As you can see on the revised menu on the right side of our home page, we now have posted excerpts from a speech Ronald Reagan gave in early 1977. The speech was one of a series of speeches he gave that year in which he outlined his vision for what he called the New Republican Party, in which social conservatives would join with economic conservatives and traditional Republicans to create a majority party. The plan focused on uniting and expanding the party into the middle class and minority communities based on shared principles, and envisioned a party of inclusion not exclusion.
Many people have asked me to explain the vision behind the plan we have proposed for the HCRP. It’s not new or revolutionary. Instead, it is grounded in this vision Ronald Reagan (along with Jack Kemp and others) first championed a generation ago.
Lots of people want to wear Reagan’s mantle, bask in the glow of his rhetoric, and claim to be Reaganesque in their approach to politics. Unfortunately, few people really remember all that he stood for, and all that he hoped to accomplish.
So, please take time to visit the posting of Reagan’s speech and read those excerpts. Once you do, I hope you will see the similarities between the times he faced and the plan he proposed, and the times we now face and the plan we now propose. In summary, what we want to accomplish is nothing short of finally implementing Reagan’s vision for a New Republican Party—and starting that process here in Harris County.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Culberson's SOS: We must respond!
If you were logged onto either Facebook or Twitter last night, you may have received a distress call like I did—like an SOS signal over a telegraph, a Mayday call from a ship or plane, or the an air-raid siren over London two generations ago. However, the source of this distress call came from an unusual victim: one of our local Republican Congressmen, John Culberson. As surprising as that source might be, if you care about liberty, free speech, and the future of our two-party system, the call was as dire as any you could imagine. You can read the series of message on Congressman Culberson's Twitter page.
As many of you know who have followed Representative Culberson’s exploits since the Democrats seized control of Congress in 2006, he has been a constant agitator for sunshine and disclosure in a chamber that increasingly is trying to cloak its work in secrecy. He has constantly challenged Speaker Pelosi’s strategy of burying legislators under reams of paper that no one could read and comprehend in a decade, let alone in the hours that House members are now given to absorb the content of what they are voting on—the content of policies that will change the nature of the federal governments reach and power for decades to come. Truly, Culberson’s has been a voice in the wilderness.
But no one could have imagined that Pelosi truly intended Culberson to be thrown into a wilderness where he could no longer be free to speak to his constituency. That, in essence, is what Culberson was trying to warn us about in those distress calls last night. The Speaker now is censoring everything he is trying to write to his constituents under the threat that he will no longer be able to use the mailing privileges of a House member if he continues to speak his mind in such writings. This is appalling, and it must not stand. We must answer this distress call with action.
At the very least, for now we must do what Congressman Culberson asked us to do in his last message: “Bombard Pelosi & House leadership; let the sun shine in; post all bills online for 72 hrs bf vote, open debate/amendments & end censorship!” To broadcast this message, I ask the current leadership team of the HCRP at Richmond Avenue to use the fruits from the new social-networking training programs, the new Rapid Response program, and the party email system, not to toot your own horn, but to alert Republicans to Culberson’s plight and how to respond. To Republican bloggers and talk-show hosts, flood the airwaves with Culberson’s distress call, and demand the Speaker to stop. To the Tea Partiers, 9/12 organizers and other grassroots conservatives, make your voices heard on this issue.
Above all else, let this be a wake-up call—as if we needed any more wake-up calls—to the realization that elections matter; that seeking change for the sake of change has consequences; and that ceding power to those who see no danger in the accumulation and exercise of power in a centralized authority will ultimately lead to the loss of the liberties we cherish. If a Congressman’s First Amendment right to political speech can be censored, whose speech, and whose liberty is safe? Republicans, we must unite, we must expand, we must organize, and we must win in the next elections—there is no alternative to taking back our country!
Listen to this distress call, and act!
As many of you know who have followed Representative Culberson’s exploits since the Democrats seized control of Congress in 2006, he has been a constant agitator for sunshine and disclosure in a chamber that increasingly is trying to cloak its work in secrecy. He has constantly challenged Speaker Pelosi’s strategy of burying legislators under reams of paper that no one could read and comprehend in a decade, let alone in the hours that House members are now given to absorb the content of what they are voting on—the content of policies that will change the nature of the federal governments reach and power for decades to come. Truly, Culberson’s has been a voice in the wilderness.
But no one could have imagined that Pelosi truly intended Culberson to be thrown into a wilderness where he could no longer be free to speak to his constituency. That, in essence, is what Culberson was trying to warn us about in those distress calls last night. The Speaker now is censoring everything he is trying to write to his constituents under the threat that he will no longer be able to use the mailing privileges of a House member if he continues to speak his mind in such writings. This is appalling, and it must not stand. We must answer this distress call with action.
