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2002 Texas GOP Convention - Observations from a Freeper Delegate
09 June 2002 | PetroniDE

Posted on 06/09/2002 6:00:00 PM PDT by PetroniDE

The Texas State GOP Convention was held in Dallas, Texas on June 7-8, 2002. The following are personal observations and activities from a Freeper's first time attendance as a delegate at this convention.

Thursday, 6 June 2002

I drove up from Houston with two other H.A.T. Freepers (Humblegunner and Flyer, they were my guests). Since the schedules would vary between delegates and non-delegates, we drove in separate vechiles, forming a two-car convoy. The drive took about 3-1/2 hours and we checked into the hotel ahead of schedule.

This was set-up day for the convention exhibits. The FR booth was already set-up and the three of us assisted in manning the booth. Even though the convention started on Friday, there were several committees in session (committee sessions started on Tuesday) and significant number of people in attendance. The only bad thing that happened was that some of the freep photos had not yet arrived. Eight freepers met for a nice BBQ dinner in the West End area.

Friday, 7 June 2002

The missing FR booth pictures arrived. They were set-up in the FR booth in addition to the FR Inaugural Ball Video. During the morning, I helped man the FR booth and talked to several people about FR.

The First General Session Convened at 1:00 pm. Mostly speeches, but a nice salute to all members/former members of the armed service branches (complete with their respective fight songs).

The First SD (Senate District) Caucus Session Convened at 5:00 pm. (Note: I am in SD17). Speeches by local candidates, and election of Permanent Caucus Chairman, Permanent Secretary, and Chairman of Credentials, Rules, Platform/Resolutions, Permanent Organization, and Nomination Committees. One of the speakers had noted that hearing are scheduled this summer in Austin, TX regarding textbook content of Texas History (I do not recall which person stated this). Fifteen freepers met for dinner at the Y.O. Ranch (west end). Good food (steak) but a little pricy.

Saturday, 8 June 2002

The Second SD (Senate District) Caucus Session Convened at 9:00 am. More speeches by local candidates. Election of SREC Commiteeman and Committeewoman. In my SD, both elections had multple candidates. Nominations regarding chairman and vice-chairman, Republican party of Texas were also held. After the caucus, I manned the booth for about an hour (giving MAF and others some needed relief) before the final general session.

The Second General Session Convened at 1:00 pm. Party Rules and Platform were approved. Heated debate occurred on several rule modifications. Three rules involved removal of term limits for National Committeeman/woman, State Party Chairman/Vice-Chairman, and SREC. I made a motion (eventually passed) that resulted in all three rules being adopted/not adopted in a single vote. As this was my first state convention, I did not plan on making a lot of motions, points of order, or debate speeches. However, after consultation with my SREC, conclusion was made that this was a good motion to make. Three of the H.A.T. FR members investigated Dallas pizza after the convention.


TOPICS: Activism/Chapters; Breaking News; Free Republic; Government; Politics/Elections; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: delegation; freepers; gop; stateconvention; texas
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To: jf55510
Until this most recent Platform, term limits were an integral part of the GOP platform for a long time. Removing them was a big part of Weddington's agenda.
What I don't like about her is shared by a number of the members of the Platform and Rules committees: she wants HER rules and HER platform adopted exclusively. Making this more of a "Democratic" convention than a "democratic" one.
41 posted on 06/10/2002 10:56:26 AM PDT by Redbob
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To: texlok
The "bilingual education" issue doesn't have anything to do with teaching or not teaching people to speak English; rather, it has to do with teaching children in a language (Spanish) based upon their last name or physical appearance.
This approach has a long history of not "main-streaming" the hispanics, and is perhaps responsible for there being such a large number of folks in the Austin area who don't speak English.

English IS our language, and the sooner these immigrants figure that out, the better off they'll be. If they can't, well, the border works both ways.

42 posted on 06/10/2002 11:01:42 AM PDT by Redbob
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To: texlok
You were NOT rambling. This is an appropriate location for such response. I will try to answer these one at a time.

