Does the Collin County GOP need marriage counseling?

Friends and Neighbors,

Here is a copy of a letter I sent to my fellow precinct chairs.

Fellow Chairs,
Some volunteers have attended the CC GOP executive committee (EC) meetings and have been surprised at the conflict during the meetings.  They talk to me about it.  A visitor cannot begin to understand what is happening or why it is happening.  Some of the precinct chairs (PCs) in attendance, who do not understand Roberts Rules of Order, do not understand what is happening or why.  The meetings have taken on the appearance of a postal chess game, where the moves are complex but happen slowly.  First, I am going to give some "big picture" background by analogy to begin to explain what is happening and why.  Then I will explain some details of what has happened.  Be patient with me, please.

The analogy I am making is based on the Protestant Reformation.  You see, Martin Luther read the Bible and discovered that people are saved by their faith in Christ and not by the power of the church establishment, the Roman Catholic Church at that time.  This understanding of the Bible led to the Protestant Reformation, which led to the Scientific Revolution, which led to the Industrial Revolution,   Huge changes, you see, came about from reading and understanding.

Many volunteers were drawn to the Republican Party by Trump.  In our training we were told that we precinct chairs are essentially free block walkers for candidates.  But some of us read the rules of the CC GOP, and we read Roberts Rules of Order, and we read the Texas Election Code, and we discovered that the county party chair is not our boss.  We discovered that we PCs in the EC are a deliberative body that makes decisions and sets policy.  The Trump activists want to win elections.  The EC voted to create a Candidate's Committee in order to evaluate and endorse candidates in municipal elections because the city charters do not permit us to have a Republican Primary in city elections. By endorsing candidates, voters have suggestions from the party on who to vote for.  The Democratic Party was endorsing their candidates and we wanted to do the same.  I have heard new voters yell during municipal elections, "Where are the Rs"?   We wanted to help our voters with suggestions.  We have new precinct chairs and they need to hear our history, so be patient if you know all of this.

Then EC voted to create a GOTV (Get Out the Vote) committee to help our endorsed candidates in the municipal elections.  The GOTV committee, during last year's election for the Collin College Board of Trustees, made a motion that was passed by the EC to provide "in kind" support for our two candidates in that runoff election, and we won the runoff in a landslide.  Notice that it was a GOTV committee member who made the motion, then the EC that passed the motion that led us to victory.  The EC made the decision and directed the party chair to carry out that decision which led to victory in this race.

The Republican Party of Texas (RPT) also endorses candidates in municipal elections, but the RPT waits for a request from the county party before endorsing.  In our case, a local person in the Republican Party who holds the position of SD8 SREC Committeeman used a new rule to veto our request for endorsements, and the municipal elections in May 2023 were probably the worst in the history of the CC GOP.   

The EC expressed its displeasure with the SD8 SREC Committeeman for vetoing our request for an RPT endorsement, and in the June 12, 2023, meeting, a motion was passed that asked the SD8 SREC Committeeman to resign, which he refused to do.  Was it  just a coincidence that the following EC meeting on July 10, 2023 was shut down by the county chair, Abraham George?  Much work that was planned for the meeting was called “out of order,” and then the meeting was dismissed abruptly by the chair, without a motion to adjourn.  It seemed as though the chair was punishing the EC for asking the SD8 SREC Committeeman to resign.

The EC members went back to read the rule books and discovered that if the party chair wrongly calls our business "out of order", then we can challenge the ruling of the chair.  When the EC members in the August 7, 2023 meeting challenged the ruling of the chair, the party chair became hostile, at one point Abraham George yelled at a lady, "You cannot out bully a bully!"  That was shocking.  The chair actually described himself as a bully.  This meeting was very disorderly because the chair seemed to be losing his temper and improperly used secret ballots to run the clock out on the meeting.  For the 2nd month in a row, the party chair prevented us from accomplishing our work

Then in the next month, in September, the party chairman cancelled the meeting for that month.  Now that the EC learned that it could challenge the ruling of the chair, it seemed as though the party chair was creating an Abraham faction within the party that would vote to support his rulings regardless of the issues.  People were coming up to me and saying, "I stand with Abraham."  It was very strange.  Meanwhile, we had been waiting for months to vote to endorse Republican candidates in the Princeton municipal elections.  

Finally, in the Monday October 9, 2023 EC meeting, Abraham George resigns to run for office, for HD89, and we finally get a chance to vote to endorse the Republicans in the Princeton races.   Later, the EC members from Princeton who got the CC GOP and the RPT endorsements reported that voters came into the polls carrying slate cards that showed the CC GOP and the RPT endorsement logos.  They believed the endorsements helped them win their races in Princeton.

There did seem to be a conflict between the EC on one hand, which wanted to be more competitive with the Democrats, and the party chair and the SD8 SREC Committeeman on the other hand, who did not want us to be endorsing in local elections.

Abraham George was a decent party chair until that month in which the EC asked the SD8 SREC Committeeman to resign.  After that, the party chair appeared to wage war against the EC until he resigned.  The party has been fractured ever since.

Perhaps some of the PCs are sore at the changes made by the newcomers.  The creation of new committees and changes to local elections might not sit well with some people.  Maybe the party does need to bring in someone like a marriage counselor to help the two sides talk to each other and patch up the differences.

Akira Kurosawa made a film named "Rashomon" where the audience is shown an event.  Then that event is seen through the eyes of all the people present, and we discover that they all had different recollections of what they saw.  You might very well remember the events differently than I remember them, but I did run my recollections past a few people to double check my memory.

There is more to say, like improvements to how the two sides interact during the EC meetings, but this email is long enough.  That is a subject for another email.  I hope that this email sheds some light on what has been happening in the CC GOP.  I hope that we can eventually patch things up and work together.

The important take-away is that we have people dedicated to helping the CC GOP win elections and willing to work hard to make that happen.  Whatever divide we have in the party, there are good people on each side of the divide.

Thank you for your patience.  The details go back almost a year.  I hope this explanation is helpful as a starting point for working together in a better fashion.

Robert