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.

Ideas Rising

I haven’t written here for a couple of weeks. I’ve been busy, working on the platform. At our precinct conventions on March 5, a few days after the March 1 Primary Election, one of the things we did was put forth resolutions for the platform. As I explained recently, the wording can have some “whereas” statements, explaining the background reasoning, and then end with a “therefore” statement. The whole thing gets sent in. Sometimes the only thing we get is the statement of an idea, as best as someone could figure out how to spit it out, maybe even just handwritten.

In my senatorial district, over 600 resolutions were submitted. These included a number of duplicates—exactly the same sent in by different precincts. And there were also a number of duplicate ideas—sent in with their own wording, but essentially saying the same thing. And then there were ideas sent in singularly.

Some resolutions contained multiple ideas—ideas that seemed related, to those who sent them in, but that actually identified multiple separate ideas, usually related to the same section of the platform, but not always.

So, we scanned all the resolutions the day of the Precinct Conventions (I helped do that). Then they got categorized and placed in a huge spreadsheet. And that got divided up among the various subcommittees of the Resolutions Committee in my senatorial district. And then the subcommittees placed them near similar ideas in existing platform planks, so we could begin working on wording.

I was on Education and Health & Human Services subcommittees; I led the Education subcommittee. I didn’t realize ahead of time what that was going to entail. It turns out, Education is where there is a whole lot of interest this biennium. Of those 600+ resolutions we received, around 230 of them, so more than 30%, were for Education. I also have been handling the platform document that our resolutions turn into. So, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been working long hours just about every day. Our Senatorial District Conventions in Harris County were held this past Saturday, so my intention is to catch up on sleep now. And then grocery shopping. And maybe then some house cleaning.

The SD7 2022 Resolutions (Platform) Committee;
at the SD7 Convention March 26, 2022. That's me on the right.

There were fifteen on the committee, according to rules, plus a few extras who also worked hard but didn’t get to vote on issues. My Education subcommittee attracted all the women on the Committee. We worked well together. I love them all as friends now. We began each meeting with prayer, and I often felt God’s Spirit confirming to me His approval and help in the work we were doing. I mean that quite literally. That sense that we were working together for God's glory was present in all the committee meetings I was in. What a joy to work with such good people, who also happen to be bright and well-informed, and dedicated to preserving our freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

Today, then, I’ll share some of what we—and the people who submitted all those resolutions—came up with. What I’m showing here is what we suggest as changes to the 2020 Republican Party of Texas Platform. We’re not actually causing these changes yet; we’re passing them on up to the state committee. (A little more on that below, near the end.)

If there is a theme, it is that we want our freedoms back. We’re not willing to take tyranny any longer, and we’re trying to find solutions.

In Education, many of the ideas were specific. And oddly they weren’t as strong as what was in the existing platform. They were clearly not asking for a weaker platform; they just were thinking, “What can we do?” and coming up with ideas. So, be assured we didn’t weaken things.

In short, what parents want is to take back their power. The schools have had too much power over our kids, and they have proved untrustworthy.

As you’ve been seeing around the country, people are upset about Critical Race Theory being taught in schools—and, yes, it is being taught, even here in Texas, no matter how many times they say, “No, that’s some theory taught in graduate schools; we don’t teach that.” They are teaching that America is flawed, and our founders were evil; they are not teaching the Constitution, and how the founders identified principles of freedom, overcoming millennia of other traditions. They divide children by race—to compensate for what they’re calling “systemic racism,” even though our children don’t treat each other differently by race—until they’re taught to. Parents don’t want their children to be told, “You’re either an oppressor or a victim, and no matter what you do, that’s what you are because of the skin you’re born with.” This “anti-racism” concept, which is part of CRT, is very racist.

Connected to racism is intersectionality—gaining power according to your various grievance claims. These can be race, sex, sexual orientation, transgenderism. So a black transgender would have more intersectional power than a black woman. A black woman would have more than a Hispanic or Asian woman. A white woman would have more than a white male—who is at the bottom. It’s a power scoring system based on happenstance rather than accomplishment or character—exactly the opposite of MLK’s dream.

And because of the power generated by being homosexual or transgender, that LGBTQ agenda is promoted—even to the very young. And to that, parents are saying, “No! Now you’ve gone too far.”

So that’s what we are seeing. Other issues related to wanting more transparency, and of course more choice. People want the money to follow the child—without government strings attached.

We can go into this another day, about how education isn’t actually a proper role of government. That’s why the federal Department of Education is about nothing but control. It does not help educate, period. But in the states, including here in Texas, the government sees education as its responsibility, in fact it’s main responsibility. That’s unfortunate, because you can’t even bring up choice without major outcry reaching the ears of legislators, accusing them of hating kids, and failing them by threatening to take money away.

That’s a mindset we need to get out of. People “believe” in public schools as if it is a religion. They actually say, “I believe in public schools.” Well, I believe they exist. But I don’t believe they are “the way” to educate the next generation to be productive good citizens. Public schools tend to do that more poorly than every other option. But they suck up all the taxpayer dollars, and hold onto those dollars with clenched fists.

