The future transition—an Audit and Inventory will be needed as we hit the ground running

Questions have been raised over the last few months about the accuracy of the reporting of contributions and expenditures by the HCRP; about the failure to timely or completely pay payroll, rent, and vendor bills; about payments made by the HCRP to a company owned by the current Executive Director; about the relationship between the incumbent’s campaign and other organizations and PACs; and about who has possession or access to the property and bank accounts of the party. If I am elected to be the next Chair of the HCRP, I will swiftly move to conduct an audit of the party, and an inventory of its property.

I do not plan to use this audit and inventory as a basis for recrimination or criticism of the outgoing team, nor am I committing to this course of action because I think there has been any malfeasance by the current team at Richmond Avenue. Instead, I am doing it so that the party and its contributors will have confidence in the new direction of the party: confidence that we know the actual baseline condition of the property at the time we take over; confidence that we have complete possession and control of the party’s assets; confidence that we understand all current obligations of the party; and confidence that our budget and fundraising needs are based on reality.

The minute my term begins, I will be ready to assume managerial control of the party:

* We will have the party management team in place.
* Based on discussions I am having now, we will have a new Executive Director ready to start work and a bookkeeper, as well as an accounting firm ready to help with the audit and inventory.
* We will have a team of volunteers ready to get the office functioning and be prepared for a special election for the Senate, if that is scheduled before November, 2010.
* We will have a preliminary budget plan and a fundraising plan ready to implement.
* We will have a team ready to implement a new design and function for the party on the Internet, and to create or update a modern, stand-alone database of Republican voters and contributors for the parties use.

In fact, we will be prepared to implement these under any condition we may inherit: if the party is handed over intact as it now exists; or, if we walk into an empty office on Richmond Avenue, as Betsy Lake found when she took over the party many years ago.

I intend to fully cooperate with the current leadership to have a smooth and fast transition. Although Section 171.028 of the Texas Election Code gives the current team up to 30 days to fully transfer the books and records, the incumbent is on notice now that there may be a change in administration, and so, for the good of the party and its ticket in 2010, I hope he and his team will be ready to hand-over the property of the party immediately after the election.

What I Intended to Say Last Tuesday Evening

Because a scheduled speaker had canceled on the Clear Lake Republican Club at the last minute, it attempted to invite each of the candidates for the Chair of the HCRP to speak to the club about the meaning of the November, 2009 elections. Paul Simpson and I responded and agreed to attend; the club’s program director was not aware that Don Large had entered the race, so he did not receive an invitation (though he did attend the meeting after he learned of the event); and the incumbent, as usual, did not respond.

Then, just hours before the meeting, and after emails had been sent to the members about the meeting, the Executive Director of the HCRP contacted the President of the CLRC and tried to get him to cancel the program. As a compromise, and to help the club (even though its bylaws did not prohibit the program that had been planned), Paul and I agreed to limit our remarks to avoid saying anything about the local Republican Party, or our race—and we honored that agreement.

However, I never agreed to remain silent about what happened.

There are two problems with what happened Tuesday: it is further evidence that the paid and volunteer staff of the HCRP, as well as its assets, are being used inappropriately to support of the incumbent’s campaign; and that the current team at Richmond Avenue will attempt to intimidate any opposition to its continued control of the party. I will not be so intimidated, and I will publicly disclose and fight any future attempt to apply such tactics in this campaign. These practices are antithetical to the legacy of Lincoln and Reagan that we say we embrace.

So, in addition to what I did say Tuesday night, here is what I was prepared to say about the HCRP, and the behavior of some of the people who are supporting the current team at Richmond Avenue—

Since late last year, when I, and others, began agitating for real reform of the local party, the incumbent and his team have generated a lot of noise and activity, but they have not figured out how to turn this activity into real results: they have not incorporated the clubs and newly energized citizens into the party; they have not embraced conservatives in communities of color; they still don’t understand that an election now takes place over two weeks, not just on the last day; and they are providing no value to the effort to elect Republicans.

The prime example of these failures can be found in the Voter’s Guide that the party mailed on the eve of the final Election Day. The party charged candidates from $5,000 to $12,500 to run ads in the Guide; it allowed Democrats to buy ads in the Guide for races in which they were running against a Republican; and the Guide was not received by voters until after more than a week of early voting had finished. The only effective result of this endeavor was to put the incumbent’s face, and his message about his re-election campaign, in the hands of 60,000 voters—free of charge to his campaign.

The incumbent’s self-promotion is not helping the party grow or win elections—nor are the words of his long-time associates.

The recent quoted comments about Annise Parker, which were made by long-time associates of the incumbent, are simply deplorable. They should not be embraced by our party. If they are embraced, we will drive people away from this party who otherwise share our principles.

I am not endorsing either Democrat left in the Mayoral run-off; but I believe that Ms. Parker, like any other candidate, should be judged by political leaders based on her competence to be Mayor, her political experience, and on the policy positions she is actually promoting—not on her sexual orientation. If some individuals feel a strong religious impulse to oppose a certain candidate, so be it—that is their right; but it is beneath the dignity of our party's heritage—as the party of Lincoln and Reagan—for the political leaders of our party, or their surrogates, to join and give support to such an impulse as the official, or de facto, position of our party. I know of no political leader in this county, no matter how good a person he or she may be, who is on the short list for canonization—we are all sinners. If the GOP starts to base its membership and support on the prerequisite of having a clean record with God, we will become the smallest political party in the world in record time.

The restraint I am advocating is not capitulation to ideas, agendas, or behaviors we do not condone—it is simply the right way to treat a fellow citizen and neighbor.

As we face the 2010 elections, we Republicans must focus positively and aggressively on the serious issues that confront this community now, and will confront it in the future. The evidence from the 2009 election cycle shows that the current team at Richmond Avenue still doesn’t understand how to do this.