Blog
Since October 9, 2021, Jennifer, Susan and Bill have written regular blog postings on the dallasgop.org website. Since all of their postings are no longer being published on that site by the new DCRP team, we are republishing those posts written by those three authors (all are now members of the DCR United team) to provide continuity. Going forward, new blog postings published after June 15, 2024, will be shown here.
The Race for Texas House Speaker—What Is Next?
As we reported last week, the House Republican caucus met to select their candidate for Speaker while we were in the middle of our SREC meeting.
What happened:
Caucus convened with all 88 members present.
First 2 votes were split, with Rep. David Cook in the lead but without a majority.
Caucus recessed, whereupon 2 dozen + members that were supporting Rep. Burrows left, in hopes of undermine the vote or possibly break quorum (didn’t happen).
Caucus voted and confirmed Cook as the official candidate.
Burrows announced, shortly after the caucus vote, that he was the ‘speaker elect’ (no such thing) with endorsements from 38 Republicans and 38 Democrats. This was false. Several of the Republican members he listed had endorsed Cook, others he listed without permission, and several of the Democrats declined having given him permission to list their names. Is someone that flat out lies like this the kind of person we want as Speaker?!?
BOTH of our Dallas Republican representatives were in the group that left the caucus and have endorsed Burrows.
If Reps. Button and Meyers vote for Burrows in the official Speaker election on January 14th, they will be in violation of caucus rules.
The SREC approved a 2nd resolution on this issue (see below), endorsing Cook and reminding the rogue Republicans that a vote for anyone else would be grounds for censure.
Read MoreAs of today, December 6, 2024, Dade Phelan has withdrawn his bid for another term as Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.
Heading into a crucial GOP caucus meeting tomorrow on Saturday, at least two Republicans have emerged as candidates seeking the office.
All eight of our Dallas County SREC Members are in Austin today and tomorrow to attend the 4th Quarter Republican Party of Texas Executive Committee meeting. Of great interest is the hotly contested House of Representatives Speaker race. With the news of current Speaker Dade Phelan withdrawing his candidacy begins a whole new conversation. The Resolutions Committee, of which SREC Susan Fountain is a member, unanimously passed a Resolution to encourage the election of a new Speaker who will not appoint Democrats to critical Committee Chairmanships and promote Republican legislative priorities approved at the May State Republican Convention in San Antonio.
Read MoreDemocrats have not won a state-wide election in many years, mainly due to statewide conservative rural areas, which offset the 5 largest blue counties. Yet they are vowing to get up again and get to work TODAY to work on turning Texas blue! This is how the Democrats turned Dallas County blue...slowly and surely over the last 25+- years. If nothing else they are very patient. There were some conservative victories. All eight of the Court of Appeals candidates recruited under Jennifer's leadership, including the new Chief Justice of the Fifth Court of Appeals, Justice JJ Koch won, and Republicans now dominate the 13 Panel Court. And Dallas County Republicans managed to keep its two incumbent Texas House Districts, District 108 and District 112, in spite of unprecedented opposition from members of the Dallas County Republican Party. God bless every one of you who put a sign in your yard, block walked for Republicans and helped in any way to get out the vote! We worked hard and put Trump back in, but not in Dallas County. In Dallas County, Democrats swept almost every race.
Read MoreE-Pollbook Problems
On the first day of early voting, Monday, October 21, there were widespread problems with the ES&S E-Pollbooks used in Dallas County to check in voters. The turnout on the first day of early voting was heavy (long lines) and the e-pollbook problems contributed to even longer lines.
The problems resulted in the election workers being kicked off the system frequently requiring new logins every time it happened. The problems occurred every 2 to 10 voters. Worse, as a direct artifact of the core problem, the incorrect ballot style (wrong precinct and/or sub-precinct) and its races being printed for some (but not all) voters. When noticed by election workers or voters, this required spoiling the incorrect ballot and generating new ones. In some cases, this required multiple cycles to generate a correct ballot which consumed more time. One Voting Center reported a total of over 200 spoiled ballots on Monday. For these voters, they ultimately cast corrected ballots but this error caused more time and resulted in even longer lines.
Fortunately, these problems were quickly noticed by our Election Workers (Election Judges and Election Clerks) and reported to DCED. The problem was diagnosed and its causes and effects were found an fixed. A more complete background of the problem and its fix are included in the Dallas County Elections Department press release.
Read MoreDo You Hear Yourself?!
To the Dallas County Republican Party’s Resolution Committee: You voted to propose a resolution requiring candidates to believe exactly as YOU do or face Republican opposition and negative campaigning to defeat them. To you, I repeat what I heard JD Vance say to a reporter on a Sunday morning program: “Do you hear yourself?”
You would rather see a liberal Democrat who does not agree with you on anything elected over the only two Republican State House members we have in Dallas County who agree with you on 90% of the issues? Are you listening to what you are saying?
Read MoreDon’t Be Confused About Nov 5
There is confusion as to what is on the ballot on November 5. Note that I said, “what,” and not, “who.”
That’s because it’s really not about “who.”
Boiled all the way down, this is not a contest between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump. It’s not even a contest between two political parties. And it goes well beyond such things as tax policy, fiscal policy and national defense.
The 2024 election is a contest between two governing visions for this 235-year-old republic – two governing visions that have seldom in our history been more divergent.
Read MoreSREC 3rd Quarter Meeting, 2024
The Republican Party of Texas (RPT) is guided by an Executive Committee. There are 31 Senate Districts in Texas and two representatives from each Senate District (SD) are elected at the Biennial Republican Party of Texas Convention, recently held in San Antonio May 23-25, 2024. An SREC Committeeman and an SREC Committeewoman were elected from each SD making 62 members.
Read MoreLightning Strikes Twice!
At this time in our nation many of us are laser focused on the upcoming November election, putting behind us a brutal impeachment trial and equally brutal primary election. We all know that Texas is that “last safe zone” to where normal people are heading. Texans are now planning to show up en masse to protect the last bastion of freedom in the US. God help us if we don’t.
While thousands of us are rightfully engaged, enlightened and energized for November, many of us are working overtime to look ahead to the upcoming local elections in May, 2025. Filing deadlines for Municipal and School Board races begin mid-January and end mid-February.
Now is the time to change YOUR city for the better!
Read More