My First GOP County Convention Experience

NOTE: This was written and first published as a comment on the Daily Dose (official blog of the Ron Paul 2008 Campaign and its originally intended audience was fellow Ron Paul supporters who were blogging away sharing our stories about our county / senate district conventions on March 29, 2008).

First, let me say, there were so many Ron Paul vehicles in the parking lot, it looked like a RP rally, and the Revolution is alive and well in WillCo! We did not have quite the numbers we needed to have a majority (about 43%), but we did well nonetheless because of the willingness of the majority of long-time party faithfuls to welcome all the new faces. For those outside of Texas, it is interesting to note that Williamson County has the reputation of being the reddest county in the red state of Texas.

I requested an appointment to the Temporary Resolutions Committee shortly after being elected as a delegate at my precinct convention, and we had representation on a couple of the other committees, too. Our County Chairman makes these appointments, and he granted my request even though he knew I was a “Paulista”, which I took as a very positive sign. Our committee met for a total of twelve hours in the few days before the convention to weed through more than 800 resolutions that had been sent up from the precinct conventions. With 84 precincts seated at the county convention, that’s an average of nearly 10 per precinct! The vast majority of these were either RP resolutions or items in line with his platform. Way to go grassroots! As a committee member, I was able to introduce my own resolutions, and I took advantage of that. I got one passed about withholding party funds from any candidate who does not fully support the entire platform plank on illegal immigration. I also got a sentence added to the ‘Preserving National Security’ plank that says, “We do not support the enactment of the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HB 1955).”

Serving on this committee was very rewarding, both for me personally and for helping to bring the Republican Party back to its conservative roots. The debates were exhilerating, honest discussions on an incredibly wide array of issues, and I was proud to passionately state our case on each and every one of them. It feels so good to speak about things like gun control, illegal immigration, and the unconsitutionality of all the various government agencies when you know you’ve got the constitution on your side. It is extremely difficult to argue with the truth! I did not win every debate, and not all of the RP resolutions made it out of our committee. Only a few got through that I voted against, and even those aren’t very far off the mark.

To see our committee’s report containing all of the resolutions we passed up to the convention for consideration, you can go to www.williamsoncountygop.org to find a link to the report along with a link to the 2006 (current) Republican Party of Texas Platform. This would be a great resource for those of you who have yet to attend your next highest convention! UPDATE: As of April 4th, 2008, the links to the resolutions and the Texas GOP platform are no longer on the Williamson County GOP website.
Today, I was appointed to the Permanent Resolutions Committee. I had my doubts as to whether or not I’d be included on the list, and joked about it with them when we convened. But everyone from the County Chair to our Committee Chair and many members of the committee told me that they were impressed with my knowledge and willingness to roll up my sleeves and had not even considered removing me from the committee. We took testimony on new resolutions for about an hour this morning, and then made some adjustments before sending our final report to the printer. After lunch, the fun really started!

After some lively debate over two resolutions, (which were not passed in committee, but three of us signed as a minority report), we failed to get them added to the majority report. They were on unbinding Texas’ delegates to the national convention and on repealing the 17th amendment. After that, a motion was made to approve the entire report as is. If this had failed we would have taken each of the 24 resolutions and debated each one before voting. As a member of the committee who had already debated these issues at length, I was generally satisfied with the final report. The RP group spokespeople said they were 99% happy with the resolutions, but wanted the opportunity to debate the issues. I completely understood their wanting to do this and was very mixed on what I wanted to happen next.

A vote was called for and, as had been the case throughout the day, each side LOUDLY voiced their ‘Yays’ and ‘Nays’. We were so close to being evenly divided, that nearly every vote was taken again by way of standing or in some cases there was even a poll of the precincts. The vote to accept the resolutions report as is went all the way to the polling stage. This meant that the Precinct Chair for each delegation had to step up to the microphone and announce their precincts’ vote count for and against. After the statistical calculations were made based on the voting strength of each precinct, the ‘Yays’ had won, and the entire report was passed. This disappointed many Ron Paulers who were prepared to stay into the wee hours if that is what it took to have a chance to voice an opinion on each and every resolution. I would have gladly stayed to once again state the case for all of the really good resolutions we had. However, I believe that only a handful of the resolutions would have failed on their own (because we did a very thorough job at the committee level), and that we could have risked losing some very positive resolutions for our cause.

One resolution came from the floor, and it was regarding making candidates tow the party line and follow the constitution. I actually spoke against this one because it is already in our platform and we (the committee) had already passed a resolution adopting the current platform with modifications as contained in the remainder of the resolutions. It would have been redundant, in my opinion and as was the consensus of the committee since we had already failed to pass many resolutions on those grounds. Yet, by that time, most of the ‘old-timers’ had gone home and the RP group approved it. I guess it doesn’t hurt to reiterate something so critical, but to me the real question is ‘How do we make them uphold what’s already in there?’ I’m glad we won the vote anyway because we ended the day with a victory, however small it might have been.

After this a motion was made to adjourn. It was seconded & passed with no debate (motion to adjourn is apparently not debatable). This effectively cut off any further motions from the floor. In this regard, we were shut out, but in the meantime we had managed to accomplish much!

I was elected as a delegate to our state convention, and my husband made the alternate list. In all, I think we got just shy of 20 delegates out of 120, and a few alternates as well. We tried to get a 10 minute recess to look over the list, but after nearly 10 minutes spent debating the motion, it was rejected. The slate, as proposed by the nominations committee, was approved in its entirety.

The County Chairman approched me at one point during the day and asked me if I was under 40. I said yes, and he asked if I would be interested in starting a local chapter of the Texas Young Republican Federation, whose members must be between 18 and 40, inclusive. I said that it was definitely something I’d be interested in learning more about and I found the Regional Director of the group later in the day & we exchanged contact info, etc. I think this is a perfect way for me to get involved in our local GOP and have a positive affect on the young people at the same time. I want to be involved, but I don’t necessarily want to attend luncheons five times a month either. I believe we need to educate the young conservative base - they’re so ready for this message of true conservatism and an adherence to the US Constitution! Along with representing Williamson County as a delegate to the state convention, this is how I plan to continue my little piece of the revolution!