At the very least, for now we must do what Congressman Culberson asked us to do in his last message: “Bombard Pelosi & House leadership; let the sun shine in; post all bills online for 72 hrs bf vote, open debate/amendments & end censorship!” To broadcast this message, I ask the current leadership team of the HCRP at Richmond Avenue to use the fruits from the new social-networking training programs, the new Rapid Response program, and the party email system, not to toot your own horn, but to alert Republicans to Culberson’s plight and how to respond. To Republican bloggers and talk-show hosts, flood the airwaves with Culberson’s distress call, and demand the Speaker to stop. To the Tea Partiers, 9/12 organizers and other grassroots conservatives, make your voices heard on this issue.
Above all else, let this be a wake-up call—as if we needed any more wake-up calls—to the realization that elections matter; that seeking change for the sake of change has consequences; and that ceding power to those who see no danger in the accumulation and exercise of power in a centralized authority will ultimately lead to the loss of the liberties we cherish. If a Congressman’s First Amendment right to political speech can be censored, whose speech, and whose liberty is safe? Republicans, we must unite, we must expand, we must organize, and we must win in the next elections—there is no alternative to taking back our country!
Listen to this distress call, and act!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Flattening the HCRP organization
The reality local Republicans face as we head into the 2010 election season is that, even if we have a perfect message and perfect candidates, if we don’t modernize the way the HCRP functions we will have a difficult time defeating the Democrats in Harris County. Much of the strategic plan I’ve proposed deals with this need to modernize the way we do business.
For the last half-century, successful organizations across the planet have changed the way they are structured in order to flatten their management, streamline their communications, and shorten the delivery time of their goods and services. Over the last decade, the Democratic Party at all levels implemented some of these ideas to be more effective at identifying Democratic voters, mobilizing them, and getting them to the polls. You could say that while the rest of the world has adopted the organization and leadership models of Drucker and Deming, the GOP has clung to the General Motors model—and we all know what happened to GM. It is time for the GOP to modernize, and we need to start here in Harris County.
Unfortunately, the plan the current team at Richmond Avenue has developed for the HCRP after seven years in office is not adequate. Regardless of many superficial similarities between the current HCRP plan being described at Townhall meetings and the plan posted on this website, there is a conflict of visions at the core of these plans, which will dramatically affect their implementation and effectiveness.
The incumbent’s plan continues to depend on the outdated, top-down, pyramidal organizational structure used in industry prior to 1960, which concentrates more responsibility in fewer hands, and which has been abandoned by virtually every other organization in the industrialized world. It depends on information and instructions flowing from the Chair and Senate District Chairs at the top of the pyramid down to the block captains, which means that action at the block and neighborhood level is completely dependent on action at each level of the pyramid. All along this type of process there are opportunities for bottlenecks that can impede the flow of information and instruction all the way down the chain of command. Bottlenecks eventually lead to inaction where it is needed—at the grassroots level. At the heart of this plan is a vision of our party that sees it comprised of a few shepherds and a lot of sheep—even among our Precinct Chairs, who themselves are elected officials. Besides being outdated and inadequate, the vision at the heart of this plan misreads the historic dynamic of the Republican Party.
Republicans are not, and never have been, sheep. We are a party of shepherds, not sheep. Appreciating this dynamic, the plan we have proposed creates a flexible structure that presses action and responsibility all the way down to the precinct and community levels, in order to capitalize on the remarkable creativity and energy of our activists. By building flexibility and autonomy into the organization, bottlenecks will be avoided. Avoiding bottlenecks will unleash the creativity and energy at our grassroots, which we will need in the upcoming election cycles to build the party and elect our candidates.
The structure we are proposing really involves a series of semi-autonomous and empowered structures. Each group will have a defined sphere of responsibility: the Director (or Vice Chair) for Campaign Support will have responsibility for the entire county, and will focus primarily on countywide races, countywide recruitment and training, and the coordination of volunteers from affiliate clubs; each Senate District Chair will have responsibility for the races in their respective Senate and legislative districts; each District Chair will have responsibility for the races and precincts in their legislative District; each precinct chair will have responsibility to mobilize the activists in their precincts; and each community representative will have responsibility to mobilize candidates and activists for the municipal, school board and utility district elections in their communities. While the Precinct Chairs are the lieutenants for mobilizing the partisan election turnout, the community representatives are the lieutenants in a separate branch of the party, who will work through the coordination of the Director (Vice Chair) for Campaign Support to focus on the non-partisan races and issues, and to help the Director (Vice Chair) for Outreach with outreach efforts.
At the center of each of these structures is its leader, who must listen to input from each member of the group, and then develop and communicate decisions to each member of the group. Policy and strategy will be set at the Director/Vice-Chair level with input from the Senate District Chairs and the HCRP officers, and the Director/Vice-Chair will directly manage the mobilization of the clubs and the community representatives. Each leader of the other groups will get input directly from one member of another sphere, and from the candidates with races in their sphere. Then the leader will manage the work of a group of activists.