So what did we come up with?

We addressed the CRT issue, probably in multiple places. We kept the existing Basic Standards plank (added Texas history to the list). And then we pointed out that schools are there to provide academic education, not to mold students in some way. Schools are not families; they have no business dealing with things like Social Emotional Learning (SEL is a way of indoctrinating wokeness), mental health evaluations, sex ed, anything related to gender identity, and of course CRT and any other socialist/Marxist ideology. Schools don’t have a say in the care and upbringing of children; that right is retained by the parents. (Red means we added that.) 

134.Basic Standards: The educational system should focus on basic standards, which include, but are not limited to, a curriculum of reading (with an emphasis on phonics); spelling; writing; civics (must pass the US Citizenship and Immigration Services test); the arts; music; literature; mathematics (including personal finance); science; geography; economics; and Texas, United States, and world history. We encourage teaching critical thinking skills, including logic, rhetoric, and analytical sciences within these subjects. We advocate the value of vocational training programs.

134A.  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.

 

We already had a plank saying we want no sex ed taught in schools—at any level—because schools have failed in that assignment abysmally. So the multiple requests to teach abstinence 75% of the time weren’t ignored; they just weren’t added. 100% > 75%. But we strengthened the existing Sexual Education plank an added this new one related to the Obscenity Exemption plank:

145A. No Sexualization of Children: Because the fraudulent research by Dr. Alfred Kinsey has been used to allow children access to harmful, explicit pornographic materials and to be induced into sexual performance, we support repeal of the obscenity exemption [Texas Penal Code 43.24(c)], which allows children access to harmful, explicit, or pornographic materials under the guise of education [see Obscenity Exemption plank above]. We require criminal penalties from a misdemeanor to a felony charge for each count of breaking the law by showing obscene materials to a student. An educator—including teachers, administrators, board members, or personnel, as well as guest speakers—so charged must be immediately suspended, and upon conviction must be dismissed for immoral and unprofessional conduct.

 

We have a disagreement among those who want school choice—because of some fears and some misunderstandings. The typical understanding is that families can choose from four types of schools: public, private, charter, or homeschool. But that limits the possibilities. If we had, say, an education savings account sort of plan, those four options would be available, but so would a mix-and-match version of any or all, plus online programs, plus private lessons and tutoring, plus therapies (for example, equine therapy or speech therapy). If the parents could choose the options, they would be limited only by the amount in the account plus whatever additional they might want to pay. It would work similar to a health savings account: you can use the money in an HSA for any qualifying medical service or product. In an ESA, that would be true of any qualifying educational service or product.

But the fear is in the “qualifying.” In general, it would be up to the parents to decide. But it would have to be something related to their child’s education. For example, a museum pass might qualify, but a new skateboard would not. The money simply can’t be used for a nonqualifying purchase.

The fear crowd tends to be homeschoolers or private schoolers worried about intrusion by government into what they’re doing. But they do not have to take any taxpayer money. I believe their fears should not be preventing choices from happening for all the other parents—including homeschooling parents who prefer to be vigilant against government intrusion while exploring multiple options.

Anyway, we rewrote the previous School Options plank to be two planks: Education Mission Includes All Children, which explains why the money should follow the child, rather than be held in the public school monopoly; and Free Market Is Solution to Education, which reminds us that the free market is the way to higher quality at lower costs. Imagine the innovation that would be spurred in the market if parents held the purse strings and intentionally chose the customized combination of materials and approaches that would work best for their child.

141. School Options: Texas families should be empowered to choose from public, private, charter, or homeschool options for their children’s education, using tax credits or exemptions without government restraints or intrusion.

141.Education Mission Includes All Children: The state of Texas has a mission to educate the next generation to become productive good citizens, and it collects taxes for this purpose. Public school is only one tool parents can choose for accomplishing this mission, but public school is not the mission itself. The state must never create roadblocks for families for whom that tool does not meet their goals for their children. Taxing families on top of what they pay out of pocket for another choice does not further the mission. Monies allotted to education must follow the child without government restraints or intrusion.

141A. Free Market Is Solution to Education: We know that the free market leads to higher quality and lower costs. If Texans want higher quality education and would enjoy getting that for lower cost, Texas must incorporate the free market into every aspect of pre-K-12 education. This would lead to greater satisfaction for parents and teachers, could eliminate indoctrination problems, and would lead to generally improved outcomes at lower costs than what we have seen with government monopoly.

 

Beyond education, the big outcry from the public was for freedom from government overreach, and a reassertion of our God-given rights. Two years ago we were writing the 2020 Platform near the beginning of the pandemic. So we had a plank last time about Healthcare Decisions. We extended that with a new Medical Freedom plank, to get rid of those mandates of all kinds that we’ve suffered.

