The start of the New Year for most people is a time for reflection on the past year’s events, setting goals for the New Year, and making plans to achieve those goals. The same is true for the Republican Party of Texas, as much of January was spent reviewing data from the past elections and making plans to improve prior to the next general elections in 2014. As part of this effort, the RPT in conjunction with Senators Cornyn and Cruz commissioned an extensive poll of Texas Hispanic voters who voted in the last election. Utilizing this data as well as info obtained from focus groups allowed us to fine tune our preliminary outreach plans for the next election cycle. This culminated in our presenting this data and recommendations to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus who flew to Texas at the my invitation to participate in an all day outreach summit on January 15. The outreach summit commenced with a breakfast session at which numerous Republican elected officials from varying backgrounds around the state participated in a frank exchange with the chairman as to how the national Republican Party could better market its message to their communities. Among the participants were; Justice Elsa Alcala-Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Hope Andrade-former Texas Secretary of State, Cong. Quico Canseco, Rep. Angie Chen Button, US Senator John Cornyn, Rep. Larry Gonzales, Justice Eva Guzman-Texas Supreme Court, Judge Debra Ibarra Mayfield, Rep. JM Lozano, Rep. Aaron Pena, Marcus Pena-Austin County Tax Assessor-Collector, Commissioner Barry Smitherman-Texas Railroad Commission, Marisa Rummell-Perry appointee to the San Jacinto River Authority, Justice Dale Wainwright-former member of the Texas Supreme Court, National Committeewoman Bora Van Dormolen, and National Committeeman Robin Armstrong. Representative James White joined the group at the conclusion of the breakfast.
Following the breakfast, presentations were put forth by Chris Perkins our pollster; Miguel Romano, President of Associated Republicans of Texas; and David Zapata, our outreach director.
The rest of the day consisted of outreach panel discussions with representatives of our auxiliaries and community leaders from the Hispanic, African American, and Asian American Republican communities. The auxiliaries in attendance for the outreach summit were the Texas Federation for Republican Outreach, Texas GOP is for Me, Republican Hispanic Citizens in Action, Texas Federation of Hispanic Republicans, Republican National Hispanic Assembly, Texas Federation of Republican Women – minority outreach committee, and Texas College Republicans. In addition, Auxiliaries and Coalitions Committee Chair Tina Gibson was also present.
Following the presentations, proponents of the Texas Solution, spearheaded by Norman Adams, outlined the planks of the Texas Republican Party platform to the national party Chairman.
At the conclusion of the meetings, I presented Chairman Priebus with a suggested national and state outreach plan which calls for the creation of field offices around the state in various communities in order to more effectively get our message out. Chairman Priebus committed to providing a specific outreach plan within three months and returning to Texas thereafter to provide the details.
In addition to working on outreach, the political staff consisting of Political Director John McCord, Special Projects Director John Jackson, Executive Director Beth Cubriel, Communications Director Spencer Yeldell, and Finance Director Keri Mason worked on proposed victory plans for 2014 which would include, if financing were obtained, expanded voter registration efforts, software upgrade, and advertising. In addition, the staff previously met with Clint Moore and others in December who advocate for the party to examine the services of a particular vendor whose product is called rVotes. Both the staff and I are in continuous dialogues regarding possible options for software and/or database efforts. There is no question that the Democrat’s ground game nationwide was superior to ours in part because they had the ability to accumulate data in a more efficient way and have software applications that allowed the deployment of volunteers to turn out voters in their database. The main two obstacles facing the Texas state party to implement upgrades to our software and turnout programs are the required infrastructure to obtain and transmit the data as well as finding the funding outside our normal budget. Moreover, the RNC is evaluating these issues as well, so the Texas party will not make final decisions at least until it hears from the RNC as to what new programs may be available through national party.
I had the opportunity to travel to the RNC meetings in Charlotte, NC during the fourth week of January along with RNC Committeeman Robin Armstrong, RNC Committeewoman Borah Van Dormolen and RNC legal counsel Bill Crocker. At the RNC meetings I had the opportunity to make a presentation to the Southern Caucus pertaining to outreach and demographic changes. It appears to be well received as a number of RNC members from other states have requested copies of the presentation. Robin Armstrong ran for the Resolutions Committee and received significant support, but came up a little short. Nevertheless, he gave a great speech and presumably the reason why he did not obtain a majority of the vote was because he was recently elected to the RNC. However, I am confident he will obtain a position of stature with the RNC in the not to distant future. Borah Van Dormolen is being nominated by Robin and me to serve as Texas’ representative on the rules committee which will meet in April. This will be an important committee because it will consider undoing some of the changes which were passed at the last conventions and were unpopular with a sizeable portion of the grassroots.
