As you surely know by now, the Republican Party of Texas’ State Republican Executive Committee members voted to censure outgoing Speaker Joe Straus. And the people rejoiced. Or, more specifically, a few activists in the party.
Others, not so much.
I think that Ms. Bingham has a pretty good handle on the issue.
One Harris County SREC member, Mark Ramsey, has waited a long time for this and was thrilled with the vote. And he came up with a way for people to show their support of the “Rule 44 Censure”. Here is his idea:
Sounds like a plan to me. Of course, past experience says that most keyboard warriors will not contribute but who knows? Maybe this will be wildly successful and tens of thousands of Republican primary voters will send in $44 to the state party. Of course, they will probably need another link to do so because the link Mark provided goes to their Federal account but the Party can fix that.
And it looks like the Party could sure use the money. I went in and took a look at the party’s finances under the last three chairmen, Steve Munisteri, Tom Mechler and of course, James Dickey, the current star of the show. Below are a few of the things I found.
First, total funds raised in the State accounts and the time each chair was (has been) in the office.
Munisteri was a fund raising machine. Mechler held his own. Dickey needs to up his game.
Here is what Cash on Hand looked like when the previous two chairs stepped down and at the end of the current chair’s last reporting period:
Note that I included the Federal account, which for Dickey is at the end of November. This makes the COH situation look much better than it really was at the end of the year. Notice that during Dickey’s near 7 months, the party’s COH at the state level has dropped by more than half.
These levels aren’t as dire as the time that the Harris County Republican Party’s doors were locked by the landlord but they are a cause for concern. Hence, all you Oust Straus warriors need to pony up and send in your $44, post haste.
Dickey has gone to great lengths to stress that his vote to censure the Speaker was done with a great deal of thought and was only done in the interest of party unity. No, seriously, that’s the line he is using. And have no fear, he is going to have the RPT staff hard at work on the “messaging” surrounding the censure.
I mean, what else does the staff have to do, right?
Now, you might believe that Mr. Dickey thought long and hard about his vote. You might accept his explanation that he voted the way he did for party unity and to put this matter to rest. You might. I don’t.
Remember, Mr. Dickey was not voted into his position by the delegates to the convention. He’ll get that opportunity at the next convention. For now, he is the appointed chair, appointed by the very same SREC members that he had to get support from to be appointed. No biggie, right? Well, maybe but I think if you look at the finances closely, some of you are going to agree with me that Mr. Dickey’s vote was secured from the start of this nonsense.
Even though he was appointed and not elected, it took money to convince the SREC members that the other guy is a RINO and Dickey is the true, pure conservative that the party needs. Let’s take a look at Dickey’s financial backers.
Okay, so he raised just under $30k to get the job. I suspect he’ll have to raise a fair bit more to retain it. Note James Skaggs’ contribution of $10k.
Do you remember a new political action committee named the New Leadership PAC? Their sole purpose in life is to Oust Straus and his “lieutenants”. Let’s take a look at their top donors:
Huh. There is Mr. James Skaggs with another $10k contribution. Okay, whatever, it’s a tie in but who cares? Right?
Well, let’s now take a look at the top donors to the RPT during Mr. Dickey’s short tenure.
Now, do you really, truly, way down deep in your heart think that Mr. Dickey ever for one second considered not voting to censure Speaker Straus? He wanted unity all right – with the people that are funding the party and the Oust Straus movement.
For more background on the personalities in the above lists, see Scott Braddock’s report over at QuorumReport.com.
And for you Oust Straus’rs, best click over to the RPT website and hit ’em with your $44. I’m looking forward to seeing the tens of thousands of $44 donations on the next campaign finance report!
Update:
Here is that financial document handed out at the Oust Straus meeting of the SREC:
I think back to my conversation last year with a mutual friend we have in the Texas Legislature who told me the reason Straus continued to get elected was because of the retribution he could wield as speaker. Perhaps there are too many shenanigans in the selection process in the house or perhaps our reps campaign one way and always intend to vote another. It sure seems the house in Texas has that problem more than the senate. Mirror opposite at the federal level. For now.