1)Getting rid of the state lottery - It's great and all, and I support that, *BUT* unless you provide a real solution to making up that revenue, that doesn't involve new taxes, there is no point. This also plays into the state income tax crowd

The pro-income tax crowd loves the state lottery. It would not be in-place of but an addition to. Lotteries are a terrible way to fund education (btw it doesn't even do that). There is a real solution, it is called installation of competition (i.e. private school, home school, charter school, parental choice of public school, etc.) that doesn't cost $$. I am very anti-lottery and discourage anyone who will listen from playing it.

2)Getting rid of bilingual education : Sounds great, english only, etc. but just in the Austin area alone, we have a 100,000 people that can't speak english. If the kids of those 100,000 people in my area (and I know it's much much higher in south Texas and the Houston area) don't have a good way of learning english, they'll not make it through school, and will end up dropping out and end up getting on some sort of public assistance, which means my taxes will go up in some way, shape, or form.

The univeral language of business is ENGLISH. I work with Italian pressure vessel fabricators and all business correspondence is in ENGLISH (even between them and their foreign customers). If any person goes to another country, they need to learn the native tongue. Sounds cruel but that's life. Move to France, they DEMAND you speak French. Move to Mexico (except in vacation hot spots) and they DEMAND you speak Spanish.

Yeah, yeah, I'm cold-hearted and care only about keeping my taxes down. I support much of what the platform calls for, but some of these planks were either crafted with no thought in the end-results, or the people crafting them aren't from Texas, or haven't lived here long and are from the north.

Get a copy of the final resolutions and study them. Next election cycle, prepare the changes you want. Make noise to your SREC and get on committees. Get involved and don't get discouraged if/when obstacles appear.

Putting aside results/solutions, let's look at elections. A part of the Texas GOP really seemed anti-Hispanic. Those people could hurt Conservatives in Texas for years to come. Yeah, I'm being cold-hearted and just seeing Hispanics as numbers at the polls now, but let's face it - GWB was able to win, in part, to wooing Hispanic voters. Maybe they weren't that large of a chunk of voters, but they helped. If those Hispanics that share the same Conservative/religious values that the rest of us share, feel like we see no place for them on the right side, they'll vote for the dems, and that just means more votes will have to be made up elsewhere, and that will especially impact local districts.

Which part are you referring to? Probably need more specifics to comment properly, but I have suspicion you are falling for the democrats lies on this.

43 posted on 06/10/2002 11:08:29 AM PDT by PetroniDE
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To: Tex_GOP_Cruz
Our SREC did not parade the delegation with up/down motions, but there were experienced delegates that provided discussion. I found myself invoved in some of the discussions but they appeared to be mostly even-handed localized for/against arguments. We were encouraged to vote the way we thought proper and I didn't see much vote-prodding.
44 posted on 06/10/2002 11:13:38 AM PDT by PetroniDE
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To: BellStar
Bell if I've offended you I'm sorry! I have NO WISH to do so! In fact, I would be the FIRST person to say that those who spend their own money and work the hours required to serve on ANY of those committies deserves nothing but the thanks of EVERYONE and I CERTIANLY DO thank you! VERY sincerly! From the bottom of my heart!

We agree much more than we disagree I'm sure and we WILL find a solution to the RINO problem!

45 posted on 06/10/2002 11:36:24 AM PDT by Bigun
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To: PetroniDE
We were encouraged to vote the way we thought proper and I didn't see much vote-prodding.

Hmm, maybe the caucuses were just that different. There were, after all, geographical patterns to 43 and the unaddressed 44. I heard that many rural delegates felt that the problem was an urban one and that closed primaries (44) would destroy fledgling parties in some of the small yellow dog counties.

46 posted on 06/10/2002 11:44:28 AM PDT by Tex_GOP_Cruz
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To: Redbob
What is Weddingtons agenda? I have not paid that much attention her until just recently. I know that she stepped up to the plate and supported challengers in races against RINOs. I am just curious, besides getting rid term limits, what she was/is pushing.
47 posted on 06/10/2002 11:47:30 AM PDT by jf55510
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To: jf55510
When we elect delegates to the National Convention every 4 years, the argument is made to select grassroots folks to represent you instead of political office holders because they would be less susceptible to political pressure affecting their careers when making their decisions. One might make the case to some extent for party leaders as well. Incidentally, our National Committeeman, Tim Lambert is a glaring example where this is not true.

