- redistricting—county commissioner’s precincts, legislative districts, and congressional districts;
- the Voter ID bill;
- the budget shortfall caused by the recession and the new programs from Washington; and
- education funding and related taxation.
Other issues, like water rights, the business margins tax, etc., also will be addressed, but it is these four issues that will consume most of the legislative energy in Austin in 2011. Moreover, local politics will be consumed with the redistricting issue, as county commissioners propose their borders to Austin and the Houston City Council complies with the 1979 Consent Decree.
A common thread running through all four issues—and especially redistricting—is our party’s relationship with the Latino, Asian, and African-American communities. In turn, this thread will impact our battle plan for Harris County in the 2010 and 2011 election cycles. The HCRP must take the lead in re-building and in some instances building for the first time, a strong relationship with individuals in each of these communities—and we must start immediately.
How do we do this? A full and candid answer to this question could fill a book, so I’ll just post a few recommendations based on my observations over the last three years of having worked closely with many activists in these communities:
- Treat everyone in each community as our neighbor. When we debate these four issues, or when we try to reach out to members of these communities through policy initiatives or campaigns, we often do so in a way that makes them feel invisible to us. We must always remember that each of the members of these communities are individuals, with hopes, dreams, goals, and families, and respect them as we would want to be respected. Many people in these communities, including their civic and business leaders are conservative; tend to support the principles of our party; and agree with our ideas about ballot and border security, and our need to improve the education provided to our children, but the way we debate these issues often makes these individuals feel like we think they are the enemy. We must change the way we approach these debates—if we want to win the policy arguments, and if we want to grow into these communities.
- When we make a commitment, follow-through and commit the resources to complete the mission—and make our commitments permanent. Too often in the past, with the best of intentions, we have initiated contacts, started initiatives and opened offices in these communities without raising and committing the resources needed to maintain these commitments, and without a plan for building on these commitments. As we open the new Eastside office, and as we continue with our program at Harris Elementary School this year, we need to commit the resources to make our mission permanent. We need to raise and dedicate the funds and volunteer resources to keep the Eastside office open and functioning permanently, and to follow the children and the families we help at Harris Elementary as they continue through the school system. We also need to expand initiatives into the high schools to reach students and their families as they approach voting age.
- In the future listen and involve the community before we make a commitment, and before we develop a policy or initiative that will directly affect their community. One of criticisms I am hearing from many of the Republican, civic and business leaders in these communities is that they have not been engaged in the discussions about the needs of the communities, and the initiatives the party is creating to address them. In turn, some are reluctant to support the party’s efforts. For example, some leaders are reluctant to support or use the new Eastside office because they feel they were not consulted about its purpose and location before it was leased. Although I will work with them to bridge this issue, so that the new office, when it opens will be supported and used by the community, I want to learn from this experience so that we engage everyone in a proper dialogue before we finalize the plans that will impact their communities.
- Focus our commitment on building a strong, neighborhood and private infrastructure in each community. The goal for our growth into every community in the county should be to build the community infrastructure that is consistent with the goals of our policy initiatives—free markets, private business growth, individual responsibility, strong schools. These are the building blocks for the types of communities that will want to elect Republicans to office. To meet this goal, we will need to work with the leaders of the communities to create clubs, organizations, and private programs to help teach and mentor the skills needed to create such an infrastructure in each community.
- Find and nurture activists and candidates in each community for non-partisan and partisan offices. I believe this recommendation is self-explanatory.
All of these recommendations address long-term issues and goals, but if we don’t start now, we may lose any chance of building the party in otherwise conservative communities for the next generation. I will work with the HCRP to address each of these recommendations.