One of the pleasures I had during the 2012 Senate campaign in Texas was meeting Tom Leppert. I hoped that Tom would stay engaged in public affairs because he is one of the bright spots in public policy for Republicans. I ran across a post from Tom on the new website, InsideSources.com and wanted to share it with you.
Kaplan CEO: The Wrong Fix
Tom Leppert
In March, the U.S. Department of Education proposed a rule intended to address some of the challenges facing American higher education. Unfortunately, this so-called “gainful employment” regulation would punish lower income and working adult students and do little to address the real issues….
Rather than hold colleges accountable for student learning, the proposed regulation punishes schools for factors they do not control. Programs would be denied eligibility for federal student aid based on the amount of debt a student takes on and their earnings after graduation. Schools have neither the authority to limit student borrowing, nor can they guarantee earnings after graduation.
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This proposed rule is also a job killer. It threatens to shut down educational programs for some of today’s most in-demand jobs, such as medical and dental assistants, computer support specialists, and accountants and bookkeepers, as well as for important public service careers in law enforcement, education and healthcare.
A campaign to retake Texas House District 148 began Wednesday, March 12, in a quiet, unassuming restaurant on Houston’s north side. With the huge sign out front announcing the campaign kick-off reception, Chris Carmona’s effort to wrest the district from decades of neglect was formally launched. The largest private event room at Fiesta Guadalajara filled quickly with enthusiastic supporters as Carmona began the undertaking of a mission to bring people power back to the legislative table.
Fresh off a primary race win, Harris County Treasurer, Orlando Sanchez, gave the crowd a heartfelt, humorous, rousing introduction of Chris. Sanchez didn’t do the normal, “I’m Republican, he’s Republican, so let’s go vote!” spiel you normally find at these gatherings. Instead, this was a specific, detailed and issue-driven endorsement of a candidate. Not only does Sanchez thoroughly understand the campaign issues he addressed when introducing Carmona – especially with relation to House District 148; he knows that Chris Carmona is exactly the leader the district needs.
Now, I have known Chris for a while. We have worked together with both the Houston Young Republicans and the Harris County Republican Outreach Committee while Chris was chairman. But, when he took the microphone to a standing ovation, the Chris Carmona I saw on Wednesday night was not one I’d ever seen. I’ve been to lots of campaign events, whether they were forums or rallies, meet and greets or press conferences. But the Chris I heard speak on Wednesday night was different. This was no typical, run-of-the-mill Republican red meat speech; this was a passionate embrace of a compelling cause:
“With this campaign, it is not enough to just say our goal is to win, but we have to be worthy of winning. As the late Jack Kemp used to state, our party has always been the party of optimism, always been the party of the future. The purpose of a truly great party is to provide superior ideas, principled leadership and a compelling cause.”
Chris addressed issues such as parental choice in education, opportunity scholarships, economic opportunity districts, empowering communities, and fighting for women victims to have greater access to justice. The issues Carmona is running on are specific, detailed, and very timely, and anyone in the room could see and hear that Chris feels deeply and passionately about the issues driving his campaign. These issues are at the forefront of the minds of the constituency he could soon represent, and vague platitudes like the ones they’ve gotten for the last twenty years just won’t cut it.
Talking with people around the room before and after the speech, I noticed that the crowd was extraordinarily diverse: young, old, black, white, Hispanic. Some made the drive from Montgomery County, and even as far as Dallas. While the campaign kick-off event was supposed to last about an hour and a half, as people stayed and visited with one another, it ended up lasting over three hours, with people seemingly reluctant to leave, and many holding or wearing a “Carmona for 148” t-shirt.
In Chris Carmona, the voters in House District 148 finally have an excellent opportunity to have a voice in Austin. Republicans who seek to grow the party by embracing youth and diversity have an ideal, passionate and motivated candidate in Chris. Those who seek soldiers for the front line against Battleground Texas can find a compelling cause in the candidacy of Chris Carmona.
He has my full support. He deserves yours, as well.
Vladimir Davidiuk is a local Republican political activist, writer, blogger extraordinaire and sometime campaign operative, and currently a member of the Houston Young Republicans.
Those of you who have followed Big Jolly Politics know that one of the problems both David Jennings and I are passionate about fixing is the “pay for play” culture in our local GOP primary, which dipped its toe into the statewide primary this year. It must be stopped, and I am proud of the bold step the Precinct Chairs of the Harris County Republican Party took during their last Executive Committee meeting to address this problem by adopting a Resolution condemning the practice. I am told that at many precinct conventions across the state tomorrow evening, resolutions will be offered to address this problem at the statewide level, and I support the drafts of those resolutions that I have seen. Stopping the “pay for play” culture is one reason I joined the board of United Republicans of Harris County in 2012.