Susan's record is not as clear for increasing the influence of the grassroots, but she has a bit more responsibility in keeping the party together and financed. We could definitely be much worse off with someone else.

48 posted on 06/10/2002 2:32:21 PM PDT by DrewsDad
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To: Cheesehead in Texas
The typical voter is not going to go to meetings and hear the candidates speak and ask questions or call the candidate or his/her campaign office for clarification on where the candidate stands on issues. Neither are they going to get much info from the candidate's literature.

We can either make it easier for them to get information or continue with the same results. Why not have a centralized location to view this information, such as on the party website. We can also expose the opponents record or positions there as well to give the voter a clear choice.

49 posted on 06/10/2002 3:21:34 PM PDT by DrewsDad
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To: PetroniDE
Well, how did the Pages do? One of my dearest friends was in charge of or you could say "Queen of Pages" for the event. She reports this evening that the kids participating in the Page Program were remarkable young people.

I asked her if she noticed the FreeRepublic.com booth and she said everytime she passed by the booth there were always people there. Both visiting the booth and being staffed by Freepers.

THUMBS UP!

50 posted on 06/10/2002 5:34:47 PM PDT by zeaal
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To: zeaal
Ironically, I did not notice the Pages much... That means they did a good job, because if they screwed up, we all would have noticed... The FR booth was busy. Next time, I hope the convention is in Houston, less travel to worry about. I will attend regardless of location.
51 posted on 06/10/2002 5:48:35 PM PDT by PetroniDE
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To: Redbob; petronide
English IS our language, and the sooner these immigrants figure that out, the better off they'll be. If they can't, well, the border works both ways.

I understand both you and Pertonide's views on this, but right now, we have a serious problem. We have a lot of kids that don't speak English, or are going to grow up in non-English speaking homes, speaking Spanish (or Russian, or Italian, or French, or whatever). These kids were born here, just as many of us were born here, but had parents or grandparents or great-grandparents that didn't exactly have a grasp of the English language. The non-English speaking parents are obviously going to be of no help, and so it's going to fall upon the public school system. My wife has worked both in public and private schools, and has dealt with ESL and bilingual kids. They can't learn English overnight, but many of them can and do learn it by high-school, if they start out early enough.

You can't take a non-English speaking kid and throw them in with the rest of the English speaking kids for two reasons :
1)They don't learn as much, and they will get frustrated when they can't understand what is being done.
2)They will drag down the TAAS (and it's replacement) scores of their schools and their classes if it's English-only, which means there will be hell to pay.

There has to be a mechanism in place to teach them English. I will read the platform more, but I'm hearing people say get rid of it entirely, with no replacement. It's not going to work, unless you want these kids dropping out and ending up pregnant, on drugs, on welfare, etc. (I'm probably a racist now ;-) ). Something has to be done. Like it or not, they are technically (and legally) American citizens. If they don't learn English, chances are their kids won't learn English, and we'll veer away from a melting pot and turn into the type of divided nation the dems would like us to believe exists.

52 posted on 06/10/2002 5:53:30 PM PDT by texlok
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To: texlok; RedBob
How many instances exist where immigrants moved to this country with hardly any possessions or knowledge of English? How did these people achieve here? They learned the language.

Imagine for a moment that you were forced to move to Montreal, Quebec, and didn't know a word of French. In that province, and Montreal/Quebec City in particular, French is the dominant language, and English is rarely spoken. Some municipalities have ordiances PROHIBITING bi-lingual signs (i.e. signs are in French only). What do you do then, learn the language.

I know of a professional colleague who was sent to Turkey recently on an assignment. He took a three week cram course in Turkish and while not fluent, obtained working knowledge of the language. American go overseas all the time, and they are expected to obtain at least some knowledge of the native tongue. Why should we lower our standards for everyone else?