250A. Medical Freedom: We call for an addition to the Texas Bill of Rights that explicitly states that Texans have the natural right to refuse vaccination or other medical treatment. Therefore, the following are expressly forbidden even in an emergency or a pandemic:

a.     Any attempt to mandate, force, or coerce any medical test, procedure, or product, including vaccines or masks.

b.     Any attempt to use a citizen's health, infection recovery, or vaccination status as a condition to maintain or obtain housing or employment or employee benefits, attend school or childcare, or access state services.

c.      Any mandates by public, private, government, or medical entities for treatment, vaccination, vaccine passports, mask requirements, health insurance surcharges, or use of controlled substances of any kind.

d.     Any involuntary isolation or quarantine of anyone not experiencing an active contagious infection.

e.     Any prevention of visitation to the ill when risks are acknowledged and mitigated according to patient and visitor choice.

f.     Any Nuremberg Code violations—including but not limited to the requirement that use of experimental use medications must provide full knowledgeable consent and be free from any form of coercion or inducement.

 

That was in Health & Human Services. In addition, we altered and added a couple of specific planks up in Business, Commerce & Transportation:

58.    Mask Mandates: Government should not be able permitted to force businesses or governmental workers (including election workers and school personnel) to require face coverings.

58A.  Vaccine Mandates: The Republican Party opposes vaccine mandates, opposes any effort to impose such mandates through emergency declaration, legislation, or regulatory action, and supports legislative efforts to allow consumers and patrons to freely conduct business without regard to vaccination status.

 

There are other intrusions into our freedoms as well. I like this addition:

234A. One World: The United States is a sovereign nation founded on the principles of freedom.  We call on the dissolution of the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, New World Order, One World Government, The Great Reset, and other groups who have taken on the role of a government entity and act as such to control freedom of thought, speech, religion, and trade.

We find that these things coming at us from multiple directions, so people are trying to list every iteration and prevent any new ones.

Speaking of which, concerns of mine, which I put forth as resolutions that were accepted, were to stop ESG scoring and DEI programs—both by governments and by businesses, which are being recruited to take away our freedoms at the behest of governments when the governments know they can’t get away with that sort of tyranny outright:

21A. Values Scoring: The Republican Party opposes the use by financial institutions, social media companies, businesses, or any level of government, of any social credit system (such as used by the Chinese Communist Party), ESG (Environmental, Social & corporate Governance) scoring system, or similar system or method designed to discriminate against a person’s beliefs, values, medical decisions or lawful behaviors. The use of such systems prevents citizens from exercising their constitutional rights, including the rights of free speech, assembly, and religion, and further prevents citizens from the full enjoyment of the unalienable rights of our Republic. The Republican Party calls for federal and state legislation banning governmental use of such systems and protecting the rights and liberties of citizens from the use of such systems by businesses.

21C. No Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policies: When Diversity means no diversity of thought; when Equity means equal outcomes rather than equal opportunities; and when Inclusion means exclusion of anyone not fitting the DEI orthodoxy; then DEI is an abominable forced bigotry and must be made illegal in public and private businesses, government at all levels, schools and universities, and financial institutions.

 

We had a fairly strong Abolish Abortion plank last time. But we’re strengthening that.

325. Abolish Abortion: Since life begins at conception, we urge the Texas Legislature to enact legislation to abolish abortion by immediately securing through enacting legislation that would immediately secure the rights to life and equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization and by ignoring and refusing and would ignore or refuse to enforce any and all federal statutes, regulations, orders, and court rulings that would deny these rights, and to oppose legislation that discriminates against any preborn children and violates the US Constitution by denying such persons the equal protection of the laws.

 

Of course we’re asking for some additional safeguards for the election system. We added to the existing Fair Election Procedures plank, and added a new plank detailing what would trigger a full forensic audit:

210. Fair Election Procedures: We support the right of eligible voters to cast a ballot in each election once but oppose illegal voting, illegal assistance, or ineligible persons registering. We support:

a.     Vigorous enforcement of all our election laws as written and oppose any laws, lawsuits, and judicial decisions that make voter fraud very difficult to deter, detect, or prosecute.

b.     Voter Photo ID.

c.      Prohibition of Internet voting for public office and any ballot measure.

d.     Sequentially numbered and signed paper ballots to deter counterfeiting.

e.     No private funding of the election process.

210A. Forensic Audit: For races contested by the candidates, Certification must be postponed, and a full forensic audit of preserved paper ballots and voter records must be performed, including a hand recount of paper ballots, if any of the following is detected:

a.   Statistical anomalies and/or impossibilities.

b.   Voter turnout is more than voter registrations.

c.   Missing audit logs.

d.   Dropping signature verifications for mail-in ballots.

e.   Astronomical numbers of error events in vote tabulators.

f.         Extremely low rejection rates for mail in ballots.

g.   Suspiciously high adjudication or participation rates.

h.   Accepting votes that "scanned" faster than the scanner could physically scan.

i.        Any tabulation error, such as "votes exceeds ballots cast", which must be investigated, allowing no override.

j.        Counting ballots after the Election Night Deadline if the resulting numbers significantly change the outcome.