Communications between and among leaders of each group and level, and with and among candidates, will be facilitated and encouraged through a secure intranet accessible by password from the HCRP’s website. A failure or bottleneck in one of these groups can be isolated and managed without threatening the effectiveness of the entire party or in an entire area of the county; as opposed to the pyramid structure, in which a bottleneck at any level above the grassroots could impede the effectiveness of the entire party, or in a large area of the county.
The Precinct Chair will mobilize and work with two groups of activists—the community representatives and the block captains—in order to identify Republican voters and get them to the polls. Coordination among the Precinct Chairs throughout the county will be maintained through the meetings of the Executive Committee, through communications on the secure intranet, and through periodic meetings and training sessions. By focusing the Precinct Chair role on mobilization, it frees each Precinct Chair to innovate, and gives each one more time to participate in the governance of the party through the Executive Committee.
This model, when implemented, will give each person in the organization a greater level of autonomy and ability to innovate, and provide them with greater access to information, while narrowing the focus of their positions to make their work more effective. In time, restructuring the organization to reward the creativity and leadership skills of our grassroots activists also will help the party recruit more Precinct Chairs.
This model will work only if we recognize and accept that everyone within the HCRP is a leader—a shepherd; and that with such leadership comes responsibility—ultimately, the responsibility to get our candidates elected.
For the last half-century, successful organizations across the planet have changed the way they are structured in order to flatten their management, streamline their communications, and shorten the delivery time of their goods and services. Over the last decade, the Democratic Party at all levels implemented some of these ideas to be more effective at identifying Democratic voters, mobilizing them, and getting them to the polls. You could say that while the rest of the world has adopted the organization and leadership models of Drucker and Deming, the GOP has clung to the General Motors model—and we all know what happened to GM. It is time for the GOP to modernize, and we need to start here in Harris County.
Unfortunately, the plan the current team at Richmond Avenue has developed for the HCRP after seven years in office is not adequate. Regardless of many superficial similarities between the current HCRP plan being described at Townhall meetings and the plan posted on this website, there is a conflict of visions at the core of these plans, which will dramatically affect their implementation and effectiveness.
The incumbent’s plan continues to depend on the outdated, top-down, pyramidal organizational structure used in industry prior to 1960, which concentrates more responsibility in fewer hands, and which has been abandoned by virtually every other organization in the industrialized world. It depends on information and instructions flowing from the Chair and Senate District Chairs at the top of the pyramid down to the block captains, which means that action at the block and neighborhood level is completely dependent on action at each level of the pyramid. All along this type of process there are opportunities for bottlenecks that can impede the flow of information and instruction all the way down the chain of command. Bottlenecks eventually lead to inaction where it is needed—at the grassroots level. At the heart of this plan is a vision of our party that sees it comprised of a few shepherds and a lot of sheep—even among our Precinct Chairs, who themselves are elected officials. Besides being outdated and inadequate, the vision at the heart of this plan misreads the historic dynamic of the Republican Party.
Republicans are not, and never have been, sheep. We are a party of shepherds, not sheep. Appreciating this dynamic, the plan we have proposed creates a flexible structure that presses action and responsibility all the way down to the precinct and community levels, in order to capitalize on the remarkable creativity and energy of our activists. By building flexibility and autonomy into the organization, bottlenecks will be avoided. Avoiding bottlenecks will unleash the creativity and energy at our grassroots, which we will need in the upcoming election cycles to build the party and elect our candidates.
The structure we are proposing really involves a series of semi-autonomous and empowered structures. Each group will have a defined sphere of responsibility: the Director (or Vice Chair) for Campaign Support will have responsibility for the entire county, and will focus primarily on countywide races, countywide recruitment and training, and the coordination of volunteers from affiliate clubs; each Senate District Chair will have responsibility for the races in their respective Senate and legislative districts; each District Chair will have responsibility for the races and precincts in their legislative District; each precinct chair will have responsibility to mobilize the activists in their precincts; and each community representative will have responsibility to mobilize candidates and activists for the municipal, school board and utility district elections in their communities. While the Precinct Chairs are the lieutenants for mobilizing the partisan election turnout, the community representatives are the lieutenants in a separate branch of the party, who will work through the coordination of the Director (Vice Chair) for Campaign Support to focus on the non-partisan races and issues, and to help the Director (Vice Chair) for Outreach with outreach efforts.
At the center of each of these structures is its leader, who must listen to input from each member of the group, and then develop and communicate decisions to each member of the group. Policy and strategy will be set at the Director/Vice-Chair level with input from the Senate District Chairs and the HCRP officers, and the Director/Vice-Chair will directly manage the mobilization of the clubs and the community representatives. Each leader of the other groups will get input directly from one member of another sphere, and from the candidates with races in their sphere. Then the leader will manage the work of a group of activists.
