Posted on 08/02/2012 3:40:20 PM PDT by DrewsDad
If anything can be taken from Tuesday night’s victory for Ted Cruz and others around the state, it’s that the Tea Party is as powerful of a force as it ever was. The passion and determination of the movement was something remarkable to witness.
It safe to assume our next U.S. Senator will be a Republican, and a re-focused Tea Party can have just as significant of an impact on the 2013 State Legislature.
There’s no doubt about it. Ted Cruz’ victory last night was in no small part to the solidary of the Tea Party behind his campaign. And in down-ballot races, the movement elected several solid conservatives to the Texas Legislature.
Those in the mainstream media writing the Tea Party’s obituary not so long ago were given a rude awaking to the power the movement still yields.
Regardless of which candidate you favored in the Republican U.S. Senate runoff, one must respect what an engaged and cohesive Tea Party movement can accomplish. (TFR does not make federal endorsements, and therefore was neutral in the race.)
But Tea Partiers should not rest on their laurels knowing Mr. Cruz is essentially a shoe-in to be the junior senator from Texas. Nor should they be satisfied with simply sending a conservative freshman class to the State Capitol in January.
In a reversal of last session, this upcoming legislative session will feature the state senate as the most conservative body. We will now hear the names of Senators Paxton, Hancock, Taylor and Campbell echo inside the chamber instead of Senators Harris, Ogden, Jackson and Wentworth.
Now, the only bottleneck for conservative legislation rests on the speaker’s dais in the House.
And in case you haven’t heard, Rep. Joe Straus will be challenged for the speakership again.
In 2011, Texas saw it’s first public campaign for speaker in over 40 years – having been previously blocked from it by state law until it was ruled unconstitutional. Despite the relative inexperience with such an endeavor, and the short time frame, conservatives were still able to push 17 Republicans to on record calling for a more conservative speaker.
Although conservatives were unable to oust Mr. Straus from the speakership (or his house seat), they did the next best thing – throw out five of his committee chairmen and anyone else that stood close to him.
With Speaker Straus weaker than he’s ever been, now is the time for the Tea Party to shine yet again.
Six months now separate us from the start of the 83rd Legislature – an eternity for those representatives that still inside the Straus leadership circle. With it painfully clear how ineffective (or unwilling) Mr. Straus is in protecting his most loyal allies, now is the time to turn up the pressure.
It won’t be easy, but a Tea Party as focused as it was on the U.S. Senate race can make the difference in the speaker’s race.
And even if the ultimate goal of getting a conservative speaker doesn’t happen this time around, conservatives are still set to win big if they set their sights on passing reforms such as spending limits, truth in budgeting, and cuts to wasteful government. (All of these can be topics of conversations constituents have with their legislators at House Leadership Town Halls called for by the 2012 Texas GOP Platform.)
Tuesday showed the Tea Party is more than capable of making significant impacts to the political landscape of Texas. If conservatives set their mind to it, they can continue making great strides in 2013.
Bryan Hughes is challenging Straus for the Speaker.
It's time to OUST Straus!
If you want to ping your list to Take back Texas...
Godspeed and Good Luck, Texas. Job well done so far!
Hopefully this will catch on here in Florida and other states
Give Dewhurst the Boot in 2014 (((Ping List)))
To be added or removed from this list, freepmail me.
This is a low volume ping list at this time.
/johnny
When the campaigns call for help, your first question should be who their choice is for Speaker.
Oust Straus along with Dewurst!!!
You and all your friends in your house district should go FAR further than that!
You should put YOUR state rep on notice that his first vote in the next session will be closely watched and voting for anything less than a REAL conservative will not be tolerated!
We should try to organize a list of those willing to vote against Straus.
If you want me to track that on my 'Boot' notes, I'll keep the record of it, and publish it on my FR page.
There are 150 of the bastards politicians to track. I'll see if I can't pull a list together, so folks can say who will vote against Straus.
Personally, I'd rather see him primaried out.
/johnny
We should probably contact Bryan Hughes and see how we can be most effective other than influencing our representatives.
/johnny
He is challenging Straus for Speaker. See Post#1.
/johnny
I worked harder and spent more money on Matt Bebe (the fellow who ran against him in the primary this year) than any other race so far this cycle. It didn't work and now we have to deal with him in the next session of the legislature. He must not be re-elected speaker!
I know him and will happily vouch for him! He is a REAL conservative!
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2012/06/bryan-hughes-lays-out-rationale-for-speaker-run.html/
This is quickly turning into a Boot the Establishment kind of exersize.
/johnny
There is a link to an hour long interview of Bryan in the article I linked to earlier if you should care to listen to it.
Hand me a drill. ;)
I may actually listen to it. Maybe.
/johnny
Please put me on your ping list.
Just added “OustStraus” to the keywords. Let’s enter it as a keyword for all further antiRINO Texas threads...
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