 

We don’t do a lot of asking for programs—more often we ask to get rid of them. But a resolution came in asking for the restoration of an education program for families. Those of you familiar with “The Family: AProclamation to the World” might recognize the call for citizens and governments “to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.” So we were able to echo some of that proclamation in this plank:

240A. Healthy Family Formation: We call upon the Texas Legislature, in conjunction with responsible citizens, to promote measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society. Toward this end we recommend reintroducing a Healthy Family Formation program, providing messages on risk avoidance and abstinence outside of marriage, complete fidelity within marriage, and equipping parents to share in the responsibilities of rearing children in a nurturing atmosphere of love and mutual respect and providing the necessities of life and protection for the family.

 

In all, we’re suggesting an additional 41 planks, with changes to many existing planks. The process from here is for us to submit these to the Republican State Platform Committee. So ours get assessed along with suggestions from around the state’s 31 senatorial districts. And the state committee will be comprised of a representative from each of them.

It’s more formal at that level. In subcommittees there is a fairly open exchange of ideas, but when the Committee of the Whole meets, members address the Chairman, not each other, and parliamentary rules are strictly followed.

It looks like I will be editing for the State Platform Committee again this year (3^rd time). It’s an interesting thing to do, and I feel like I’m contributing, using my skills. But at that level I get very little say in how things are worded, and no input on what should be said. So my opportunity to do that was at the senatorial district level. I forget how many times I’ve done this level, but I think I started in 2014; if that is so, then this is my fifth time. As contributions to the party go, this is my wheelhouse.

What new people on our committee commented on was how much respect we show to every resolution that comes in. We’ve always paid attention to each one, but this time we tracked on a spreadsheet what we did related to each resolution, so those who submitted could actually see whether and where their ideas were included.

The system is designed to grow the platform, which explains why it’s so long. I wish that weren’t so. And yet, most of what was in there from last time was worth keeping, at least in some form. We added far more ideas than we took out.

Each of those ideas started out in someone’s head, and they got written down and submitted at the precinct level. We have now handled them at the district level. And they will make their way up to the state level, where they will direct our grassroots work—and the work of our elected officials—for the next two years.

This system is designed to hear what the grassroots are saying. Those are the ideas that are rising up. People are figuratively shouting, “We want our freedoms back!” We want to run our own lives, including our own medical decisions. And we don’t want governments or anyone else telling us how to raise our children, or what we are supposed to believe.

The question now is, will our voices be heard? People with power—the ones who have usurped that power from the people—don’t willingly give it up. But in the end they can only rule by the consent of the governed. And that’s those of us who are speaking up.

 

 

Grassroots Power—Texas Style

Remember this foundational principle from our Declaration of Independence?

Governments are instituted among men,

deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That is literally true in our constitutional republic—if we can keep it. Tuesday is Primary Election Day here in Texas, after two weeks already of early voting. It’s the midterm year, not the presidential election year, so there’s lower turnout. That means those who participate have more say in who our candidates will be—for Congress, for Governor, Lt. Governor, judges, and all the rest.

We have the longest ballot in the country here in Harris County. It took three posts a week or so ago to cover all the contested races.

But having a voice, as the governed, is more than electing leaders—and holding them accountable. It is also about expressing our ideas, to let the elected officials know how we want our state and country to be governed. There’s a process for letting them know, and we’re about to go through that today.

 

The Two-Year Cycle

Let’s start with the two-year cycle. A lot of people think of the four-year presidential election cycle. But, at least here in Texas, we go through a whole process every two years.

from a presentation developed by Bill Ely
for the HCRP Training and Development Committee,
which I used and adapted for the Cypress Texas Tea Party on February 19

In odd-numbered years we have our legislative session: mid-January through the end of May. There may be special sessions called (three in a row this past year, and still there was business left undone). But mainly we just have that 4 ½ months every other year. Which is good, since our freedoms are at risk whenever the legislature is in session. It takes constant vigilance to keep government in check, at every level.

When the session is over, we begin the primary season. Candidates begin their campaigns, which get fully underway by late fall filing deadlines. Here in Texas our usual Primary Election Day is the first Tuesday of March—this year that’s March 1. This ends the primary season—except for those races that had multiple candidates in which no one got over 50%; then there’s a runoff, this year set for May 26. And I expect there will be more runoff races than usual this year.

As soon as the Primary Election is over (excepting runoffs), the convention season is underway. There are multiple levels of conventions. The most local is the Precinct Convention, sometimes called a precinct caucus, or just precinct meeting. A few weeks later, the next level is the Senatorial District or County Convention. In areas like Harris County, there are multiple state senatorial districts in the county, so we don’t do it by county level. In less populous areas of the state, this level may be done by county. Then comes the State Republican Convention—this year held in Houston, in June. In presidential election years, there’s a national convention, but we’re not having one this year, so the state is this year’s top level.

Overlapping the convention season is the general election season, getting ready for that vote in November. Then, in January after that November election, the newly elected legislature is back in session.

 

Conventions—General Purpose

So what happens at a convention? The basic agenda is the same regardless of level:

·         We choose delegates to the next level up.

·         We put forth resolutions for the platform.        

There may be speeches and celebrations, and other necessary party business. But those are the two basic agenda items for every convention.

So, let’s look at each of the levels where grassroots people will be attending this year.