Communications between and among leaders of each group and level, and with and among candidates, will be facilitated and encouraged through a secure intranet accessible by password from the HCRP’s website. A failure or bottleneck in one of these groups can be isolated and managed without threatening the effectiveness of the entire party or in an entire area of the county; as opposed to the pyramid structure, in which a bottleneck at any level above the grassroots could impede the effectiveness of the entire party, or in a large area of the county.
The Precinct Chair will mobilize and work with two groups of activists—the community representatives and the block captains—in order to identify Republican voters and get them to the polls. Coordination among the Precinct Chairs throughout the county will be maintained through the meetings of the Executive Committee, through communications on the secure intranet, and through periodic meetings and training sessions. By focusing the Precinct Chair role on mobilization, it frees each Precinct Chair to innovate, and gives each one more time to participate in the governance of the party through the Executive Committee.
This model, when implemented, will give each person in the organization a greater level of autonomy and ability to innovate, and provide them with greater access to information, while narrowing the focus of their positions to make their work more effective. In time, restructuring the organization to reward the creativity and leadership skills of our grassroots activists also will help the party recruit more Precinct Chairs.
This model will work only if we recognize and accept that everyone within the HCRP is a leader—a shepherd; and that with such leadership comes responsibility—ultimately, the responsibility to get our candidates elected.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Matching the Message with the Messenger
At a recent meeting with concerned local Republicans, one person kept asking me how we can fix a widely-perceived problem with our party: the gap between the principles shared at the grassroots of our party, and the policies actually championed by Republican elected officials (primarily at the national level). This perceived gap lies at the heart of our party’s credibility problem with our own voters, and with independents, and we must address it if we are to win elections in the future.
What holds the Republican Party together is a set of shared principles about the role of the individual in society, and about the proper and limited role of government in our lives. However, the purpose of the Republican Party (like any other political party on the planet) is not to serve as a debating society or an advocacy group for these principles; it is to elect candidates to public office who will promote our principles in public policy. So, I think the first step in answering this question is to re-phrase it: how do we find, promote, and elect candidates who will promote our principles in public policy.
There is no silver-bullet answer to this question, but I believe we can begin a process, consistent with the strategic plan I’ve proposed, that will address this question. However, before I get to that point, I want to address the current approach that is being taken by the HCRP and why I don’t think it will solve this problem.
The current team at Richmond Avenue is taking a two-pronged approach: 1. they are allowing a group of precinct chairs and activists to use questionnaires, which are designed to identify specific platform planks people support, for the purpose of opposing candidates in our primary or excluding people from becoming precinct chairs; and 2. they are using the party email system, “rapid response” program, and social-networking sites to criticize fellow Republicans, including Republican elected officials. These approaches do nothing to build-up the party in the public’s mind. Narrowing our base and belittling our party’s elected officials is not going to help us win elections. Instead, this approach will only continue to agitate Republicans and drive many people away from the party over time.
The better approach is to first realize that the gap is caused by a systemic problem within the party, and then to address that problem focusing on communication, self-interest, competition, and culture.
First, we must begin to open a dialogue between our elected officials and our party leaders, activists and voters, in order to begin to harmonize the desires of our party with the issues faced by our elected officials on a daily basis in the process of administering their offices. The more we all understand each other, the easier it will be to help each other form and pursue policies consistent with our principles, and to support our officials as they face the daily challenges of their offices. If the only contact we ever have is a brief handshake during the months leading to an election, we can not hope to bridge the gap. This first step is so important to the future success of our party that I will elaborate on it in another post next week, in which I will outline specific ways the HCRP should facilitate this new process of communication.
Second, the HCRP must help create a positive atmosphere in which it will be in our elected officials’ self-interest to pursue our principles in public policy. By implementing the objectives of our proposed plan (including developing a supporting message, raising our own funds to finance our own operations to help get-out-the-vote efforts, and establishing permanent relationships and party infrastructure in every community and precinct), the party will create a broader base of like-minded supporters who will want our principles reflected in public policy. In turn, the need and desire to get the votes of this broader base should create incentives for our elected officials to pursue policies this broader base will support. If we believe incentives work in other aspects of our lives, let’s create incentives for our elected officials, too.
Third, just as we believe in incentives, we Republicans also believe in the positive consequences of competition. However, we distrust competition when it comes to our primary system. It’s time to embrace competitive primaries, by keeping the HCRP scrupulously neutral. That means opening the non-financial resources of the party to any candidate who qualifies to be on the GOP primary ballot, letting the campaign process determine the winner, and then embracing the supporters of the winner and the loser(s) into the party after the primary. If we think competition is good for our economy and our schools, we should use the threat of competition to improve the quality and effectiveness of our candidates and officeholders.
