I'm Watching The Texas GOP Convention, So You Don't Have To - Part One
I'm Watching The Texas GOP Convention, So You Don't Have To - Part One
A Front-Row Seat to GOP Extremism.
If you aren’t already following me on Twitter (I’ll never call it X), that’s where I’ve been posting all of the bat-shit crazy video clips I’m seeing at the 2024 Republican Party of Texas (RPT) Convention. For some reason, I thought their convention didn’t start until this weekend, but I forgot it’s an entire week long, and their committees are meeting for 15 hours a day. My week is committed. I’ll listen for all the juicy tidbits and report all the crazy back to you. Get ready because some of this stuff is full-blown bananas.
Here is their full convention agenda.
I’ve been mainly watching their Legislative Priorities Committee and their Platform Committee, but their Rules Committee has also been meeting. I have to catch up on it later.
You can watch their full committee hearings here.
What does each committee do?
Some of you may remember the absolutely deranged Republican platform from 2022, which called Joe Biden an illegitimate president, said gay people were “abnormal,” and opposed critical thinking in schools, and that was all before they booed John Cornyn off stage.
The Platform Committee reviews their existing platform, makes changes, or adds and deletes planks. Later this week, the whole body in the general session will vote to adopt it.
The Legislative Committee will make 15 planks the highest priority of the RPT. These are the 15 items they expect the Republicans in the legislature to pass and vote in favor of. If the GOP officials do not pass these “legislative priorities,” they risk being censured by the Republican Party of Texas, which, personally, I love. They bully their own, and it’s pure entertainment for the rest of us.
The Legislative Priorities Committee lets their delegates argue about which planks stay and which go. These speeches are giving us little gems like this one, where a woman discusses enacting MORE abortion restrictions on Texas women. (More on that later.)
The Rules Committee establishes and modifies the RPT's operation. This includes everything from meeting conduct to vote-taking and setting rules and guidelines for the party officers.
Why am I watching the RPT Convention?
I likely have spent more time watching Republican conventions, hearings, debates, and town halls than any other Democrat in Texas. I find them extremely entertaining, but I also watch the Legislature and Congress. Maybe I’m just that type of nerd. 😉
In all seriousness, this week-long event gives us so much insight into our formidable opponents, even regarding the priorities that are getting removed and the changing rules. What we should be able to take away from this convention is where the Republican Party of Texas is psychologically and what we should expect from them over this coming election cycle and going into the legislative session in 2025.
And if the right people are paying attention, they should be able to craft messaging behind the sheer insanity the Republican Party of Texas has become. This event also tells us what the emerging issues are from the right. Since Texas is typically the first place Republican legislation gets tested before being enacted in other states and nationally, we get a sneak peek into what we’ll see from Republicans around the country over the next few years.
If we know and understand the Republican strategy, we’ll know what tactics they’ll use in the upcoming election, and we can develop a counter-strategy. Insights from the convention will allow Democrats to engage with and educate their base about what the opposition is planning. This can mobilize their supporters and keep them informed and motivated.
Women have a lot of reasons to be concerned in Texas right now.
The “abolish abortion” issue seems to be a big topic at this convention, even more so than the 2022 convention. You’re thinking, but hasn’t abortion already been abolished in Texas? It sure has, but when Republicans say “abolish abortions,” they don’t just mean abortions.
Two months ago, Lone Star Left was the first to break the story of the emerging Abolish Abortion movement in Texas, which we learned about through a leaked video at a True Texas Project meeting.
If you missed it:
The abolish abortion movement seeks to ban IVF and certain forms of birth control in Texas; they also are seeking legislation to give the death penalty to women who have abortions, even if they are minors, even if they are a rape victim.
The same man saw speaking in that leaked video also spoke in the Legislative Priorities Committee, as did many of his associates. While the final legislative priorities list won’t be passed until Saturday, as of right now, it’s on the list of 15.
That means that the Republican Party of Texas will expect Republicans to pass an IVF ban and birth control bans in the next legislative session. If they don’t, they risk being censured by the party.
There also was more than one discussion about banning travel for pregnant women. Check out the exchange below, which discusses prohibiting pregnant women from traveling. Several Republican women pushed back against this resolution. Men shut both down.
One of the men who hushed the GOP woman, Cary Cheshire, has had previous ties to Texans for Strong Borders, a group known for neo-Nazi ties.
This resolution failed by a slim majority, but don’t expect it to go away anytime soon. There are two takeaways from this conversation:
Republican men want more control over women in Texas.
Republican women are pushing back.
Unfortunately, since Republican women are anti-feminist, we shouldn’t expect them to win this fight. Even though the resolution has failed, don’t be surprised when a Republican files a bill in the Legislature year to prohibit travel for pregnant women because it’s what the base wants.
This is a fracture within the Republican Party that Democrats can capitalize on.