The families where no English is spoken is a result of our welfare system. People NEVER get off the crutches. Sounds cruel, but I would rather give them English language cassette tapes than continue to spoon feed them. Soon we will have to spoon feed in Italian, Arabic, German, Hebrew, Russian, Creole, Swahili, and Ebonics (don't laugh, there was a recent lawsuit in Oakland, CA regarding Ebonics).

These ESL programs should be used by students on a short term basis, they are being used on a permanent basis for too long in the public schools. Regarding the TAAS test, they have watered it down to a point where soon it will resemble a college football factory test (29/60 correct passes). Sign your name correctly and you will pass.

53 posted on 06/10/2002 7:54:32 PM PDT by PetroniDE
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To: PetroniDE; jf55510; TX Liberty Lady
I served on the platform committee. The reason why it was not voted on plank by plank is that it didn't need to be. If the nay's had voiced their opinion in enough of a quantity, then each plank would have been voted on. Take it from me, we did the work on our committee for your benefit. We put in three 15 hour days plus two half days. We wordsmithed it enough that when we were finished we believed that we put together a lean but quite to the point document. The grassroots have spoken. Now that you have the time, read it from front to back and see if I am not right. Our platform is the most conservative of all the state platforms. There are a number of other states who request we send them our platform as soon as it is written for them to study as a guideline for their platform effort. That says a lot.

TX Liberty Lady spent time in the platform committee listening to the proceedings. I am sure she will tell you that we did the job we were called to do.

54 posted on 06/10/2002 10:52:42 PM PDT by Slyfox
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To: PetroniDE
Photos from the Texas GOP Convention:


MAF at FR Booth


Darth in front of FR Booth


Brunch


Anymouse and friends


Banquet


Gov. Rick Perry Speaking at Reception


Gov. Rick Perry Speaking at Reception

55 posted on 06/10/2002 11:34:30 PM PDT by anymouse
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To: texlok
This is one of my first posts to this forum, so I'm not quite sure how to "address" everyone. This request is actually directed to any of you who attended the Texas GOP convention. Was the Emergency Health Powers Act discussed at all? What is the general consensus about this possible legislation? Is Perry for or against it? I think the possible passage of this Act would be terrible...several states have already said "no" to it. Thanks for any info anyone might have.
56 posted on 06/11/2002 5:51:05 AM PDT by Maria S
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To: Slyfox
I thank you for the service you did on the platform committee, it is something that I would not want to do. It was a great platform, that being said there were inconsistancies in it. I do not have the exact wording but one example is with CFR. You first called for Congress to repeal the Shays/Meehan bill and have no CFR. Then you state that you want to limit contributions(type of contributions I believe) of Judges. Also in the Free trade section there were problems. But overall it is nothing to complain about. To bad the elected officals will not follow it.
57 posted on 06/11/2002 7:07:07 AM PDT by jf55510
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To: Slyfox
I did spend time with the platform committee and in the subcommittees. I was impressed with the caliber of people (on the whole) and the subcommittee and committee chairmen did an excellent job in my opinion. Generally I was pleased to see a more conservative committee than we have had at times in the past. Ane YES, the committee did a very good job.
58 posted on 06/11/2002 8:17:24 AM PDT by TX Liberty Lady
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To: jf55510
I was on the family, pro-life and education sub-committee sections. We had hearings at all levels of working on the platform but we had no one speak about the CFR or free trade before the committee. Most of the input that we recieved was very helpful.
59 posted on 06/11/2002 11:03:34 AM PDT by Slyfox
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To: Slyfox
The pro-life and pro family parts of the platform were outstanding. It would be nice if some of the politicians would acutally look at it. Below is an article that Delwin Jones(R(ino)-Lubbock) talks about the resolution that was passed about electing a new speaker. It is sad that we have politicians that do not listen to the grassroots.

State Rep tells Party to shove it.
60 posted on 06/11/2002 11:44:44 AM PDT by jf55510
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