 

Precinct Convention

In past years, in this county, we’ve held our precinct convention on Primary Election Day, after the polls close, at the precinct polling location. A few years ago the county went to countywide voting. This is a great convenience for voters, but it hinders local politics. We don’t necessarily get to see our precinct voters at the polling location in our precinct—if there even is one within the precinct. And besides, many voted during the two weeks of early voting—which can be any of the polling locations in the county. So how do we let people know about the meetings?

Plus, since precinct chairs were often the election officials, how do we get the polls closed down, the materials delivered to the counting locations—and hold a meeting at the same time? Last year we got new voting equipment. The process kinks are still being ironed out. We got a practice run at the low-turnout election in November (ours was just school board races). We learned that closing down the polling location is more time-consuming than it had been before. And delivering materials to counting was an hours-long nightmare. (This time they have returned to multiple dropoff locations, so that may help shorten that part of the process.)

Anyway, doing the precinct meeting at the polling location on election night has become nigh unto impossible. So we’re doing our precinct conventions another day: this Saturday, March 5, if you’re local and interested in participating. Instead of at the polling location, the Harris County Republican Party has set up multiple locations according to state House districts. All the precincts belonging to that House district will meet at a location together and then break out into their separate precincts. (If you’re here in Harris County and want to know your location, the list is here.)

It used to be that the precinct chair would receive the packet of precinct convention materials when they picked up their voting materials. This year the packet will be handed to them at these House district locations. All of these meetings are open for registration at 8:00 AM, and meetings start at 9:00 AM—expect them to last about an hour.

Once the precincts get together, they follow a script that is in the packet. You identify all participants and make sure they are qualified to participate. To qualify you must have voted in the Republican Primary that just took place (and, of course, not voted this year in any other party’s primary); or, if you didn’t vote, you can take an oath of affiliation. In other words, only Republicans get to participate in Republican conventions.

Someone has to lead the meeting. So the setup is for someone, usually the Precinct Chair when available, to get things underway. This is the Temporary Precinct Convention Chair. She appoints a Temporary Secretary and any other needed officers (such as a sergeant-at-arms). Then the first order of business is to elect permanent officers. These are often the people who were temporary officers, who just continue on in official capacity, but they do not have to be. And these permanent positions are only for the business of this meeting. (The elected Precinct Chair—not to be confused with this Precinct Convention Chair—continues on with his/her duties beyond this meeting.) Elections—with brief campaign speeches, when necessary—can put in place any officers the precinct convention participants choose.

This is all done by Roberts Rules of Order. While it sounds official and somewhat intimidating, in practice it can be very simple and somewhat casual—as long as rules are followed. If two people show up, one ends up being the chair and the other the secretary, and they move forward with business. Most of the precinct conventions I’ve attended have had from 5-10 participants. Some less. One I attended had a couple dozen, but that was a rarity.

 

Electing Delegates to the District Convention

First order of business, then, is to elect delegates to the District Convention. It is my experience that the number attending is far less than the number of delegates the precinct is allowed. This is determined by a formula based on the number of Republican votes for governor in the past election. It’s done according to state party rules, and the packet shows the number, so you don’t have to do the math. For example, if you’re allowed 20 delegates, and you have 5 people at your precinct convention, all of you can go as delegates. If by some oddity, you have more people at the convention than delegates allowed, you can send alternates as well. If you’re allowed 20 delegates, you’d also be allowed 20 alternates—which means 40 attendees at your Precinct Convention would be allowed to go to the District Convention. Alternates might not have voting power at that convention—unless a delegate doesn’t show up. Then they would be seated as a regular delegate. But they could participate, regardless, in any activities not requiring voting, such as platform discussions.

Can you be a delegate at the District Convention, if you didn’t attend the Precinct Convention? Good question. You must be elected as a delegate at that Precinct Convention. However, if you know ahead of time that you cannot attend the Precinct Convention, but you know you want to attend the District Convention, you can contact your Precinct Chair, or another person planning to attend your Precinct Convention, and let them know you would like to be a delegate, and they can nominate you. If there is opportunity and the attendees are agreeable, you can be elected in absentia. You’d need to make sure they had your ID information to turn in with their report.

 

Platform Resolutions

So, about those platform resolutions. Once you’ve settled your delegates, that’s the next order of business. Did anyone bring any resolutions they’d like to put forward? If yes, then they present what they have, and the convention participants vote on whether to approve each resolution or reject it. Records are kept of both accepted and rejected resolutions. In my experience, 3-5 resolutions is a typical number. Some people bring a stack of resolutions passed on to them from friends or activists in other precincts, but they had better be able to present and defend anything they bring or it’s a waste of time. Having an idea come from multiple places is intended to show that the idea has much grassroots support. But a good idea from one single person can strike a chord and work its way up to the state platform.

At a meet-and-greet with Mark Ramsey, whom I’m supporting in the new Congressional District 38 race, he talked about seeing an idea from his precinct work its way all the way up to the national platform.

It’s suggested that you bring three copies of your resolution: one for yourself to read from, one for the Precinct Convention Chair, and one for the Secretary. Resolutions can be amended by the participants, somewhat casually, as long as rules are followed. You can even come up with a new resolution on the spot—just write it on a piece of notebook paper.