Yes, Democrats in Austin and Washington, DC, are committed to restoring abortion rights in Texas when they have the majority votes. In the meanwhile, Republicans intend to make it worse for women, banning IVF, banning birth control, prohibiting travel, and giving the death penalty to women who have abortion care.
It can get worse. Republicans are planning for worse.
We have already seen 17 Texas Congresspeople sign a bill to ban IVF on the federal level. It won’t happen in Congress, but if Republicans maintain the majority in Austin next year, it could happen here.
Texas women voters need to understand how much worse it will get. We all need to be shouting from the rooftops what the GOP has planned.
The “men’s rights” movement is also winning in the GOP ranks.
Every single convention, a men’s rights movement takes up a lot of airtime, pushing for “men’s parenting rights.” They say it’s about equal parenting, but if you listen to enough of them speak, you quickly figure out it really is about child support. They don’t believe they should be paying to support their children, and they’ve figured out that the way out is 50/50 parenting time.
I’ve watched them push this 50/50 parenting issue at the last two conventions and this one. It looks like their hard work paid off because, as of now, “equal parenting” is one of the Republican Party of Texas’ legislative priorities. We’ll have to see if it makes it through Saturday.
I bring up this issue because, during the 2022 RPT Conference, several Republican women secretly reached out to me to shed light on this “equal parenting” issue. In general, Republican women are not in favor of it.
This further shows that there is a gender struggle happening within the Republican Party of Texas right now. Republican women have spent the last few years swearing off feminism. Now it’s coming back to bite them in the ass. While I have observed several GOP women push back against further measures to restrict women’s rights, they’re seemingly outnumbered by men who think they should be controlled.
It’ll be interesting to see how these gender dynamics play out over the next few years within the Republican Party because they only seem to be getting worse. Will GOP women finally put their foot down? Will they flee the party? Or perhaps they’ll become subservient wives who don’t speak or vote? It remains to be seen, but this is one internal Republican conflict we should watch.
Republicans know they are going to lose Texas.
While watching this convention this week, one thing has become abundantly clear. Texas Republicans realize they are on the losing side, and they know the data is working against them. I’ve listened to several of them talk about how the GOP will lose Texas within the next five years.
They are panicked and trying to devise solutions to prevent it from happening. In Part Two of “I'm Watching The Texas GOP Convention, So You Don't Have To,” I’ll discuss some of the voter suppression tactics they want to implement immediately.
One resolution that failed was discussed yesterday. It involved coercing Greg Abbott to call a special session in June (next month) so the Legislature could appoint an election commission to purge as many voter roles as possible between now and November. The resolution failed because they ultimately decided it didn’t have enough time.
The “State Electoral College” is an idea they actually cooked up during the 2022 Convention. Here they are today, discussing it, and it’s made clear that they are against one person, one vote, and they are looking for ways to strip urban voters of political power.
The 2024 RPT Convention is happening in San Antonio at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.
It’s horrific that the Republican Party of Texas would choose a place named after a civil rights icon to hold their week-long meeting on oppression and hate. Henry Barbosa González (1916-2000) was a San Antonio native and prominent Texas Democratic politician who served in Congress for Texas's 20th congressional district from 1961 to 1999. He holds the record as the longest-serving Hispanic in Congress and was a founding member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Elected to the Texas Senate in 1956, González set a filibuster record by speaking against segregation for 36 hours. Elected to Congress in 1961, González quickly became known for his liberal views and support for civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In Response, Texas House Democrats are holding a “Vigil for Our Rights” and press conference on Friday. Representative Trey Martinez Fischer will host the event, which will be joined by Representative Gene Wu and Congressman Joquin Castro.
Stay tuned because this week is only going to get crazier.
As I said, this week, I’m committed to watching this conference and letting y’all know all of the lunatic ideas we’ll be seeing from the Republican Party of Texas through the November election and in the 89th LegiLegislaturet year.
Later this week, probably on Saturday, the RPT will elect the new Republican Party of Texas Chair. I made a highlight real of the chair debate and posted it on TikTok, which you can see here:
To summarize, the debate was almost entirely about God and Jesus, putting more Christian values in our government, and persecuting the LGBTQ community. Every single one of them was a carbon copy of the other. The RPT is in shatters, and there is no one out there who can fix them.
For Texas Democrats, the time to mobilize, educate, and activate is now. We must use the insights gained from this convention to craft effective counter-strategies and ensure that our supporters understand the stakes. Texas is on the brink of significant change, and we can turn the tide with concerted effort.
Stay vigilant, stay informed, and stay ready. This week may be filled with madness, but it also provides a roadmap for our path forward. Let's use it wisely.
Important 2024 primary RUNOFF election days:
May 24, 2024: Last day of early voting.
May 28, 2024: Last day to receive a ballot by mail.
May 28, 2024: Election day.
LoneStarLeft’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Follow me on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram.
Thank you for enduring this.