Urgent: Texas GOP “Winner Take All” Emergency SREC Meeting

Now it is time to take it to the next step. Now it is time to do something that we should have done a long time ago. Now is the time for Texas Republicans to have a voice and be relevant. It is time to go back to winner take all!

We need 15 members of the 62 Texas Republican Party State Republican Executive Committee members to sign a petition in order to call for an emergency meeting of the SREC to change the Texas GOP rules back to us being a Winner Take All state instead of being proportional.

We already have 15 or more members ready to sign the petition to call this emergency meeting.

Before we turn in the petition and call the meeting, we want to make sure we have enough support from all the other SREC members. Things are looking good so far! Call your SREC member and ask them to support an emergency meeting to go back to winner take all.

Once we see that we have enough support from the rest of the SREC, we will then turn in the petition and call the emergency meeting.

Texas Needs to be Winner Take All to have a Voice and be Relevant

As a member of the SREC and I have advocated for several months and written many articles advocating for Texas to go back to winner take all in order to have any kind of relevancy in the Republican Presidential race. I never wanted to go to proportional in the first place and I made it know at the SREC meeting last year when we voted to go proportional. We were forced to go to proportional though because of the RNC rules that said any state primary election before April would have to be proportion. The liberals and the federal courts have pushed our election back to well after April so now we need to go back to winner take all to be able to have a voice in this presidential race before it is over! Why should other states with April and later elections get to be winner take all and Texas can’t? It is a shame that Texas is the largest Republican state in the nation and we are ignored and never have a say in the Presidential race. We have 155 delegates and if we put all of our delegates behind the candidate who wins Texas then we can really have an impact. Candidates will come to Texas to campaign because they will not want to risk losing 155 delegates in a race where 1144 delegates are needed to win the nomination. 

The Republican Presidential Race is NOT Over Even Though Romney and the Media Says it is

No one is even close to winning the 1144 delegates needed to win the nomination. No matter what Romney and the media says, you cannot win the Republican Nomination until you have 50% or more of all the Republican Delegates in America supporting you. If you cannot win at least 50% of the delegates then that means that 50% of more of America wants someone else and there will be a brokered convention where the delegates can come together and decide who the nominee will me. Texas can have a huge impact if we go back to winner take all. The media says the race is over but it is not. With the vote being split 4 ways in nearly every state election, it is very possible that no candidate will get the 1144 needed to win and that would force a brokered convention. Certainly no candidate will have 1144 delegates before Texas votes May 29^th, 2012. With 155 delegates, Texas could force that brokered convention if, for instance, the voters of Texas give all of our delegates to Santorum over Romney, which is what the polls are showing now.

Mitt Romney has Ticked off Texas Republicans

 This is not about Romney though. It never has been about Mitt Romney. From the beginning, going back to winner take all has always been about giving Texas a voice in the presidential race. The only way we can do that is to be winner take all. I have been for winner take all well before we had any idea of who would still be in the race today. I have advocated going back to winner take all well before Santorum was even doing well in the polls. Going to winner take all has never been about Romney. The only reason Romney has entered this controversy now is because he decided to ignore the largest Republican state in the nation. He has so far told us he does not want to come to our nationally televised Texas debate and has told us the race is over and that he does not need us. Now Texas Republicans are mad and we have a message to Romney. Don’t Mess With Texas! The race is not over! We have 155 delegates so you better not ignore us, especially if we go back to winner take all! The SREC has passed a resolution warning Romney that it will not be good for him is he does not care about Texas and if he snubs our debate. 

Sincerely,

David Bellow

SREC – SD3

David Barton of Wallbuilders, along with Kelly Shackelford and Michael Quinn Sullivan, have released the following message in Support of Winner Take All:

Texas' Role in Choosing the President We in Texas know that we are a significant force in national conservative politics. After all, we have the largest Republican congressional delegation of any state, and ours is a conservative delegation! We also have 155 delegates at stake in the presidential primary – that’s more than the famous first five primary states combined (Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, and Nevada). Those five states are considered to have set the tone for the entire presidential race, but Texas has not spoken yet – and we can speak with a louder voice and with more impact than all of those states! Under our winner-take-all system, our 155 delegates have a significant impact on any presidential race. But this year, the Republican National Committee was poised to penalize Texas for holding our primary in March (as we always do) by imposing on us a proportional delegate count, so the Republican Party of Texas moved away from our normal presidential procedure. But then the federal courts got involved and delayed the Texas primary until May. So Texas now has an opportunity to regain its unified voice by going back to a winner-take-all primary. Contrary to what you may have heard from the national media, the race for the Republican presidential nominee is far from over. After all, only 37% of delegates have been assigned so far; and the media has been completely wrong on the number of delegates that separate Romney from the others (particularly the oft-repeated Associated Press count) – the actual count shows the gap to be much narrower than claimed. Texas can therefore have a clear and powerful voice in selecting a conservative Republican nominee for president by moving back to a winner-take-all system. All it takes is for the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) to call a meeting and make the rule change before the Texas primary vote. Please contact your SREC member and ask them to convene and make that change; and also contact the Republican Party of Texas and let them know that you want to see Texas regain its national voice. Please act on this as quickly as possible - Texas, as the biggest conservative state in the country, should be allowed to speak with the loudest voice!! Thanks for all you do to keep Texas a conservative state! God bless! David Barton (former Vice Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, 1997-2006; National Delegate 2008, 2004, 2000, 1996) Kelly Shackelford (National Attorney; National Platform Committee member 2008, 2004, 2000) Michael Quinn Sullivan (President, Empower Texans*) *For identification purposes only

Texas Republican Presidential Debate May 24th, 2012 in Houston – Nationally Televised!

