Fellow Republicans, our party must evolve
In 2019, I became the youngest-ever city councilmember in Pearland, a rapidly growing Houston suburb of 130,000. Diverse communities like mine are incubators where my fellow Republicans can embrace the future of America and revitalize our party for the next generation.
And make no mistake, if the Republican Party doesn’t evolve, it will die. The GOP presidential nominee has lost the popular vote in seven of the past eight elections. Almost every expanding group — people of color, the religiously unaffiliated, those with a college degree — decisively favor the Democratic Party. Voters under 30 support Democrats over Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin.
While many predictions of Republicans’ demographic demise have proven premature, it is almost impossible to look at the generational data and not conclude the party’s long-term prospects are grim.
The future of America is more racially diverse and more educated. Millennial and Generation Z voters support these trends and consider the Republican Party — which they view as standing against diversity and mocking education and expertise — to be ill equipped to govern the emerging American future.
I’m proud to represent a place that embodies that future. Pearland is majorityminority and among the most diverse places in the United States — one of the few cities where Black, white, Hispanic and Asian residents each make up over 10 percent of the population. Nearly half of all adults have at least a four-year degree, and over 75 percent have some form of post-secondary education.
Pearland is a model for the rest of the country — a preview of America’s likely future in the decades ahead. My community provides a window into the diverse, highly educated suburbs that have shifted away from the GOP in recent years. Nevertheless, I have earned support here by governing as a different kind of Republican.
On fiscal policy, that’s meant supporting conservative budget practices that increased the city’s credit rating and refunded bonds to save local taxpayers over $4 million. It has also meant championing direct financial assistance to residents and small businesses grappling with the economic fallout of COVID-19.
On social policy, that’s meant delegating government control and resources to private charities and nonprofits but also investing in quality public places where people can build community and connection in an increasingly isolated age.
Next-generation Republicans must commit to building bridges rather than barriers across lines of color, creed and class. After George Floyd’s burial in a Pearland cemetery, I worked with leaders in our police department and civil rights organizations to create a constructive dialogue and reform our use-of-force policies, which earned recognition from the Texas NAACP. We rejected the divisive “defund the police” dialogue and instead came together to create real solutions.
What has worked in Pearland may not work everywhere, but it can provide insights as the GOP grapples with how to win the young and college-educated voters it will increasingly need to speak for a majority of the country. I humbly offer a few ideas for Republicans to begin rebuilding a competitive party for the 21st century.
The GOP must offer modern solutions to modern problems. Fighting declining economic mobility and reinvigorating the American dream will require innovative pro-growth policies and efforts to rein in skyrocketing health care, child care and higher-education costs, not just lower marginal tax rates. An ascendant and authoritarian China calls for increasing competitive pressure and reinvesting in strained relationships with our allies. Acknowledging the reality of climate change and offering market-based solutions to cut carbon emissions are essential to counter the left’s Green New Deal and win young voters, who rank climate change as their most important issue.
Republicans need to renew our longheld commitments to limited government and constitutional order. The party sacrificed its reputation for fiscal restraint by running trillion-dollar deficits amid tremendous economic prosperity. It abandoned its dedication to constitutionalism by supporting an abusive expansion of executive authority and efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Republicans must prove they believe in a constitutional and limited government — through their actions, not just their words — to reclaim the trust of the American people.
Finally, the GOP must expand beyond its base with a more inspiring and inclusive message. Too many trap themselves in an ideological echo chamber that amplifies fringe theories and angry, divisive rhetoric. Republicans must actively work to translate timeless conservative values into policies that support Americans of every race, religion and sexual orientation. We must reject the identity politics historically associated with the left. Not “us versus them,” but “all of us.”
As the battle for the future of the Republican Party rages on, we must choose a path that appeals to the next generation of voters. Republicans committed to principled, modern and inclusive solutions have won in Pearland and can win across our changing country. Now is our time to choose.