Finally, we need to address the culture of our party. Since the nomination of the famous explorer, John C. Fremont, as the first Republican presidential candidate in 1856, the pool of activists who sustain the party at the grassroots, the pool of activists who fundraise for the party, and the pool of people who run for office, have been drawn from separate and distinct groups, whose members rarely interact with each other. This is as true today in Harris County as it has ever been any where else in the country.
To change this culture, we need to break-down the walls that separate these groups. First, we need to expand our pool of activists: at the precinct level, by filling the hundreds of open precinct chair positions, and separately recruiting election judges and block captains; and, at the community level, by recruiting more people to run for the hundreds of local non-partisan offices at the municipal and school board level. Second, we need to create more interaction between this expanded grassroots base, our fundraisers, and those groups who have traditionally recruited our candidates. Once we’ve established a greater level of interaction, we then need to begin recruiting more candidates for higher office from the expanded grassroots base. This change in culture is a long-term project; but, if it is ever going to happen, we need to start the process now.
So, the answer to the gap is to start now to improve communication, to create incentives to fuel self-interest, to embrace competition, and to begin to change the culture of the party. This process will not fix the gap over night, but it will begin to narrow the gap quickly. As the process unfolds, we will then see the message match the messenger.
What holds the Republican Party together is a set of shared principles about the role of the individual in society, and about the proper and limited role of government in our lives. However, the purpose of the Republican Party (like any other political party on the planet) is not to serve as a debating society or an advocacy group for these principles; it is to elect candidates to public office who will promote our principles in public policy. So, I think the first step in answering this question is to re-phrase it: how do we find, promote, and elect candidates who will promote our principles in public policy.
There is no silver-bullet answer to this question, but I believe we can begin a process, consistent with the strategic plan I’ve proposed, that will address this question. However, before I get to that point, I want to address the current approach that is being taken by the HCRP and why I don’t think it will solve this problem.
The current team at Richmond Avenue is taking a two-pronged approach: 1. they are allowing a group of precinct chairs and activists to use questionnaires, which are designed to identify specific platform planks people support, for the purpose of opposing candidates in our primary or excluding people from becoming precinct chairs; and 2. they are using the party email system, “rapid response” program, and social-networking sites to criticize fellow Republicans, including Republican elected officials. These approaches do nothing to build-up the party in the public’s mind. Narrowing our base and belittling our party’s elected officials is not going to help us win elections. Instead, this approach will only continue to agitate Republicans and drive many people away from the party over time.
The better approach is to first realize that the gap is caused by a systemic problem within the party, and then to address that problem focusing on communication, self-interest, competition, and culture.
First, we must begin to open a dialogue between our elected officials and our party leaders, activists and voters, in order to begin to harmonize the desires of our party with the issues faced by our elected officials on a daily basis in the process of administering their offices. The more we all understand each other, the easier it will be to help each other form and pursue policies consistent with our principles, and to support our officials as they face the daily challenges of their offices. If the only contact we ever have is a brief handshake during the months leading to an election, we can not hope to bridge the gap. This first step is so important to the future success of our party that I will elaborate on it in another post next week, in which I will outline specific ways the HCRP should facilitate this new process of communication.
Second, the HCRP must help create a positive atmosphere in which it will be in our elected officials’ self-interest to pursue our principles in public policy. By implementing the objectives of our proposed plan (including developing a supporting message, raising our own funds to finance our own operations to help get-out-the-vote efforts, and establishing permanent relationships and party infrastructure in every community and precinct), the party will create a broader base of like-minded supporters who will want our principles reflected in public policy. In turn, the need and desire to get the votes of this broader base should create incentives for our elected officials to pursue policies this broader base will support. If we believe incentives work in other aspects of our lives, let’s create incentives for our elected officials, too.
Third, just as we believe in incentives, we Republicans also believe in the positive consequences of competition. However, we distrust competition when it comes to our primary system. It’s time to embrace competitive primaries, by keeping the HCRP scrupulously neutral. That means opening the non-financial resources of the party to any candidate who qualifies to be on the GOP primary ballot, letting the campaign process determine the winner, and then embracing the supporters of the winner and the loser(s) into the party after the primary. If we think competition is good for our economy and our schools, we should use the threat of competition to improve the quality and effectiveness of our candidates and officeholders.
Finally, we need to address the culture of our party. Since the nomination of the famous explorer, John C. Fremont, as the first Republican presidential candidate in 1856, the pool of activists who sustain the party at the grassroots, the pool of activists who fundraise for the party, and the pool of people who run for office, have been drawn from separate and distinct groups, whose members rarely interact with each other. This is as true today in Harris County as it has ever been any where else in the country.