That said, there is a format, which helps lay out ideas:

Whereas: This is one reason behind our idea;

Whereas: This is another reason behind our idea;

Be It Resolved: We want this to happen.

The essential part is the “be it resolved” part—even if you just say it straight out without any formality. That is the part that would be put in the platform if accepted at the higher levels. The “whereas” clauses are giving background reasoning. When you’re in your precinct, presenting a resolution, you can say why you think it’s important, or why it should be said in a particular way. But once it is passed up the chain, people working on the platform may want to know your reasoning. If it’s there in your original document, that’s helpful to their decision-making process. But, again, if you have an idea, just spit it out and get it in some written form your precinct convention agrees to. That’s all that’s necessary.

The election of delegates and approving of resolutions should take about an hour. Maybe less, maybe a bit more, depending on size and agreeableness of your group. Once adjourned, the Precinct Convention Chair and Secretary get all paperwork copied and turned in to the County party officials as instructed. And they may want to coordinate communications about the upcoming District Convention to those who were elected as delegates.

 

Senatorial District or County Conventions

The agenda at this convention will be the same: elect delegates to the next level convention, in this case to the state convention; and work on resolutions for the platform.

At this level on up, the temporary officers do a lot more work up front. There are people handling credentials, and setting up the bigger logistics of a larger convention. In some past years we’ve held our Senatorial District Conventions at separate locations. This year we’re going back to a central location at which we will meet in separate rooms for just our districts. This helps save money on location rentals, and facilitates candidates who want to address the multiple conventions—going room to room, instead of traveling all over the county. This year ours will be held on March 26 at the Norris Center, near Town & Country (scroll down to info here).

 

Electing Delegates to State

If you want to be a delegate to the State Convention, there’s a good chance you can make that happen, but there may be competition. Usually each precinct gets to send just 2-3 delegates and 2-3 alternates. If there are more who want to go, they can try to be appointed as at-large delegates. Once you get to the State Convention, most—maybe all—of the alternates will be seated as regular delegates. If they’re not, they can be paired with a delegate and, whenever that delegate cannot be on the floor (needs lunch, or needs to be doing business elsewhere), that alternate can be seated and vote in their place. So don’t feel like an alternate isn’t important; you’ll probably act function as a regular delegate, likely for the whole State Convention.

 

Platform/Resolutions Committee—Temporary and Permanent

Those resolutions you turned in at your Precinct Convention—there’s a temporary committee, appointed by the Senatorial District Chair (or County Chair in those more rural places), who gather them, categorize them into the part of the existing platform they would pertain to, and go through each one. They try to make sure each new idea is addressed and considered. There could be hundreds, maybe even thousands of resolutions. Many will be exact duplicates, or will be similar ideas. The Temporary Resolutions (or Platform) Committee will meet to do all this gathering and sorting, along with thinking and rewording.

In large districts like the one I’m in, the Temporary Resolutions Committee will do a complete version of the platform, showing changes to existing planks and the new planks added. Many other districts or counties will just put forth a number of resolutions, in the same way as at a Precinct Convention, rather than a full platform. Either way, all this work is done in the few weeks between Precinct Convention and District Convention.

At the actual District Convention, the body elects permanent officers, which will include permanent committee members, such as these platform people. People who didn’t work on the temporary committee may still be added by the convention delegates, or replace temporary members.

That's me, working on the Permanent Resolutions Committee
at our District Convention in 2020
photo from Pauline Ramsey's Facebook page

During this all-day convention, committees meet for their duties. Rules Committee, for example, might be doing similar early and convention-day work. My experience is with the platform. We meet in a separate room from the body of the convention—while they hear speeches and do other business. (We try to get our votes in as needed—including getting ourselves elected as delegates to the State Convention. It can be hectic.) We’ll have a set amount of time to hear testimony from people who want to support a proposed resolution already being considered, or who want to present a brand new resolution they’ve thought of since the Precinct Convention. The Permanent Resolutions (Platform) Committee hears testimony and then finalizes a version of the platform—which is their Permanent Committee Report. They bring that to the body, which looks at it, discusses it—sometimes at length, sometimes almost not at all—and then votes to accept the committee’s report, which then gets sent up to the state party.

 

State Convention

The same agenda applies—except that this year we won’t have a national convention, so there won’t be election of delegates. There is election of party leadership.

This is a six-day convention. Temporary committees—whose members again are appointed by the Senatorial District Chair (one committee representative per district for each committee)—meet and do the work on Rules, Platform, Legislative Priorities, etc., on Monday through Wednesday. They take testimony and try to come up with their final work product, called the Temporary Committee Report, which will be the starting point on Thursday, when most of the delegates arrive.

During those temporary committee hearings, people can come and testify on issues, to get ideas included that they want, or to get wording the way they want. You don’t have to be a delegate to testify. People can even, again, present an entirely new idea. They have opportunity to testify in separate subcommittee hearings as well as in the committee as a whole.