Texas GOP will warn candidates that if they do not show up, they will be considered as not caring for Texas and should not get our vote

A Major Presidential Debate in Texas? This is pretty much unheard of!

Nothing is set in stone yet, but the Republican Party of Texas is close to finalizing a deal that will bring a nationally televised Republican Presidential Debate to Houston, TX on May 24^th, 2012. The debate will be only 5 days before the Texas Primary Election and there are 155 Presidential Delegates at stake. A candidate needs 1144 delegates to win the Republican nomination.

Texas GOP Chairman Steve Munisteri has been working hard behind the scenes to get this debate together. He has received a commitment from a major television network to televise the debate if there is enough candidate participation. So far, two of the four Republican candidates have responded and agreed to the debate.

Texas needs more than 2 candidates to commit to the debate in order to pull the debate off. This Saturday, March 31^st, 2012, the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) will present, and likely pass, a resolution calling on all four candidates to show they have concern for our state by committing to be at the debate, and under no uncertain terms to make it known that the state party leadership would consider it a major slight to the state party and to Texas Republicans for them not to show up. 

This resolution should put enough heat on the candidates to get all 4 of them to show up.

The Republican Presidential Nomination Race is being split 4 ways (Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul) with no signs of anyone backing out. This means that there will likely not be a winner yet by the time Texas gets a chance to vote in the May 29^th, 2012 Texas Primary Elections.

This sets up Texas to be something it has not been in a while, a Battleground State.

Texas Should Go Back to Winner Take All

Texas has gone from winner take all to proportional because the RNC forced us to make the change because we were originally going to have our Primary Election before April. This means that Texas will have less of an impact in the Presidential Race because the 155 delegates that Texas has will be split up between 4 candidates instead of the 155 delegates all going to the candidate who wins Texas. This is not good for Texas because it significantly lowers the impact that Texas will have in the Presidential race. I have advocated for Texas to go back to winner take all to reclaim our state sovereignty and give Texas a bigger say in the Presidential Race. Proportional dilutes the voice of Texas because our delegates are all split up, whereas other states get to put all their delegates behind the one candidate who wins their state. This puts Texas at a disadvantage. With winner take all, Texas could significantly change the Presidential Race because the winner of Texas would get all 155 delegates and that could drastically change the race. 155 delegates all to one candidate could singlehandedly make one candidate the winner, it could give the runner up enough votes to become the frontrunner, or it could keep the frontrunner from getting enough votes to secure the nomination which would mean a brokered convention.

Proportional might sound good vs. winner take all because under proportional the candidates get a proportion of Texas delegates based on the percentage of the votes they get in the state Primary Election. The problem is that proportional weakens states’ rights. With proportional we might as well just have a big nation-wide popular vote. With winner take all, the State of Texas (as well as all states with winner take all) has a much bigger impact on the Presidential race because the candidate who wins Texas really does win Texas and gets all of the delegate votes from the State. Winner take all is modeled after the Electoral College. The President does not win by a national popular vote. The President wins by the Electoral College and he wins by winning the most states, not the most people. Having a national popular vote would be dangerous to state sovereignty and we get closer to a national popular vote every election as states reject the Electoral College. Winner take all vs. Proportional is all about states’ rights vs. a national popular vote. With Texas having such a late election, we need all the power we can to have an impact on the Presidential race so we need winner take all!

Proportional Helps the Chances of a Texas Debate

Although I am for winner take all, proportional certainly does help our chances to get all four candidates to show up at a debate because with proportional each candidate can get a slice of the 155 delegates that Texas gets in the Republican Presidential Nomination Process.

Because all 4 candidates have a chance to get a slice of the pie, I would expect all 4 candidates to agree to come to the debate. Not coming to the debate could really hurt them in this Texas election. Unless of course the race is already wrapped up by the time Texas votes and then in that case Texas will again go back to having our vote mean nothing.

Regardless, having a big debate in Texas is something that does not happen often and it is very exciting!

The Republican Party of Texas will be sending out more info as soon as everything is finalized.

Should TX GOP go Winner Take All? Is RNC Changing Stupid Presidential Primary Rules?

Should the Republican Party of Texas go back to winner take all?