To change this culture, we need to break-down the walls that separate these groups. First, we need to expand our pool of activists: at the precinct level, by filling the hundreds of open precinct chair positions, and separately recruiting election judges and block captains; and, at the community level, by recruiting more people to run for the hundreds of local non-partisan offices at the municipal and school board level. Second, we need to create more interaction between this expanded grassroots base, our fundraisers, and those groups who have traditionally recruited our candidates. Once we’ve established a greater level of interaction, we then need to begin recruiting more candidates for higher office from the expanded grassroots base. This change in culture is a long-term project; but, if it is ever going to happen, we need to start the process now.
So, the answer to the gap is to start now to improve communication, to create incentives to fuel self-interest, to embrace competition, and to begin to change the culture of the party. This process will not fix the gap over night, but it will begin to narrow the gap quickly. As the process unfolds, we will then see the message match the messenger.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Let's not just stop health-care reform, let's fight for a private alternative!
The Health Care debate is now on the political center stage.
Besides enduring the President’s long-winded answers during last night’s press conference, local Republicans have received two emails over the last 48 hours about this issue from the Montgomery County Republican Party and the Harris County Republican Party Chair. While the Montgomery email was concise and focused, and directed the reader to Congressmen and their phone numbers in order to call with objections, the HCRP email was a rambling 650+ word editorial ending with a request for money. Both carried the same message, though: Just say "no" to the current legislation. While I agree with my fellow Republicans that we should do all we can to stop this legislation, we can’t just end this debate by embracing the status quo.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what the HCRP advocates in its email. Chairman Woodfill summarized this position perfectly when he wrote the following: "By controlling the money, the government, not your insurance company, will be the ultimate decision maker." The problem with the status quo is that we already have ceded our liberty over health care decisions to a middleman (our insurer), which, in exchange for giving us a small co-pay and for relieving us of a lot of paperwork, controls our money and ultimate decision-making.
My argument is very simple: neither the insurance bureaucracy, nor a government bureaucracy should control your money or your health-care decisions--you should. The only way to make the system affordable, accessible, and private, is to put control of medical transactions into the hands of the patient and the provider, and reduce the role of any middleman--government or insurance--to subsidizing catastrophic risk through insurance or a safety net. Preferably the primary role of managing catastrophic risk would remain within the insurance industry so that premium income will still be invested in the private economy. Even Medicaid and Medicare could be folded into this system by changing the system of direct reimbursement to providers to a system of providing medical accounts to individuals and using tax dollars to pay premiums to private insurers for catastrophic coverage. Coupled with effective regulation to enlarge insurance pools, guarantee portability and prohibit denial of coverage, these changes would reduce costs over time without rationing.
Ideas for re-engineering the system into a patient-centered, market-oriented system have existed for decades. Rather than only say "no", our party should take the lead in advancing these alternative ideas. In fact, Michael Steele should call a national conference of Republican leaders and leaders of the health care and pharmaceutical industries now, to hammer-out an alternative to introduce on the floor of the House and the Senate and to use during next year's campaign. Taking this positive approach, coupled with stopping the current rush to further bureaucratize health care, should be the focus of our party at all levels.
At a stop sign, the driver eventually proceeds through the intersection; similarly, if all the GOP does is say "no", the Democrats eventually will succeed in passing their health-care legislation. We need to present a positive alternative in order to truly stop the Democratic agenda.
Finally, I must note that the HCRP has claimed a remarkable turnaround in fundraising since the reporting period ended on June 30th. Though we will not be able to confirm the source of these new funds for months, reliable sources confirm that much of the money was paid to the party by elected officials, including incumbent judges, in response to emphatic pleas for help from Richmond Avenue. Demanding tithes from candidates and elected officials is not fundraising, and ultimately deprives these people of resources they will need to fight their Democratic opponents. This approach must stop. However, now that the party has some money, it should honor its outstanding obligations to third parties that have been delinquent for too long. In short, the current team at Richmond Avenue should focus less on editorializing about a national issue and focus more on “healing thyself”.
Besides enduring the President’s long-winded answers during last night’s press conference, local Republicans have received two emails over the last 48 hours about this issue from the Montgomery County Republican Party and the Harris County Republican Party Chair. While the Montgomery email was concise and focused, and directed the reader to Congressmen and their phone numbers in order to call with objections, the HCRP email was a rambling 650+ word editorial ending with a request for money. Both carried the same message, though: Just say "no" to the current legislation. While I agree with my fellow Republicans that we should do all we can to stop this legislation, we can’t just end this debate by embracing the status quo.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what the HCRP advocates in its email. Chairman Woodfill summarized this position perfectly when he wrote the following: "By controlling the money, the government, not your insurance company, will be the ultimate decision maker." The problem with the status quo is that we already have ceded our liberty over health care decisions to a middleman (our insurer), which, in exchange for giving us a small co-pay and for relieving us of a lot of paperwork, controls our money and ultimate decision-making.