On Thursday, when most of the delegates arrive, permanent committee members will be chosen. Again, these are usually the ones who did the work on the Temporary Platform Report, but not always. There were some significant changeouts last time, when delegates decided their committee members didn’t hold the prevailing views of that Senatorial District.

The Permanent Committees will have only Thursday afternoon/evening to hear more testimony and finalize any changes to the Permanent Committee Report.

These reports are presented before the entire body of delegates, and are open to floor debate, which can be either very exciting or very boring, depending on issues that come up, and how much the rules of order are used to slow the process.

With Legislative Priorities, the final report comes up with something like 15-16 priorities, which they have narrowed down from around 40 earlier in the week. And then the body votes on their priorities, which narrows it down to a top eight. So that is very grassroots. And we think the innovation of providing legislative priorities is more apt to persuade legislators to do at least these few things.

Platform is usually the last thing to be discussed on the floor. That may be by design. People are tired and ready to go home, so they’re less likely to want an extended floor debate. But another innovation from a few years ago is to have an up-or-down vote on each platform plank. Any plank that doesn’t receive 50% support gets eliminated from the platform.

Other fun things go on at the State Convention. There’s a big exhibit hall, with booths and temporary stores set up. There’s entertainment. Speeches and more speeches, of course. And outside events, like breakfasts and banquets. And lots of new people to meet—just about all working toward greater freedom in our state and country, in other words good people you’d like to have as friends.

In 2018, our kids were also delegates, so we had our
grandkids with us at the State Convention.

Did I mention that the Texas State Convention is the biggest political convention in the country? Possibly in the world. We have up to 9,000 delegates, plus visitors. It’s a big and memorable fiesta—in addition to getting the voice of the grassroots to the people who need to hear us.

It starts at the Precinct Convention. So put that on your calendar, and get your voice heard at least for that hour. 

Whatever state you’re from, there’s some version of this process. Find out what it is, and get your voice heard.

 

 

 

Better All Three Ways

This past Saturday was our senatorial district convention, which was postponed from March because of Covid-19. There was a good turnout. And it was kind of thrilling to have an actual get-together in person after so many months of isolation.

There we are at the Senatorial District 7 Convention
photo from Mark Ramsey's Facebook page

Much of my day was spent in the resolutions committee, working on the platform. Our SD7 is bigger than most, and more conservative, and hopefully more influential. So we put out our version of the entire platform. We’re required to use the previous platform as a starting point, so we used underlines and strikeouts to show changes we were making. Surprisingly, at the end of the day, after our chair presented some of what we’d done, both in the temporary committee and in Saturday’s permanent committee, no one wanted floor debate; the committee as a whole accepted it as we did it. I’ve never seen that happen before.

The SD7 Resolutions Committee at work; that's me second from right
at the table. Photo from Pauline Ramsey's Facebook page

Our chair, Mark Ramsey, gave me a lot of credit for the editing I did (and still had left to do after the convention to clean it up); I don’t know where else grammarians actually get applause. It was a privilege for me.

Before we got to that, I did hear a few of the speeches. And a highlight was my Congressman Dan Crenshaw. He has an easy way of speaking, putting profound truths in a conversational, understandable way. When I’m looking for ways of wording things that connect with people, I turn to him.

His ten-minute talk, without notes, talked about the contrast between what the other party offers and what we conservatives offer. And these came under three categories: political, economic, and social. Where have I seen that before? [Hint: SphericalModel.com]

So I’ll share portions of his talk to show ways of presenting, in a brief and conversational way, soem of the things that I talk about here all the time.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, the quick photo I took
before using my phone to record his talk

The Political Sphere

Dan started out talking about what “liberalism” used to mean:

You know, liberalism used to stand for a couple of different things, like free speech, like the right to peacefully assemble, equality of opportunity. These are actually liberal foundations. But the Democrat Party has completely left those. They’ve completely trampled over their good-natured liberals—whom I still disagree with on many issues. But at least they’re actually liberal. At least they actually stood for the foundations of a liberal democracy. At least they actually stood for what our founding stood for.

That has been completely trampled over as of late. And I don’t mean that figuratively. We can see it quite literally being trampled over.

I’m old enough to be his mother (he’s the same age as son Political Sphere), so I remember when “liberal” meant something different. In a personal journal I described myself as a liberal—when I was 18, before college, but I was voting conservative Republican. To me it meant freedom-loving and open-minded, rather than any political philosophy. I attached a note in that journal some years later to mark the change in meaning.

Dan talked a bit about what is happening in Seattle. And he talked about a bad movie he saw recently in which the government response to chaos was to send out some sort of mind-control signal to stop people from committing crime. Just fiction. Still, he asked himself,

Is this like the liberal utopia that they want? Where there’s so much anarchy that it takes complete centralized government control to persuade human nature, to affect human behavior?

He points out that they think they—the leftists, which I call southern hemisphere tyrannists—can change human nature. It can’t be done. Over thousands of years, we’ve developed institutions, like the church, to help guide people toward better behavior than their unbridled nature would lead them to do. As he says,

You can’t rely on haphazard government intervention based upon principles that were thought of just five minutes ago. And they change, constantly. You never know what the next attack is by the left. They’re determined to create a sense of crisis in order to justify their revolution.

