape me, he has waited a week to pass to the editorial committee what I think should have been passed within minutes of close of convention. But, oh well.) Anyway, an ongoing controversy is over the Article 5 Convention of States plank. This has been at the end of the Constitutional Issues segment. Legislation on the Article 5 Convention has passed in Texas already, but the plank remains, because nothing happens until enough other states pass their Article 5 legislation calling for a constitutional convention. There are people against the idea of calling for a constitutional convention. Those fearful say, once you get into a convention, anything can happen. Not legally, of course; it’s limited by what the states call the convention for. But when has the Constitution limited the federal legislators? Anyway, the opponents want to have it removed from our platform (and they want disenabling legislation too).

three planks that were added to the platform during floor debate

I was present for the Permanent Committee of the Whole—that is the discussion after caucuses have elected their permanent committee members, for Platform, Rules, Legislative Priorities, and any other committees. This happens on Thursday; the work done up until that point has been done by appointed temporary committee members. Sometimes members change, although I’m not aware of any changes from Temporary to Permanent Committees this year.

So the Permanent Committee hears additional testimony and then considers amendments to the Temporary Committee Report (the Temporary Committee’s version of the platform). They have very limited time to do this, and it seemed even more limited than usual this year.

And yet, one of the things that happened was the removal of that Article 5 Convention of States plank on Thursday evening. It was a very close vote. It required a roll call vote, and I believe the difference was one vote. These are the same people who voted just the night before to have it in.

I hadn’t been aware, but the Constitutional Issues subcommittee had removed the plank. It was added back in during Temporary Committee of the Whole. Then there must have been some overnight pressure—enough to change a person’s vote—to remove it again in Permanent Committee.

And then it was brought before the body of delegates Friday night, and, as they have done in past conventions, they voted to restore it. Wording changes from the 2022 plank add the purposes for the convention. During scantron voting on Saturday, this and the other two were given temporary numbers at the end of the platform, for the sake of scantron voting with delegates looking at their printed copies, so those printed plank numbers could be referenced without change. Numbers are never permanent until all edits are completed. But, once again, we have the Article 5 Convention of States plank, which will probably end up as plank 24. It reads:

Article 5 Convention of States: The Texas Legislature shall extend the call for a Convention of States to impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office of federal officials and members of Congress.

Abortion Transportation Plank

The next one restored during floor debate was this:

Prohibit Abortion Transportation across State Lines: We support legislation to prohibit the use of any government funds, as well as the transportation of pregnant women across Texas state lines for the purpose of procuring an elective abortion and for the provision of a private right of action against all persons and organizations who aid and abet in the harming of the woman and the killing of her preborn child.

Like I said, I missed that floor debate. But I think this had been an accidental deletion that happened between Temporary and Permanent Committees of the Whole. There was a loss of work that happened for reasons that are unclear to me. It has to do with the speed of work under intense time pressure, and multiple people handling things, maybe slightly differently. I had a way of doing things to prevent this (based on some loss of work that happened in 2020 between subcommittee Monday meetings and the next day; I think we were hacked, in that case; I believe I was able to restore everything because I had saved work in multiple ways, but it made security and work history my priority thereafter). My guess is there may have been use of the “track changes” feature at an unsafe time, and/or possibly a reliance on “version history,” which has never been very satisfying to me. I really don’t know. Anyway, I can’t promise that this wouldn’t have happened had I been editing this year. I have great sympathy for the lead editor, and I’m sure he’s already put in place protocols to prevent it from happening again.

I think that’s a good plank to have in there. We had offered a new plank idea from SD7 about self-managed abortions—typically pills coming by mail, endangering the woman and killing the baby. There continue to be abortion-related issues, even in a state where abortion is illegal (except under limited circumstances related to endangering the life of the mother). And the fight for life goes on.

Robin Hood School Funding Plank

The third plank added from the floor was related to public school funding:

Robin Hood Accounting: We direct the Texas Legislature to have the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts and Texas Education Agency to provide a full accounting for the funds collected by recapture “Robin Hood” are spent to comply with the Texas Supreme Court-ordered mandate for Wealth Equalization.

This is comparable to a 2020 plank, which read:

School Finance: We support a simple, fair, and efficient method for financing our public school system. We oppose the “Robin Hood” system of public school finance and believe the Texas Legislature, not the courts, should determine the amount of money spent on public education and the distribution thereof. We oppose the Edgewood I and II decisions that legislate school finance from the bench.

This had been consolidated into a bullet point in a College Tuition and Student Loan Reform plank in 2022, which read:

We oppose Robin Hood schemes that raise tuition for some students to give to others.

