SREC Reports
SREC 4th Quarter 2023 Report
The State Republican Executive Committee convened last weekend in Austin for our quarterly meeting, and we wanted to pass on the highlights and important information to y’all. No particular order.
Financial
We are both honored to serve on the Officials Committee which met three times to review and approve the 2024 budget to be voted on by the entire SREC at the General Meeting this past Saturday. RPT is in good shape compared to previous years at this point in the cycle. Our cash balance is more than double what it was last year. We also approved an operational budget for 2024 that was fairly consistent with 2023 other than inflation. We have seen a drop off in small donations throughout the year, and that has been seen all across politics and not-for-profits (thanks Bideneconomics!); there have been multiple articles about left-leaning organizations closing or laying off staff because of it. RPT has been fortunate to have the gap filled by donations from large, conservative leaning groups and individuals.
Victory
RPT is partnering with the Ted Cruz campaign and will receive a percentage of all funds he raises for his campaign which will be used for Victory efforts in 2024. We are also moving election integrity under Victory, as that will enable us to continue funding this program throughout 2024. (last year it was funded specifically--outside of operations-- by 2 big donors). Alex Mealer of Houston will be heading up the Victory efforts in ’24.
RNC was there to provide some information about their plans for the general election next year. They will be focusing on 4 states (including EI): Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. For GOTV, it was noted that 86% of white protestant evangelicals voted for Trump in 2020; 64% of white Catholics voted for Trump in 2020. There is a belief from Toni Ann Dasheill (incumbent RNC Committeewoman since 2013) that if we can increase those numbers it will ensure more Republican success. Unfortunately there was no discussion from her of RNC efforts to increase GOTV activity in other areas.
Convention
Planning for the 2024 RPT Convention in San Antonio is going very well! We are well ahead of where we were 2 & 4 years ago for contracting, logistics, etc.; fundraising for the convention hasn’t really started in earnest as that usually picks up after New Year. However, Lt. Governor Patrick and Comptroller Hegar have both already committed to sponsoring, and Patriot Mobile will also be a main sponsor as was the case in 2022. Shout out to Gaylyn DeVine, (SD-11) for chairing this team effort! And to Chairman Rinaldi for appointing a committee this year rather than putting one person in charge as has been done in the past. Many hands make light work!
Reminder: 2028 RNC Convention will be in Houston.
SREC Elections
We had an unusually large number of vacancies since 3 members stepped up to run for office (we also suffered the tragic death of 1 member). Newly elected members are:
SD-3:Chris Breaux (returning); SD-19: Robert Cascias; SD-20: Melissa Knerr; and in SD-22 our own Leslie Thomas (returning). Leslie had represented SD-23 in the past.
Resolutions
The Resolution to censure Dade Phelan was approved in Committee, but due to notification requirements was not brought to the whole SREC. Chairman Rinaldi is expected to call a special session for this, probably in January.
We passed two very strong resolutions—1 condemning Hamas and supporting Israel and 1 condemning anti-Semitism. There were some attempts to hijack the latter resolution by adding unrelated amendments but those efforts were defeated. Here is the link to those, if you want to read:
https://texasgop.org/supporting-israel/
https://texasgop.org/combatting-antisemitism/
Party Organization
As Chair of Party Organization for the RPT, Susan and the Committee have finalized the 2023 Precinct Chair Handbook and will be distributing that to our Precinct Chairs in the next few days. We also completed the Handbook for our fellow SREC Members and will begin working on the County Chair Handbook in January. We stressed how important it is for all County Chairman across Texas to begin engaging their districts with training for precinct chairs to get out the vote for 2024; and to recruit and train election workers and poll watchers to counter-effect any election fraud. The strongest weapon against election fraud is having a trained Republican presence in every voting location in your county!
Other issues
A group called the Texas Young Republican Federation, which had been associated with RPT for a little while, elected to disassociate from RPT over personal and social issues. Much like has happened with various protestant churches, many of its members disagreed with the change in direction being taken by the newly elected leaders of the state and national groups and have split off, forming a new group called Young Republicans of Texas (YRT). The YRT’s are socially conservative as well as fiscally conservative, and quickly began forming new chapters across the state. They asked to affiliate with RPT and were accepted last quarter.
In response, the Fed YR’s have begun to conduct a lawfare campaign against the new group by suing its leadership in their individual capacity. Rep. Hunter Bonnen and Rhonda Anderson, a former staffer for Gov. Abbott and former SREC member from SD-1, filed affidavits in support of the lawsuits. Most of their assertions have already been dismissed for lack of merit.
Some of the SREC members that side with the Fed YR’s attempted to dissolve the Partners & Coalition Committee over this issue, (which would have denied every group---including TFRW—affiliation) but thankfully that effort was also defeated.
There is a Democrat group called Indivisible that is increasingly active in Texas. Please look them up online to familiarize yourself with their tactics.
As always, if you have any questions about what’s going on at the state level or about Convention, please feel free to reach out to your SREC representative, or either of us; we all help each other in Dallas County.
Matt Patrick--SREC Committeeman, SD-16
Susan Fountain--SREC Committeewoman, SD-16