Also at the RNC meeting there was quite a bit of discussion as to what went wrong in November. Chairman Priebus has a special committee to make recommendations as to how to improve the party’s performance in 2016. I believe a consensus is developing that the Party needs to engage in more effective outreach to the Hispanic, African, and Asian American communities. The RNC needs to upgrade its software systems in order to close the gap between our ground game and the Democrat’s, and that we need a Presidential nominee who is effective at carrying our message. There is also talk regarding the need for the RNC to sponsor debates as opposed to leaving Presidential debates solely up to media outlets that had a tendency to assign moderators who seemingly were adverse to the Republican Party. At the business portion of the RNC meeting, Chairman Priebus was reelected by a vote of 166-2, Sharon Day was re-elected as Vice Chair and Demetra DeMonte was re-elected as secretary. On behalf of the entire RPT, we wish to extend our congratulations to the newly elected officers, and look forward to working with them in an effort to improve the performance of the Republican ticket.
In January I also had an opportunity to travel to Pearland to speak to the West Pearland Republican Women during the first week of January. During the second week I had the opportunity to meet with the Freshman Caucus of Republican Legislators that was organized by newly elected representative Phil Stevenson. Later in the week I attended the opening day ceremonies of the 83rd legislature. The following day I participated on a panel of the Texas Public Policy Foundation conference referring to the current state of the Texas economy. The following day the RPT hosted a teleconference between party leadership and Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst in which he provided a preview as to expected issues in the upcoming legislative session. I concluded the week by attending an Alliance for Life legislative luncheon at the capitol.
The following week the staff and I viewed a potential office building as a possible permanent home for the RPT. I am a proponent of the state party owning a permanent home as long as the numbers make sense and permitting the party’s finances are sufficient. This has been an ongoing project for the last two years and recently we have been given some interesting options. With interest rates as low as they are, the RPT can buy a building that has more space than what we currently use for a total monthly cost lower than what we pay in rent now. In addition, purchasing a building allows us to build up equity and an asset which can always be refinanced in an emergency in order to improve the cash flow of the party. In the event it is unnecessary to draw on the equity of a building the Party still has the advantage of eventually paying off the building and substantially reducing its monthly costs by saving on rent. Several other states own their own building as does the National Party. I will continue to explore this option throughout the remainder of my term.
Upon my return from the RNC meetings in Charlotte, I had a busy week of meetings in the final week of January, including visits with Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, Senator Estes, Supreme Court Justice Jeff Boyd, as well as former State Rep and Senate candidate Mark Shelton. I also had a chance to meet with several leaders regarding minority outreach and had numerous interviews with the media during the month of January regarding the party’s outreach efforts. During the last week I also had the opportunity to attend Governor Perry’s State of the State address where he outlined an ambitious program for tax relief, infrastructure improvements, comprehensive water plan, and a constitutional amendment to control the growth of spending. The Party is committed to working for these issues as well as to continue to push for a bill that will allow the Texas GOP to determine how it allocates its national convention delegates in a way that would maximize Texas’ effect on the Presidential Primary process. At the end of the month I attended a press conference with Congressman Roger Williams and Travis County GOP Chair Rosemary Edwards at McBride's Gun Shop in Austin supporting second amendment rights and opposing efforts to prevent citizens from having the ability to purchase weapons to protect their family.
On the financial front we ended the month of January with a little over $950,000 in cash in all accounts with approximately $840,000 in useable discretionary funds. We expect our cash balance to significantly decline over the coming months as no fundraisers are scheduled for approximately the next two months, but hopefully we can replenish some of the cash as a result of our annual fundraiser on March 26. As we have for the last for the past 27 months, we ended the month with zero liabilities.
As a result of party switchers, we now have 801 more elected officials than 4 years ago, and 221 more elected officials as compared to 2010. Despite this success we are taking nothing for granted especially in light of the Democrats announcing that, with the backing of Obama’s campaign team, they have started a new group (Battleground Texas) on the other side that pledges to spend tens of millions of dollars intended to make Texas a competitive state by 2016. There is no doubt that the Democrats are targeting Texas as evidenced by the fact that Organizing for Action, and now Battleground Texas, have all recently been active in the state. Texas has 38 electoral votes and will have an estimated 42 after the next census. This means that if you switch Texas from the Republican to the Democrat column it will have a net effect of 76 electoral votes now and 84 in the future. It is hard to imagine how the Republican Party will win the White House if Texas is not in the Republican column. Thus, as goes Texas goes the rest of the nation. It is clear our work is cut out for us and that the Nation’s success depends on our success. I hope everyone’s New Year’s resolution is to work hard so as to not allow the Democrats goals to come to fruition. It is up to us.
Stephen Munisteri, Chairman
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