Loudest voices leading Texas GOP into chaos
The Republican Party of Texas’s biennial convention got off to a rocky start on Thursday.
The gathering, which was originally to be held at Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center, was forced to move online after Mayor Sylvester
Turner intervened this month, citing the imprudence of holding the event in person in one of the nation’s coronavirus hot spots.
The backup virtual event was bedeviled by technical difficulties.
Delegates and attendees spent hours languishing in the comments section of the party’s Facebook livestream, as party officials struggled to get through the online credentialing process.
By the evening, they were ready to admit defeat, at least temporarily.
“I am sorry that today did not go much, much better," said Texas GOP Chair James Dickey on Thursday night, at the beginning of an emergency meeting of the State Republican Executive Committee. “As the chair, that is my responsibility, and I accept that responsibility.”
After several hours of discussion, the SREC voted overwhelmingly to take Friday off and resume convention business Saturday. On Friday morning, the Texas GOP joined a lawsuit, filed by Houston activist Steve Hotze, challenging Turner’s cancellation of the in-person convention.
“The Republican Party of Texas has attempted a virtual convention and found that it is an unworkable platform,” the party said in its filing.
On Friday afternoon, a federal judge agreed — but Dickey, in a statement, announced that the party would proceed with plans for a virtual convention after all. The legal sideshow was resolved early Saturday when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overruled the U.S. district judge’s decision that the party could hold an in-person convention at the convention center.
All of this elicited plenty of derision from observers on social media, as well as merriment from the Texas Democratic Party, which issued a press release sardonically endorsing Dickey’s bid to be reelected chairman of the state GOP. He is being challenged by former U.S. Rep. Allen West and conservative activist Amy Hedtke.
“Under Dickey’s leadership, the Republican Party of Texas is in complete turmoil,” the Democrats explained.
That’s true, but it would be unfair to solely blame Dickey.
For some years, Texas’ Republican leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have been solicitous of the party’s most ardent activists, even as the statewide electorate shows signs of moderation. The result is that the Republican Party of Texas is being led by its loudest voices into disarray. That much was illustrated, at the beginning of the week, by the work of the Temporary Rules Committee.
Committee members adopted language, for the party platform, which would stiffen punishments for GOP elected officials who have been censured by the state or county parties: Those officials would not be able to appear on the ballot in the Republican primary. This comes after Abbott has been censured by a number of county parties over what some conservatives see as his heavyhanded leadership during the course of the pandemic thus far, a view shared by few medical experts as Texas’ number of COVID-19 infections has spiked following Abbott’s “reopening” of the state in May.
And some Republicans decried the move, as one with superficial appeal but troubling implications.
“This is Soviet-style central committee governance,” objected Melinda Determan Fredricks, a former vice chairwoman of the Texas GOP, in a Facebook post explaining that only a handful of Republican voters are involved in the decision to censure anybody.
“The American, constitutional way to censure an elected official and prevent (that official) from being elected again is for the decision to be made by the voters via the ballot box,” she continued.
The committee also adopted a plank calling for the creation of an electoral college-type system for electing statewide officials, which political scientist Jay Kumar Aiyer described on Twitter as “ridiculous and anti-democratic.”
“This might be the clearest sign that the state GOP believes their ability to actually win the popular vote in Texas is coming to an end,” Aiyer added.
But perhaps the clearest sign that the party is still in thrall to its activists came when the governor himself addressed the delegates, via video message, on Thursday.
“I know that many of all you are frustrated. So am I,” said Abbott. “I know that many of you do not like the mask requirement. I don’t either.”
But the mask requirement is, he continued, a necessary evil: “The last thing that any of us want is to lock Texas down again. We must do all that we can to prevent that.”
The governor then tried to mollify the critics who have turned on him in recent weeks.
“Many of you say my orders are unconstitutional,” Abbott said. “But remember, I was the attorney general who fought for your First Amendment, your Second Amendment and your 10th Amendment rights at the United States Supreme Court. I will never abandon the Constitution, and I haven't here.”
He implored the party faithful to focus on the things that still unite them — their support for President Donald Trump and their desire to defeat former Vice President Joe Biden.
It was a strangely conciliatory speech from a governor who was reelected by double digits in 2018, and continues to have a high statewide approval rating, even if he’s aggravated the activists who have disproportionate influence over his party — and, it seems, his administration.