That seemed to apply to college tuition practices, rather than public school funding, which is probably why the plank was brought back. The new plank is awkward. I suggested edits. But editorial power is pretty limited after the floor votes on something. So you’ve got this problem: If you take out modifiers, you’ve got “to provide a full accounting for the funds are spent.” Adding “how,” as in “how the funds” would probably solve it. But, awkwardness and all, thus it will probably read for the next two years. The idea can still get passed along to the legislature.

Other Planks of Interest

There are some ideas I appreciate seeing in there. In The Right to Keep and Bear Arms plank, a bullet point was added related to responsibility for gun-free zones: “Require that businesses or commercial property owners that prohibit licensed permit holders from carrying a firearm into their establishment assume liability for their safety since they are denying that person’s right to protect themself.” (It should be “themselves.” I’m seeing that now, not even sure I caught that in my careful edit. There’s always more.) Anyway, I’ve been saying this for a while. And I think it should apply to schools and churches as well. If you take away a person’s right to self-defense, you’d better assume liability for their safety.

There was a pretty thorough rewrite of the Foreign Affairs subsection of the National Defense and Foreign Affairs section. The ideas are mainly all there, but maybe more clearly stated, and with fewer planks. I would have liked to have witnessed the writing that went on in that subcommittee.

The subcommittee I sat through on Tuesday of convention week was Education. Overall, I’m pleased with changes there. Over the past several years, there has been a greater emphasis on parental rights and protecting children from sexualization and woke indoctrination. Those continue to be important in this platform, with more refinement as we work through the real-life battles in our school districts.

School choice continues to be a battle front. However, by this point the anti-choice (“we already have choice,” “you can’t have choice without strings attached”) crowd seems to have conceded the argument, and instead of no choice, have suggested just allowing tax credits (a person who takes their child out of public schools would get the amount of their taxes used for public schools reimbursed to them). That is at least closer to the conversations we need to be having. But I’ll talk more about that another day. Their suggestions didn’t make it into the platform. But my suggestions for greater choice (of course without government control) didn’t either.

In Health and Human Services, there was a challenge to the Homosexuality plank’s first line, which was added in Permanent Committee in 2022. The line is “Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice.” The rest is pretty noncontroversial for conservatives: no special status or entitlements based on LGBTQ+ identification. But that first line strikes many as too confrontational. In the end, the delegates kept it. And it doesn’t matter much. The opposition will call us hateful with or without that line, because they want the special legal status. So avoiding controversy is fruitless.

There was a wording change in the Counseling Methods plank, in Health and Human Services. It says:

Counseling Methods: Therapists, psychologists, and counselors practicing in the State of Texas shall not be forbidden or penalized by any licensing board for practicing authentic reparative therapy or other counseling methods when counseling clients of any age with identity disorder or unwanted same-sex attraction.

It used to say:

Counseling Methods: Therapists, psychologists, and counselors licensed with the State of Texas shall not be forbidden or penalized by any licensing board for practicing Reintegrative Therapy or other counseling methods when counseling clients of any age with gender dysphoria or unwanted same-sex attraction.

I highlighted the differences. I have no argument about changing “licensed with” to “practicing in.” That may be an improvement. And “identity disorder” is probably broader than “gender dysphoria,” since we’ve now seen the invention of animal identities, sometimes called “furries.” But I don’t believe “authentic reparative therapy” is an improvement. Reintegrative Therapy is a particular type of standard talk therapy, used in cases of trauma-caused dissociative disorder. The aim is to help the patient heal from the trauma, and then stop dissociating from their real self. In cases of gender dysphoria and same-sex attraction, the result can be overcoming the dysphoria and accepting the gender part of themselves they had dissociated themselves from. It has been more widely accepted, because the stated goal isn’t to “change” the person; it is to heal them. And the result of healing can be what the patient wants to have happen, which can include changing to normal biological desires and behaviors, including lessening or eliminating same-sex attraction.

Reparative therapy is a category name, mainly for therapies intended to change a person’s orientation. Some of these may be effective; some are not. All tend to be controversial, just because the LGBT community, such as it is, claims that orientation is inborn and immutable, against evidence to the contrary. There’s the word “authentic,” which may need some definition. Anyway, I think it was an attempt to cover more therapies, but it actually doesn’t include Reintegrative Therapy, which has been the most successful, because it seems to address an underlying cause, rather than intentionally aiming to change orientation. In the end, though, I don’t think the wording change will affect any legislation significantly.

There was a lot of energy during Senator Cruz's speech, Saturday, May 25

 

Final Words

Those who say the two parties are the same have not read the platforms—or at least not the Texas platform. The conservative grassroots in Texas is working very hard to restore freedom, prosperity, and civilization. And that’s a good thing.