Posted on 01/15/2005 7:25:46 PM PST by BellStar
RICHMOND - Fort Bend County Republicans censured precinct chairwoman Bev Carter and asked her to resign because of her criticisms of U.S. Majority Leader Tom DeLay and her endorsement of his Democratic opponent in her newspaper column.
Carter, the founder and publisher of the weekly Fort Bend Star, said she will not quit the post she has held since 2002.
"They can't make me resign. The only people who can make me resign are my voters in my precinct," Carter said Friday.
Fort Bend County Republican Party Chairman Eric Thode said he thinks Carter, who regularly skewers the county's leaders in her column, was wrong for endorsing Richard Morrison before the Nov. 2 election.
"It is inappropriate for an elected party official to endorse a candidate of another party. Absolutely unacceptable,"Thode said Friday.
DeLay won the election with 55 percent of the vote.
Support required in bylaws The vote to censure Carter came during a Thursday evening meeting of Republican precinct chairs. A resolution censuring Carter and calling for her resignation passed easily, Thode said.
Thode said state law does not allow a political party to remove someone from office if that person endorses a candidate from another party.
However, Republican Party bylaws require precinct chairs to support Republican candidates.
For more than two decades Carter has used her newspaper column, "Bev's Burner," as a platform to needle, mock and chastise Fort Bend's elected officials. The paper, published in Stafford, is delivered free to about 65,000 readers.
She makes no secret of the joy she gets from ruffling feathers.
"Do your job right, and I won't write about you," Carter said of public servants.
Column praised Morrison But as far as the county's Republican Party faithful are concerned, Carter stepped over the line when she urged people to vote for Morrison in a column blasting DeLay.
"He (DeLay) has woven a cloudy group of money, lobbying, and grass-roots true believers that push right-wing pressure on the entire Republican agenda and therefore on the country's agenda. These true believers are ideological extremists," Carter wrote in a column published Oct. 27.
Carter, who will run again for precinct chair in March 2006, then went on to praise Morrison and told her readers to vote for him.
"People are free to support whatever party they choose," said Shannon Flaherty, DeLay's spokeswoman, "just as each party is entitled to believe it fares better when its leaders want the party to win."
Don Braley, who submitted the resolution against Carter, said Carter has been attacking elected leaders for years. But he said once Carter became a precinct chair she took on certain responsibilities.
"She came out in her paper and encouraged people to vote Democratic. That is definitely against the bylaws of which she is supposed to uphold as a precinct chair."
Braley, who is also a precinct chair in an area near Carter's precinct, said Carter is a Republican only because Republicans dominate county politics.
"If you are going to get involved in politics you are a Republican," he said.
She says criticism is her job Carter, whose precinct covers part of the Quail Valley subdivision, said her duties as a newspaper publisher and columnist require her to be critical of elected leaders regardless of their political persuasion.
"If I am going to criticize officeholders, they are going to be Republican because we only have two (there are three) Democratic officeholders in the whole county," she said.
Carter believes the local Republican Party is being dominated by people she calls the "religious right."
"I decided to become a precinct chair because I saw the Republican Party in Fort Bend being captured by the radical right wing," she said.
Thode said such Republicans were a large part of the local party at the precinct-chair level four years ago but that is no longer the case. He added that they do not make up more than 10 percent of all Republican voters in the county.
Carter said if there is a conflict between her roles as a columnist and a precinct chair, she will choose the newspaper.
"I have an obligation to my readers, and I have a reputation for telling it like it is," she said, "and my work and my profession supersedes my politics."
eric.hanson@chron.com
Hmmmm!
Then she should quit her "political job" since it prevents her from speaking her liberal mindset. If your NOT a republican, then don't run as a republican in a republican position in the republican party. DUH!!!!!!!
Time to take out the trash boys.
Furnishing 65,000 free newspapers smells like propaganda to me. I wonder who is footing the bill?
Local politics?
There ain't no way she's a real Republican, even a RINO.
But yes, it's just local politics, and her ass is now grass.
The county GOP may need to reassess their bylaws so as to be able to sanction her if in fact they don't have that authority now. She maybe able to get her precinct to continue to vote her in. Some of those precincts don't have but a handful of people to show up for events...
As a one time recipient of her newspaper, it is wholly advertiser supported. The paper is almost exclusively committed to reporting local school news, local politics and local crime of the suburban Fort Bend County area of Houston. These are stories that the large paper, the Houston Chronicle, ignores.
Regarding Bev Carter, the voters put her in office, the voters should throw her out, too. Don't force her to resign.
I think she's right. She can't be removed. But that position doesn't mean much in real life except at election time.
But it was pretty much a suicide mission to endorse DeLay's opponent in this election.
Not pretty much.
Kamikaze.
By my definition she is the epitome of a RINO. Someone who does not support the party, but who is a member only for personal expediency.
I get annoyed with people being called RINOs who have devoted many years to supporting the party and their candidates, but disagree on a particular issue with the person calling them a RINO.
As much as I detest Specter, I couldn't call him a RINO.
As Seinfeld would say ... NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT.
Somebody please run against this RINO precinct chair!
I know this paper and this woman.. This rag hasn't anywhere near the numbers that they spout..
This woman is a liberal to the core that posed as a libertarian Republican and sneaked in under the radar. She struts her so called roguish views in her weekly column disguised as a reformer which got many of the older folks to elect her as the county rep..
I am also convinced that the local Dem's cleverly signed up as Republicans to vote in our caucus. They HATE, REPETE HATE Tom Delay, and would do anything to bring him down, anything!
The advertisers are footing the bill.
As a former editor of her newspaper (24 years ago), I know that Bev Carter was a Republican before the Republicans dominated Texas politics -- when Republicans were a rare breed in Ft. Bend County. Bev is outspoken -- always has been. And she will NEVER be intimidated by anyone.
Before I'd say she is wrong in this case, I'd have to know who was doing what. A lot of Ft. Bend County officials are Dems in RINO clothing -- that is they were always Dems and just became Republicans when it became apparent you needed the label to get elected. You can be sure that Bev will point that out.
On the other hand, Bev has been a Republican forever. But she's not a conservative Republican, and that is where she may have crossed swords with DeLay.
The personification of the word "RINO".
She is NOT conservative and was an early backer of EMILY'S List in this area. If you're that liberal, in Fort Bend County Texas, you're in the wrong damn party. For years she has attacked Comm. Meyers, Sugar Land conservative councilmen and is on the liberal side of every issue. She HATES Christian Conservatives.
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