My argument is very simple: neither the insurance bureaucracy, nor a government bureaucracy should control your money or your health-care decisions--you should. The only way to make the system affordable, accessible, and private, is to put control of medical transactions into the hands of the patient and the provider, and reduce the role of any middleman--government or insurance--to subsidizing catastrophic risk through insurance or a safety net. Preferably the primary role of managing catastrophic risk would remain within the insurance industry so that premium income will still be invested in the private economy. Even Medicaid and Medicare could be folded into this system by changing the system of direct reimbursement to providers to a system of providing medical accounts to individuals and using tax dollars to pay premiums to private insurers for catastrophic coverage. Coupled with effective regulation to enlarge insurance pools, guarantee portability and prohibit denial of coverage, these changes would reduce costs over time without rationing.
Ideas for re-engineering the system into a patient-centered, market-oriented system have existed for decades. Rather than only say "no", our party should take the lead in advancing these alternative ideas. In fact, Michael Steele should call a national conference of Republican leaders and leaders of the health care and pharmaceutical industries now, to hammer-out an alternative to introduce on the floor of the House and the Senate and to use during next year's campaign. Taking this positive approach, coupled with stopping the current rush to further bureaucratize health care, should be the focus of our party at all levels.
At a stop sign, the driver eventually proceeds through the intersection; similarly, if all the GOP does is say "no", the Democrats eventually will succeed in passing their health-care legislation. We need to present a positive alternative in order to truly stop the Democratic agenda.
Finally, I must note that the HCRP has claimed a remarkable turnaround in fundraising since the reporting period ended on June 30th. Though we will not be able to confirm the source of these new funds for months, reliable sources confirm that much of the money was paid to the party by elected officials, including incumbent judges, in response to emphatic pleas for help from Richmond Avenue. Demanding tithes from candidates and elected officials is not fundraising, and ultimately deprives these people of resources they will need to fight their Democratic opponents. This approach must stop. However, now that the party has some money, it should honor its outstanding obligations to third parties that have been delinquent for too long. In short, the current team at Richmond Avenue should focus less on editorializing about a national issue and focus more on “healing thyself”.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Voter ID issue and the HCRP
In a recent interview for the Houston Chronicle, I predicted that I would get some criticism for my observations about the strategy the current HCRP Chair pursued to promote adding the issue of a Voter ID to the recent special legislative session. Never one to prove me wrong, yesterday Jared Woodfill used the party’s email system to again promote his idea for a session to address the Voter ID issue and to criticize my statements. Normally, I would ignore this predictable response, but I want to briefly show how our differences in approach to this issue matter for the future of our party.
Let’s be clear about one thing first. Mr. Woodfill and I agree on the goal of passing and implementing an effective Voter ID bill. In fact, at least 70% of Texans, including people from both parties, consistently have stated they support passage of such a law. Where he and I disagree is over the strategy and tactics for finally getting the law we both want.
Unfortunately, Mr. Woodfill promotes this issue as an "us"-versus-"them", Republican versus Democrat issue that requires a defense of our conservative principles. I do not. In fact, I believe that as long as we discuss the issue this way, we will divide the natural majority who support this idea, and we will continue to lose in a closely-divided House of Representatives in Austin.
This issue is not an "us"-versus-"them", Republican versus Democrat issue, like the 2003 battle over redistricting. That battle truly was a battle of power politics to determine which party would control the Congressional Delegation from Texas. To win it required steeled determination to outlast the other party. The analogy of that partisan struggle to the Voter ID issue is inappropriate.
Nor does this issue present us with a titanic struggle for the survival of our conservative principles. I don’t know about you, but my convictions in those principles are not so weak as to be threatened by the lack of a picture and smart ID card. In fact, our republic and our principles have survived a tremendous amount of voting irregularities and shenanigans over the last 230 years. I am confident that our republic and our principles will continue to be strong enough to survive a little longer until we get the bill we want.
Instead, the Voter ID issue is simply a good-governance issue that transcends party politics. If implemented properly by incorporating the latest technology, it will prevent fraud, and it actually will give both parties the ability to muster their voters and increase turnout by transmitting real-time voting information from the polling place to the county, and from the county to the local political parties. The parties can then use this information at the precinct level to get their voters to the polls--increasing interest and turnout. In fact, all of the arguments over alleged voter suppression are simply wrong, but they gain traction when we make the issue partisan rather than promote it correctly to the 70% of Texans who agree with us.
I believe as the current elected leader of our party in Texas, Governor Perry (who also supports the passage of this law) showed the proper restraint and fiscal sanity when he did not call a special session on this issue. Rather than stomp our feet and yell for a session that is doomed to fail because of the close division in the House, let’s regroup, work on promoting the facts and the benefits of the bill to the 70% who agree with us, and let that natural public consensus put pressure on the Democrats to vote for this law in the next regular session. That is the mature approach, and the approach that will eventually see the bill become law.
In the meantime, rather than publicly attack the elected leader of our party, our local chair should focus his time and energy on getting our local party’s house in order.