Although we Republicans often criticize the editorial content of the Houston Chronicle (often for good reason), I have to thank the Chronicle reporters and editors who have increasingly reported on this problem within our party. The latest editorial yesterday fairly tracked much of what David and I have been reporting and arguing for years without condemning the Republican Party as a whole, and the editors arrived at the right conclusion—we Republican voters must stop the demand for the for-profit and consultant-driven mailers, and eventually stop the demand for all of the slate mailers that have sprung-up in response to the for-profit mailers, by doing our own homework before we vote.
However, from the private responses I have received to the editorial over the last 24 hours, the text of the editorial seems to have created a critical misperception that I want to briefly address. I do so both because I was referenced and quoted by name in the editorial, and also because I am a member of two organizations—United Republicans of Harris County (not “United Republicans of Texas,” as stated in the editorial—to my knowledge there is no organization by that name) and the C Club of Houston—that send out endorsement mailers that are produced through a very different process than that followed by the purveyors of the for-profit faux endorsement mailers.
Many people have read the editorial as equating the endorsement process behind all of the slate mailers as being for-profit shams. Although I don’t think that is the impression the editors intended to create, I want to be very clear: if you are a Republican primary voter in Harris County, not every slate mailer was paid for, directly or indirectly, with advertising funds from the candidates endorsed in the mailers, or is just a cover for endorsing one consultant’s stable of candidates—this is why you need to be very careful about these mailers.
For instance, the two groups in which I participate independently evaluate the candidates and pay for the mailer from their membership dues. United Republicans asks candidates to fill-out questionnaires and gives them an opportunity to interview with the PAC’s board, while the C Club goes to great lengths to gather and evaluate independent, objective information on each candidate (including, sometimes, through direct interviews) before it makes its endorsements. Both PACs pay for their mailers through PAC membership dues or membership assessments—their mailers are not for-profit advertising schemes, but are based on the evaluation of the candidates in light of their competence for the office for which they are running and the political criteria established by each organization.
Of course neither organization’s process is full-proof. For example, I have learned that some candidates in this past cycle either may not have received the United Republican’s questionnaire, or could not schedule an interview—or both. Moreover, I learned after joining our board that United Republicans had received funds in two prior primaries from two endorsed statewide candidates, after they were endorsed, to help to cover the cost of our mailers. But, going into this primary cycle, our board agreed to never again make such exceptions to our policy of not accepting funds from candidates in contested primary races (even after they had been endorsed); and we intend to address the notice problems that arose in this cycle so they don’t repeat themselves in the future, because if any candidate feels that they did not get a fair opportunity to participate in the United Republican process, that is unacceptable.
But even with these problems, I stand by what both United Republicans and the C Club are trying to do to combat the for-profit mailers, and those mailers tied to certain campaign consultants—these organizations have been engaged in the battle against the “pay for play” culture a lot longer than I have, and I am proud to be part of their current efforts. I think I can speak for my colleagues in both these organizations when I say that I hope (consistent with the opinion expressed by the Chronicle editors) for the day when the demand for any of these slate mailers no longer exists.
Until that day comes, though, there is a difference between the fair process engaged in by groups like United Republicans and the C Club, and those implemented by Hotze, Lowry, Polland, and others. So, do your homework.
And to help you do your homework, Big Jolly Politics has provided you with an endorsement matrix this year so you can use one click to compare how all the slates—objective and for-profit—have evaluated the candidates. I think, after making a thorough comparison, you’ll find the comparison very enlightening and helpful.
To all the candidates and their supporters who are heading into tomorrow’s final election day, thank you all for your hard work and your participation in this process—and good luck!
As we come to the close of a very contentious primary season, i.e., a very normal primary season, the Harris County Republican Party has let its crazy uncle out of the basement and he did exactly what crazy uncles do – wreak havoc. In doing so, he has provided those of us who believe in the U.S. Constitution with an opportunity to demonstrate our belief in that unique document. Or, we can continue to proclaim our belief in it while our actions prove otherwise.
The Crazy Uncle – Dr. Steve Hotze
On Friday, someone at the HCRP unlocked the basement and gave Dr. Steve Hotze the keys to the HCRP email list. Whether it was Chair Jared Woodfill or his hired lackey John Griffing doesn’t matter – the guy got out of the basement and embarrassed himself and the party. On the off chance that you might not have read or heard of the crazy uncle’s remarks in relation to a federal judge’s ruling on gay marriage, here they are, in all their glory:
“This is an astonishing example of judicial activism and a violation of the separation of powers. Whatever the personal views of Judge Garcia, he does not have the power to makes laws. Our Founding Fathers would be furious to find out that the Constitution was being interpreted to allow sodomites to marry,” stated Dr. Steve Hotze.