They seem to like the romantic notion of revolution. It’s a “youthful exuberance,” trying to do something important, to effect change. But, he says, what we’re seeing is “an attack on America at its core”:

It’s one thing to say that we have improvements to make. We will always have improvements to make, and we should lock our arms together and to speak out for the improvements that we need to make, and live up to our founding ideals.

But it is quite another to say that those ideals are evil to the core, when in reality they are not. When in reality they are based in truth. When in reality the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written by men who learned these ideals and took them from the best ideas that mankind ever had—from Jerusalem, to Rome, to Athens, to London. And conservatism stands for these great ideals. Conservatism stands for a republic, a functioning political system that actually works. Not mob democracy.

He goes on,

Democrats actually want mob democracy. They’re not hiding the ball on this. When you want to get rid of the Electoral College, when you want to remove states’ rights, when you want the federal government to have centralized control over the society and the economy—  They also say they don’t like that small states have two senators. That’s a federalist system that they want to undo.

They want 51% of the population to tell the other 49% what to do, because they believe they can change human nature. They believe they can control your thoughts and your feelings. And they believe that preferences across a vast country don’t matter. This is what they believe.

How does our side compare?

Our political system allows us to live together peacefully. It’s a republic, with checks and balances and states’ rights, and a federalist system. And that matters. Our founders thought very hard about this. Because they were students of history, and they saw what worked and what didn’t. They saw what was stable and what wasn’t.

We stand for stability. They stand for chaos.

The Political, Economic, and Social Spheres side by side

The Economic Sphere

So, that’s the political sphere. Then he turns to economics:

We also stand for a better economic system. Our founders understood this too. Most rational people understand this, that property rights matter. You can’t just confiscate somebody’s property. And one of the primary roles of government is defending that, through law and order, through law enforcement. They want to upend that too, defund the police. Our economic system, our economic way of looking at things, the free market is superior to socialism in every way.

He considers that there’s a spectrum of socialism, from full-on communism, to the socialism-light of some mainstream Democrats. But he offers an example of what these “light” socialists mean to do:

If you’re a company above a billion dollars in revenue per year, then your board has to be certified by the federal government. That’s pretty dang close to a government takeover of an institution, of an industry. Fundamentally, they want to tax more and more and redistribute that wealth. It’s collective ownership of wealth and prosperity. Those are the words they use. Then they call it democracy.

And here’s the important point I wish we could get across:

Fundamentally, it doesn’t work. That’s the thing. It doesn’t work. There’s no cases. No cases at all. About 25 countries have tried socialism. They’ve all failed—in blood, and slavery, and mass death and starvation—because it doesn’t work. The economic system has completely been discredited.

We have to maintain personal property rights: “The ability to keep your money, because you earn it. The ability to freely exchange with others.” He turns to what we’ve seen in reaction to the pandemic. It’s a problem when “foolish politicians,” mostly on the left, but not totally, but these policy makers

make a mistake by thinking that we could force you to engage in safe behavior. That didn’t make sense. It’s been discredited now. But the reality is, it was never government’s role to force your business to close—while Walmart stayed open.

Here’s what we need:

We need leaders that actually think through their civics education and understand what the proper role of government is—how do you enforce guidelines?

Maybe coercion is the wrong way to deal with law-abiding citizens.

The Social Sphere

Already you can see that there’s an interrelationship between the political, economic, and social spheres. But finally he covers the social sphere, or culture:

Conservatism is superior along a third line, and that’s our cultural perspective. Conservatives are the only ones that stand for cultural narratives that actually keep a society functioning. What do I mean by those? Well, first of all, we’re in a church. So we stand for moral truth. We understand that our laws are actually derived from the Ten Commandments. There are things that are true and cannot be argued with. You have to have a starting point. You have to have an anchor in morality. You can’t just decide what you want it to be.

We’re also the only ones who defend things like personal responsibility and accountability for your actions.

We’re the only ones who actually defend ordered liberty, the freedom for you to choose to make mistakes and to succeed, and then to be rewarded as such.

This is important. The fact that we even have to defend a simple ideal like a meritocracy is crazy. But we do. We’re the only ones that stand up for it.

He ends with this point about our neighbors who are Democrats—who are mostly decent people and not radical America-hating revolutionaries.

Here’s the infuriating part: your liberal neighbors absolutely teach these same principles to their kids. You know why? Because they actually love their kids, and they want their kids to succeed. You teach your kids these basic principles because you love them.

Maybe it’s time we actually used the same principles for the American people—because we actually love the American people, just like we would love our kids.

Indeed. If everyone who knows enough to want their children to succeed, so they teach them how to be decent and productive human beings who can live in peace among their neighbors—if every one of these people voted for conservatives rather than socialists, I believe we’d see an overwhelming majority choosing the good. People struggle to come here from all over the world because of the good we have here.

People who love America, and love one another, want freedom, prosperity, and civilization; they don’t want what the other side offers: tyranny, poverty, and savagery. It ought to be an easy choice, if we can just get them to hear messages like Rep. Dan Crenshaw offers in his everyday life.