P.S. In that same interview, I believe the Chronicle columnist was very fair in her treatment of me and what I said. However, there was one bit of miscommunication that I have clarified to her.
In the column she stated that I believe "school board races should be partisan." Looking back on our conversations, I completely understand how that impression was created by the intensity of my approach to this issue. However, I do not want to convert school board races into partisan elections. Instead, my goal is to encourage Republicans to get more involved in the governance of their communities. If Republicans believe in improving education, and in local control of schools, we have to get more involved in our school boards and districts in a positive way. Essentially, I want the GOP to do more than appear periodically to fight a bond issue; I want our party to work seriously to be a constructive force for positive improvement in the classroom.
Some Republicans already sit on school boards for HISD, Spring Branch ISD, and Cy-Fair ISD (and probably others), and I applaud their efforts, and their non-partisan work on those boards. That is the type of involvement I want to encourage among Republicans in every city and school district in the county--there are over 600 elected offices in this county and most of them involve these type of non-partisan, civic positions. I want Republicans to seek these offices and engage in the governance of their communities.
Lastly, if you have time, I did a podcast interview last night with a gentleman from NYC, the interview went into discssing my principles in great detail, I think you'll enjoy it, click here.
Let’s be clear about one thing first. Mr. Woodfill and I agree on the goal of passing and implementing an effective Voter ID bill. In fact, at least 70% of Texans, including people from both parties, consistently have stated they support passage of such a law. Where he and I disagree is over the strategy and tactics for finally getting the law we both want.
Unfortunately, Mr. Woodfill promotes this issue as an "us"-versus-"them", Republican versus Democrat issue that requires a defense of our conservative principles. I do not. In fact, I believe that as long as we discuss the issue this way, we will divide the natural majority who support this idea, and we will continue to lose in a closely-divided House of Representatives in Austin.
This issue is not an "us"-versus-"them", Republican versus Democrat issue, like the 2003 battle over redistricting. That battle truly was a battle of power politics to determine which party would control the Congressional Delegation from Texas. To win it required steeled determination to outlast the other party. The analogy of that partisan struggle to the Voter ID issue is inappropriate.
Nor does this issue present us with a titanic struggle for the survival of our conservative principles. I don’t know about you, but my convictions in those principles are not so weak as to be threatened by the lack of a picture and smart ID card. In fact, our republic and our principles have survived a tremendous amount of voting irregularities and shenanigans over the last 230 years. I am confident that our republic and our principles will continue to be strong enough to survive a little longer until we get the bill we want.
Instead, the Voter ID issue is simply a good-governance issue that transcends party politics. If implemented properly by incorporating the latest technology, it will prevent fraud, and it actually will give both parties the ability to muster their voters and increase turnout by transmitting real-time voting information from the polling place to the county, and from the county to the local political parties. The parties can then use this information at the precinct level to get their voters to the polls--increasing interest and turnout. In fact, all of the arguments over alleged voter suppression are simply wrong, but they gain traction when we make the issue partisan rather than promote it correctly to the 70% of Texans who agree with us.
I believe as the current elected leader of our party in Texas, Governor Perry (who also supports the passage of this law) showed the proper restraint and fiscal sanity when he did not call a special session on this issue. Rather than stomp our feet and yell for a session that is doomed to fail because of the close division in the House, let’s regroup, work on promoting the facts and the benefits of the bill to the 70% who agree with us, and let that natural public consensus put pressure on the Democrats to vote for this law in the next regular session. That is the mature approach, and the approach that will eventually see the bill become law.
In the meantime, rather than publicly attack the elected leader of our party, our local chair should focus his time and energy on getting our local party’s house in order.
P.S. In that same interview, I believe the Chronicle columnist was very fair in her treatment of me and what I said. However, there was one bit of miscommunication that I have clarified to her.
In the column she stated that I believe "school board races should be partisan." Looking back on our conversations, I completely understand how that impression was created by the intensity of my approach to this issue. However, I do not want to convert school board races into partisan elections. Instead, my goal is to encourage Republicans to get more involved in the governance of their communities. If Republicans believe in improving education, and in local control of schools, we have to get more involved in our school boards and districts in a positive way. Essentially, I want the GOP to do more than appear periodically to fight a bond issue; I want our party to work seriously to be a constructive force for positive improvement in the classroom.
Some Republicans already sit on school boards for HISD, Spring Branch ISD, and Cy-Fair ISD (and probably others), and I applaud their efforts, and their non-partisan work on those boards. That is the type of involvement I want to encourage among Republicans in every city and school district in the county--there are over 600 elected offices in this county and most of them involve these type of non-partisan, civic positions. I want Republicans to seek these offices and engage in the governance of their communities.
Lastly, if you have time, I did a podcast interview last night with a gentleman from NYC, the interview went into discssing my principles in great detail, I think you'll enjoy it, click here.
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