Suddenly the whole internet was full of noise because he used the word sodomites. Methinks that neither the crazy uncle nor the people yelling and screaming about his remarks actually know the meaning of the word – if they did, they’d probably laugh it off because I’d guess that few people in the country would be allowed to marry. But I suppose that people know what Hotze intended by that statement. If not, he changed it up in an email he sent under his own group’s name, Conservative Republicans of Texas Saturday:
“This is an astonishing example of judicial activism and a violation of the separation of powers. Whatever the personal views of Judge Garcia, he does not have the power to makes laws. Our Founding Fathers would be furious to find out that the Constitution was being interpreted to allow homosexuals to marry,” stated Dr. Steve Hotze.
Okay, so the guy means homosexuals, presumably male and female alike. The only reason this episode is worth talking about is because someone, Woodfill or Griffing, allowed it to go out under the party’s banner. If that mistake costs Woodfill the Chairmanship of the party, so be it. You might say he earned it.
What does the U.S. Constitution say?
That’s the easy part but we need to start with the Declaration of Independence to understand the issue in total.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That would be ALL MEN. Men in this case being mankind. We are all created equal, even if some of us may have different skin colors, different color eyes, be right or left handed, more or less intellectual ability, different sexual orientation: we are still all created equal.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
So regardless of the particular attribute by which the majority of society may point to and say “You’re different!”, all of us, as citizens of the United States, have the right to equal protection under the Constitution.
The time has come for marriage equality
We do not live in a theocracy. Our country is not a church. And that is by design. The Founders of this country insisted upon religious freedom. Obviously, the religious beliefs, or lack thereof, of every voter inform our laws through the people they elect to represent them. But the Constitution guarantees that the majority of voters in any state cannot override the basic protections outlined in the Fourteenth Amendment for any minority group – to do that would require another amendment to the Constitution.
It is time to recognize that homosexuals have the same rights as any other citizen. I suppose that states could simply stop recognizing all marriages, like a state representative in Oklahoma is attempting but that seems to be rather extreme. Short of that, all citizens should be treated equally under the law.
The Argument of the Federal Judges
Chairman Woodfill does himself no favors when he describes a federal judge as a “petty would-be dictator” in the same email that featured the HCRP’s crazy uncle. The judge may be an “activist judge” or he may not be – I suspect that some day soon the U.S. Supreme Court will say not, but we’ll have to wait on that. For now, here is his argument:
“After careful consideration, and applying the law as it must, this Court holds that Texas’ prohibition on same-sex marriage conflicts with the United States Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process. Texas’ current marriage laws deny homosexual couples the right to marry, and in doing so, demean their dignity for no legitimate reason. Accordingly, the Court finds these laws are unconstitutional and hereby grants a preliminary injunction enjoining Defendants from enforcing Texas’ ban on same-sex marriage,” United States District Judge Orlando L. Garcia said in a Feb. 26 ruling.
That doesn’t sound like an activist or a petty would-be dictator. It sounds like a man trying to follow the law and apply it equally to all citizens. Recently, five other judges have come to the same conclusion.
Freedom and liberty strengthen our nation
Your marriage is not under attack. The institution of marriage is not under attack. What is under attack is the oppression of a minority of citizens in the United States. And that oppression should not be acceptable to anyone that believes in the Constitution. Nor should it be acceptable to anyone in the Republican Party, a party that traces its roots back to Abraham Lincoln and the abolition of slavery. A party that once claimed Martin Luther King, Jr. as a member. We must be the party of freedom and liberty for all people.
A press conference featuring the crazy uncle
Unfortunately, it looks like Chairman Woodfill will allow the crazy uncle to represent the HCRP again at a press conference tomorrow at 10 am at party headquarters. As a supporter of Woodfill in this election, that is disappointing but will not sway my vote – the stakes are too high to put someone in charge that, in my view, will be detrimental to the future of the party. Traditional marriage is a firm plank in the party platform and as Chair of the local party, a case can be made that it is his responsibility to defend the platform. As I have maintained throughout this primary, being the spokesperson for the party if at least half the job and Jared does it well. My hope is that Jared’s eyes open and he begins to understand that this issue has nothing to do with his faith, the faith of the crazy uncle, or anyone else’s faith.
This issue is, wholly and simply, about the U.S. Constitution and the equal protection of all of the citizens of the United States. You are free to have whatever religious views you wish on any issue, including this issue. That is also in the Constitution.
HCRP leaders should boycott this press conference
The email advertising the press conference reads:
On Monday morning, March 3, 2014, at 10 am, a news conference will be held at Harris County Republican Party (HCRP) Headquarters, 3311 Richmond Ave., Suite 218, where local Republican leadership, including party workers and public officials, will stand shoulder to shoulder with people of faith to denounce the lawless ruling of a federal court seeking to impose the whims of unelected judges on the people of Texas.
