I ran across a great article written by Don Hooper yesterday regarding the HCRP’s Judicial Signing party. Although the article was interesting, I found some of the comments even more fascinating. Some of the comments made me think that we, as the HCRP, should be collaborating efforts within our committees and subcommittees to bring about more participation in the judicial engagement process, and also to get more Republicans finding excuses and reasons to engage in the communities that we are either trying to retain a strong hold in or trying to take away from the Democrats. If we are not showcasing our Conservative, well qualified, and already serving public officials in an “out of court room” capacity, then shame on us, let’s get going on it now!
An idea that I think may be a means to enhance the signature gathering process and at the same time interact with new faces, would be to hold a series of judicial presentations, all centered around jury duty service or other main-stream judicial concepts, at select venues throughout the county. Some examples:
Series 1 – CRIMINAL JUDGES:
Judges discuss the importance of not only the community participating in regular jury service, but also the importance of judges reaching out to all members of the community to be part of the Grand Jury process so that we move away from the current process of only a select few rotating individuals where we find ourselves with runaway grand juries.
Series 2 – CIVIL JUDGES:
Judges discuss how monetary disputes are not limited to any certain demographic and that on any given day any random person in any given community could be involved in a civil suit or even more so, could be asked to resolve the wide range of disputes that come before our judges on a daily basis as a member of a jury panel.
Series 3 – FAMILY JUDGES:
Judges discuss the importance of the family unit and trying cases to protect the family unit or the best interest of the child. They could also discuss the effects that placing a child in the wrong home could have on the “system” including involvement by the AG’s office, CPS, and governmental assistance programs. Republican judges could drive home the fact that it is balancing act when faced with the highly emotional cases, but when a jury is presented with this case, they have to make the right decision for the children, because bad decisions can lead to negative effects.
Potential to draw large crowds
If we did this, then we could potentially draw in large crowds, in a non-partisan/outreach/community engagement type of way. Maybe we do all Series together on the same night, and do multiple nights at different locations throughout the county for more exposure and to keep the judges visible, but also to showcase republican officials in areas and communities not normally frequented by the some elected party officials.
With large crowds comes large opportunities for signature gathering and for those who are not eligible to sign the petitions just yet, then a chance to register them to vote. Now, I am not saying this should replace the judicial signing party that the HCRP puts on, but I think based off of the feedback this year, we should be looking at ways to build off of the signing party on a consistent and year end basis and tie in the HCRP’s outreach efforts. In other words, keep the judicial signing party, but add these types of events as part of an ongoing effort. Every Republican judge should be willing to participate in these types of presentations with fellow colleagues going forward, not just in election year, but every year.
Keep the Harris County Republican Party visible
That is how we stay visible, that is how we stay relevant, and that is how we continue to inform Harris County that our Republican judges are not above reproach and are willing to and enjoy interacting with all communities all the time, inside the court room and out. If our elected judges are not willing to commit to this concept, then maybe we don’t have the right officials as the face of the party while we are hanging on for dear life to keep Texas Red and swing Harris County back to the party of perseverance and prosperity.
The biggest questions are….would the judges be willing to participate and can I find enough people to help organize this effort? If the interest exists, then fill up my inbox by clicking here.
Chris Carmona is a local attorney, a former and present candidate for Houston City Council and the Chairman of the Harris County Republican Party Outreach Committee.
I absolutely love this. Great ideas. YES.
I'm willing to help. Couple of questions: 1) what type of venues are we looking at? 2) what kind of invites are we looking at to get people in? 3) who pays for it?
I was thinking the same things. Plans are great as are ideas but how those ideas will be carried out and paid for are very different things on there own. I think that is a problem many times in GOP and things like this young man is mentioning where there are lots of ideas but most of the people lack the ability to plan and also carry things out. Two different factors that's why I guess most of this stuff just gets lost like a fart in the wind. They don't have the leadership talent at the HCRP or GOP in general to plan and think things through. It seems they go around handing titles to anyone who wants one. They should try and widen their circle of people who can plan and implement before they even talk about outreach/community engagement and this man's ideas. He should have included ways to carry these ideas out and maybe then he would sound like he wanted to actually get these ideas done. Instead it looks like he wants attention saying look what I said but can't carry out.
Delores, please email me at [email protected] so that I can add you to the distribution list and invite you out to the HCRP committee meetings, or at least the Outreach Committee meetings. At the next meeting, you can evaluate the “talent” level and also contribute your time, toil and effort if you so choose to help in carrying out this mere idea.
Thank you for the support,
Chris Carmona