Good afternoon,
I hope this update finds you and your family in continued good health.
There are three matters about which I wanted to update you today:
- Today’s Emergency SREC Meeting
- Waiver Requests to the Republican National Committee
- New Working Group to Study Potential Alternatives, if Necessary, for Senate and County Conventions
This morning the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) met electronically to address two key issues that directly affect our grassroots – the State Convention and National Convention delegate allocation:
- The SREC voted this morning to move the State Convention in Houston from May 14-16 to July 16-18.
- The SREC voted to allocate our 44 at-large delegates using the statewide allocation method under RPT Rules, so as not to jeopardize our delegation strength to the National Convention. With this change, all Texas delegates were secured for President Trump.
Both of these votes will need to be ratified at an in-person meeting of the SREC as soon as it is feasible, but the SREC took the necessary steps to keep the business of the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) moving forward during this pandemic.
It is an incredible feat that we have been able to move the dates of our State Convention – plans which began over three years ago – with no loss of space to hold our Convention and with no additional cost to RPT or the delegates. This is a major accomplishment and I applaud RPT Executive Director Kyle Whatley for his deft handling of the move with the George R. Brown Convention Center and our Convention hotels. They have proven to be good partners as RPT does our part to #stopthespread and flatten the curve of this virus.
Both the vote of the move of our Convention date and the vote for delegate allocation now puts the Republican Party of Texas in the position to request the necessary waivers from the Republican National Committee (RNC), so that our delegation to National Convention – the second largest delegation in the country – is not penalized because of the impact of Coronavirus on our Convention process.
RPT General Counsel Wade Emmert has been working closely with the RNC legal team and is preparing the necessary waiver requests for submission early next week. We expect the waivers to be considered at the next RNC Executive Committee meeting.
But our work is not complete. I have appointed a working group to evaluate options and alternatives for our Senate District and County Conventions, with focus on suggested systems to use in place of in-person meetings – if that becomes necessary – and how those systems might scale to our State Convention as well. This group will be led by SREC Member for Senate District 30 and Chair of RPT Convention Arrangements Deon Starnes. Members include RPT Executive Director Kyle Whatley, RPT Parliamentarian Chris Howe, SREC Member for Senate District 7 Mark Ramsey and software developer Dave Gephart. We will keep you apprised of the group’s progress.
I close this update reflecting on another very productive day at RPT. My thanks to the SREC for a successful and historic electronic meeting today and for their leadership in this moment. My thanks to the wonderful team at RPT who never stop working for you, keeping our Party running smoothly as we navigate this challenging time.
I will keep you updated as other important developments occur.
God bless you and your family and may God continue to richly bless our great state of Texas.
Sincerely,
James Dickey
Chairman, Republican Party of Texas
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