The State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) will vote on Feb 29th, 2012 to change the rules and approve a Temporary Convention/Delegate Selection Plan. Should the SREC vote to also change the RPT Presidential Delegate Selection Rule 38 from proportional back to winner take all? Also, should the RPT change the rules to allow the presidential delegates to be uncommitted after the first committed vote at the National Convention? In other words, if no presidential Candidate has a majority of the votes to win the nomination, the Texas Delegation would be able to be a player in a brokered convention by having the ability to team up with other delegates from other states and select the next Republican Presidential Nominee? Proportional might sound good vs winner take all because under proportional the candidates get a proportion of Texas delegates based on the percentage of the votes they get in the state Primary Election. The problem is that proportional weakens states rights. With proportional we might as well just have a big nation-wide popular vote. With winner take all, the State of Texas (as well as all states with winner take all) has a much bigger impact on the Presidential race because the candidate who wins Texas really does win Texas and gets all of the delegate votes from the State.  Same thing with

Should Texas GOP Sue DOJ over Voting Rights Act Preclearance Constitutionality?

Disclaimer: the following article is the opinion of David Bellow, an individual who is on the SREC, and does not express the "official opinion" of the Republican Party of Texas

The State of Texas is under assault by the Department of Justice and the Voting Rights Act.  All this Texas redistricting mess (and the pushing back of the Primary Election date) is due to section 5 of the Voting Rights Act which requires a few states to have any voting changes approved by the Department of Justice first (because somehow it is better to have one unelected, biased person, the Attorney General Eric Holder, decide how a state runs elections instead of the elected officials of the state determining it for themselves)

The Republican Party of Texas, not just the State of Texas, is also facing the same, unconstitutional oppression. The Texas GOP is faced with possibly having no precinct conventions, or limited precinct conventions, that are only optional with approval of counties/senatorial districts. Why is this happening? It is happening because the RPT has to come up with a way to have our convention/delegate selection process BEFORE the Primary Election this year due to the Primary Election getting pushed back possible past the date of the State Convention. Somewhere along the line, the DOJ extended

Texas Precinct Conventions will be OPTIONAL under New 2012 Republican Delegate Selection Process

Update: The New Draft Plan has come out and all counties and senatorial districts will be able to have precinct conventions (if they want) and they can be whenever and wherever the county or senatorial district wants. There is no big conspiracy to keep people from getting involved. Read more here
clarification: to all the Ron Paul Supporters emailing me. I can promise you that whatever plan the RPT comes up with, it WILL NOT be an attempt to keep Ron Paul supporters from being involved. In fact, if the RPT decided on only optional precinct conventions, there will be more of a chance for grassroots individuals to be involved because they will be able to go directly to being involved at the county convention instead of having to be chosen as a delegate at the precinct convention before they can go to the county convention.


The Texas GOP is entering into unknown and uncharted territory. We are now faced with having to do our Republican Conventions/Delegate Selection Process BEFORE we even have a primary election! This process has always been tied to the Primary election but this year it will not because of the belated Primary Election (see below for the normal process from previous years). The 62 members of the State Republican Executive Committee will be developing an entire new Convention/Delegate Selection Plan. We have already had a conference call in which we discussed the many different ideas and we agreed on the basic plan. This plan is VERY intricate and has many different moving parts, not to mention our hands are tied in many ways. Over the next 2 weeks, the RPT will pound out all the details of the plan. We will then have an emergency SREC meeting in

IMPORTANT TX Redistricting Update: NO April Election. One May 29th Primary or Split April/May Elections

The San Antonio Federal Court had a Texas Redistricting hearing yesterday, 2/14/12. We had hoped for more clarity of when we will get to vote. After the hearing, things did not look so good…. Instead of clarity, we got chaos. A Unified April Election is OUT (won’t happen) and we still do not know when we will vote! We might even be forced to have our Precinct, County and State Conventions BEFORE we even have the primary election!

Remember last week the Court said they wanted a unified April Primary? I am not so gullible to believe every word that this liberal leaning court says and so for the past couple of months I have been adamant that the courts and the Democrats will keep pushing things back and we will either have a unified May primary or a split primary. Guess what, the court changed their mind yesterday about wanting to have a Unified April Primary (is anyone surprised?) and now there will be NO Unified April Primary! There is just no time.

Now it looks like we will have one unified Primary Election on May 29th or June 26th, OR we will have a split Primary (two elections) with the Presidential and Statewide elections in late April and all the other elections in May/June (or whenever the redistricting battle is settled).

Both the Democrats and the Republicans are OK with a split election now that there is no time for a unified April Primary, if there was a way for it to be funded. A split election would cost more money than one election, so unless the state comes up with the money, Texas will not have a split primary and instead we will have one unified Primary Election on May 29^th or even as late as June 26^th.

After the conclusion of the hearing today 2/15/12 (or whenever the court feels like it because we are apparently their puppets right now), the court will

View Texas Senate District 3 Map - List of Counties in Senate District 3

After the 2011 Redistricting battle is over, the Senate District 3 boundary lines will be different. Until then, below is the current map.

Senate District 3 is currently contains all or part of 16 counties. It is about to expand to 19 counties after redistricting. The current counties in Texas Senate District 3 are:

Anderson County, Angelina County, Cherokee County, Hardin County, Henderson County, Jasper County, Nacogdoches County, Newton  County, Polk County, San Augustine County, San Jacinto County, Shelby County, Tyler County, Smith County, and Montgomery County.

View Senate District 3 Map - Click Here