You continue to promote the most liberal of republicans. I continue to wonder why and can come to only one conclusion. Craig Yates, Chris Ladd and David Jennings. Three Musketeers of local politics.
I’d like to point out that many of the names at the top of the big donor list are big Travis County donors who followed Dickey from one job to the next, and who donate big whenever he asks because they trust him.
I stopped donating to the RPT and I just started again. It was more than $44 too.
A handful of whackjob activists getting together at some Austin Holiday Inn and voting to censure an outgoing speaker who has already voluntarily ended his tenure is the kind of futile and stupid gesture I can really get behind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h4DZeBleLs
First of all, Elizabeth Bingham, and you, do not understand how a Rule 44 censure works. The resolution to censure Straus came from his OWN DISTRICT. The MAJORITY of his county’s GOP leadership voted to censure him. In his own county where the local county leadership had for years been stacked with Straus cronies (and I really mean crony, Straus has committed all sorts of felony crimes to enrich his pals, not to mention huge abuse of power and even made threats to the governor to cover up the UT Regent scandal where Strausites got their buddies’ kids admission).
Don’t worry, many of us will step up. We are the activists of the party. We don’t need multi-millions in donations like the RINOs do to win elections. We hit the pavement, we knock doors, and we are the enthusiasm for the GOP. We are the ones who fight back against the media onslaughts, talk to our friends and convince them. RINOs and the “moderate” Republicans just nod their heads with Democrats all day and have sat by and allowed the media and Dems destroy our party’s reputation for decades, the party of Lincoln. They side with the racist Democrat party that claims people are property (even today, a person in the womb is “property” to Democrats that the “owner” can do with as they please), a Democrat party that has tried to destroy our nation over and over, rejects the founders, rejects the Bill of Rights, silences “incorrect” thought, and which, like Bill Clinton’s Arkansas Governor mentor who stood in front of the school to prevent black children from going there, even today stands in front of mostly white private schools (where Clinton/Obama send their kids BTW) and refuses to let black children in, refuses to allow them vouchers to escape the failing inner city schools, keeping them trapped in poverty.
The RINOs like Straus are Democrats in disguise, who hurt the GOP brand with working folk, who never fight for our values and never combat the traitors who hate our country in the other party. Everytime you hear a person on the right complain about lying politicians and their disgust with the political process, that’s because of the lying RINOs like Straus in Texas, McCain in Arizona, etc. who claim to be conservative and then are in cahoots with the Democrats. They’ve vastly harmed the party to the point where most of it’s fundraising HAD to come from elitists, crony corporate bribery, etc. It’s going to take some time for patriotic Americans to step up and fill the gap. But the party also doesn’t need as much money when it has more enthusiasm, people knocking doors, etc. Abbott’s RLI which trains canvassers, has more volunteers than ever before. Enthusiasm is way up.
Another reason giving goes down is because we elect Republicans and they “get nothing done”, or “nothing changes”, precisely because of RINOs like Straus and Cook who obstructed conservative legislation.
Unfortunately the average Texas Republican doesn’t pay very much attention to local state politics. Once our state government starts passing huge reforms like school vouchers, tax cuts, and other issues, then conservatives may start paying attention again to local state politics. Nothing ever got done under Straus so no one paid any attention to the Texas State legislature, it was just business-as-usual bribed RINOs doing the bidding of a few corporate donors and working with Democrats to stop conservative legislation.
It’s going to take a few years to repair the trust that was lost by RINOs, with voters, to pass laws that start positively impacting our state like vouchers, and also to get the economy going enough that the average conservative can afford to donate more.
For too many years, conservatives have not given to the party because of RINOs tainting it’s name. So as the RINO crony corporate donors stop donating, there will be a gap for a few years before conservatives realize they can trust the party and start donating significantly.
Dickey has started winning back my support and I’ve seen him win the support of others who have not given to the RPT since Straus became speaker and Mechler did his bidding (including illegally declaring out of order various conservative motions at the state convention).
Spot on TEX! Couldn’t have said it better.