I hope that doesn’t happen. I hope that the only two people behind the microphone are Jared and the crazy uncle. In fact, I wish that Jared would cancel that press conference and focus on winning his election.
I understand that is not going to happen. Some elected officials believe that their faith requires them to oppress this minority group. Some elected officials would rather not be there but will bow to pressure from the crazy uncle because he has such widespread influence in the party.
But know this. The days of the crazy uncle having that kind of influence are waning. We saw it at the last meeting of the HCRP Executive Committee where precinct chairs bucked the leadership. We are going to see much more of that in the future. There is a chorus rising in the party from people that believe in freedom and liberty.
For those of you saying that you are going to quit the party if the crazy uncle doesn’t go away, I say stand your ground. For those of you chastising me for supporting Jared and saying that you are going to quit the party if he wins, I say stand your ground. I promise you that if Paul Simpson wins, I will stand my ground. Sometimes, doing the right thing takes you out of your comfort zone. Trust me, it does. But discomfort is no excuse for not doing the right thing.
Now is not the time to run. Now is the time to fight. Don’t let the courage of Chris Busby go to waste. If you believe, as I do, that all citizens should be able to participate equally in all of society under the law, stand your ground. We will win this fight. If you abandon your post and allow the Republican party to wither away, you are allowing the crazy uncle in the basement and enemies of freedom and liberty to prevail.
It seems the anti-life crowd has moved the debate about abortion to a rather absurd new place. Instead of sticking to their “convictions” and simply being pro-choice when it comes to abortion, they are now debating openly the unequivocal murder of a child after it has been delivered from the womb. A point at which, by almost every measure I can think of, a baby is a human being, a life. This is being termed an “after-birth abortion.”
The Slate piece digs to appallingly low depths when it states, “Since the newborn isn’t a person yet, its significance continues to hinge on its mothers’ decision.” Wow! The culture of death that permeates our opposition to this is nothing short of astonishing.
I’m reminded of the democrats clever little advertising campaign where they accused their opposition of a “War on Women.” I pledge, as a Texas State Representative, that I will protect the little innocent lives, little girls included. I want those baby girls to have a fighting chance in this world. Demanding anything less, makes us unworthy of the forgiveness we ask for regularly. If you’re a Democrat officeholder or candidate, and you’re in favor of this so-called “after-birth abortion,” please stand up now and let yourself be counted.
And, tell me again, who is waging a war on women?
Chris Carmona is a local attorney, former Chairman of the Harris County Republican Party Outreach Committee, and current candidate for Texas State Representative.
Artemio Muniz, Chris Carmona, and Trebor Gordon helping an applicant
And choice in education is the wave of the future because it represents a return to some of our most basic American values. Choice in education is no mere abstraction. Like its economic cousin, free enterprise, and its political cousin, democracy, it affords hope and opportunity. – Ronald Reagan, 1989
Temo Muniz
This past Sunday, Republicans in Harris County took a step toward the future.
Houston Young Republicans, led by Sandi Steinbacher, the Federation of Hispanic Republicans and the Harris County Republican Party Outreach Committee, of which I am the current Chairman, brought together a group of willing Republican volunteers to help families register their children for charter schools in the areas where they live.
This group spent three hours in the meeting room of a Spring Branch community center, assisting families with applications for various charter schools. Many of the schools have upcoming deadlines, which allowed us to help these families beat the deadlines and our team was equipped with answers to most questions.
Chris Carmona, a Republican State Rep candidate who embraces not only Parental Choice in Education, but also the concept of connecting with the community, was there to talk with families and he assisted several in filling out their applications. Republican precinct chair and former Houston city council candidate Trebor Gordon was there to assist as well, he worked hard for us and was very passionate about getting this job done.
To maximize the effectiveness of our group, we used four laptop computers, two iPads and an iPhone. The task was not easy, don’t be misled there. Various schools had varied deadlines. There was also the obstacle that some families were looking at schools for various age ranges, but we helped find elementary schools, middle schools and high schools for all. We don’t have a final count on the number of applications we filed. Some parents registered multiple children.
Moms and dads know that opportunity through education is the surest way to have a real shot at the American Dream. A good education can help avoid the traps of poverty. A good education can also give a lift-up to those in poverty. Connecting with these families over these principles is important and it is a vital step that our party needs to take on a massive scale. Our party is at a point where words mean nothing, if there is no action, then we are just empty suits.
The outreach committee of Harris County Republican Party will lead the party towards a very new place in activism, highlighting the importance of rebuilding our civic institutions, healing our neighborhoods, and exemplifying what it truly means to be a conservative. We cannot ask voters to simply believe our public policy proposals, we must rebuild the private safety net before others agree with us to scale back the public safety net.
