|
The Third Quarter 2024 Texas State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) Meeting was held from August 1- August 3, 2024. This was the first SREC Meeting since the State Convention on May 23- May 25 in San Antonio. As such, this was the organizational meeting of the SREC for the next two year term.
Your SD 7 SREC Committeewoman, Deborah Kelting Fite, was re-elected to the Officials Committee, which is effectively the Board of Directors of the Republican Party of Texas. She was also appointed by RPT Chairman, Abraham George, to serve on the Legislative Priorities Committee and the Rules Committee. The Rules Committee takes on special importance in this next biennium since we passed the Rule ably authored by our Past SD 7 SREC Committeeman, Mark Ramsey, to close our Republican Primary elections to only declared Republicans in future elections. Mark served as Chairman of the Rules Committee at May’s State Convention.
In her specific assignments on the Legislative Priorities (LP) Committee, Deborah was tasked with chairing Legislative Priority #4, as voted by the Delegates to State Convention: “No Democrat Chairs”. The Priority states: “The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature shall end the practice of awarding committee chairmanships to Democrats and require all committees to be majority Republican.” In her capacity as Chair of this LP, Deborah will be organizing buses of grassroots Republicans to fully occupy the gallery of the State House on opening day to the 2025 Legislative Session with scores of Texas Patriots wearing Republican Red “No Democrat Chairs” tee-shirts. I know Deborah will be grateful to any individuals or Republican clubs who are willing to contribute to the costs of chartering these buses from Houston to the Capitol and elsewhere across the State.
Deborah was also assigned responsibilities for RPT Legislative Priority #7, “Texas is Not for Sale”, which reads: “Banning the sales of real property in Texas, and discontinuing funding and incentives to governments, entities, and proxies of China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia, and individuals from these nations who are not legal permanent residents or citizens of the United States.”
I, Ralph Fite, your SD 7 SREC Committeeman, in my freshman term, was bestowed a great honor by Republican Party of Texas Chairman, Abraham George, in being named as Chairman of the Local Government Committee. This Committee’s work is so important in putting wind in the sails of vetted candidates for school board and other non-partisan elections in receiving an endorsement from the Republican Party of Texas. Clearly, to receive such endorsement a candidate must be recommended by their own County’s Executive Committee and must complete a rigorous questionnaire where the candidate seeking endorsement must ascribe to the Preamble and Principles of the 2024 Platform and Resolutions of the Republican Party of Texas.
I was also named to one of the most important State Party Committees, the Resolutions Committee. In this Committee, we have the duty: “to recommend policy positions of the Party on any issue brought before it (subject to the approval of the SREC) and to recommend changes in the Party platform to the Temporary Platform and Resolutions Committee of the next biennial state convention.” Clearly, it is a distinct honor to also be appointed to this Committee, which has the responsibility to recommend policy positions of the RPT.
In that regard, the Resolutions Committee recommended approval of nine (9) resolutions. All 9 of these resolutions were adopted by the full body of the SREC, most by a 60 or 61-member vote (with 1 absent member).
Here is a link to each of those passed resolutions, which were in order of presentation as follows:
See: 9 Resolutions Passed in the Q3-24 Meeting of the Texas SREC.docx
1) Resolution Proclaiming That Life Wins Elections
2) Resolution to Keep Our Texas Rivers and Streams Clean
3) Resolution Emphasizing the Importance of a Strong Conservative Platform
4) Resolution Promoting the Support of Texas Active Military and Veterans
5) Resolution Holding the U.S. Government Financially and Criminally Responsible for Constitutional and Treasonous Violations to Texas and Its Citizens
6) Resolution Calling for Reform of the Texas House including Speaker Selection by Republican House Members
7) Resolution Ensuring That All General Election Voting Locations Have a Republican Election Judge
8) Resolution Reaffirming Republican Party of Texas Support for Educational Freedom
9) Resolution Congratulating Attorney General Ken Paxton for Securing $1.4 Billion Data Privacy Settlement for the State of Texas
Importantly, the first resolution passed was submitted by Deborah as a reaffirmation of the Guiding Principles of the RPT, which affirm in Principle #2 (and you will find this on p. 3 of our RPT Platform): “2. The sanctity of innocent human life, created in the image of God, which should be equally protected from fertilization to natural death.” This same resolution was originally presented by our SD 7 Chairman, James Buntrock, to the Harris County Republican Party. A somewhat weakened amended version of this resolution passed in the HCRP Executive Committee, but a stronger version of this resolution was passed by the RPT SREC on Saturday, August 3.
Resolution #8 on Educational Freedom was authored by Resolutions Committee Chairman, Scott Bowen. I argued in favor of this resolution.
Educational Freedom is so fundamental to the delegates of the Republican Party of Texas State Convention that Principle #7 of the 2024 Platform and Resolutions of the Republican Party of Texas (RPT Platform) states as follows: “7. Having an educated population, with parents having the freedom of choice for the education of their children.”
Plank #84 of the 2024 RPT Platform states: School Choice. “We support further empowering all Texas families to choose from public, private, charter, or homeschool options for their children’s education and funding which shall follow the student with no strings attached. We oppose regulations on homeschooling or the curriculum of private or religious schools and believe a constitutional amendment should be adopted accordingly.” This plank received a 92.18% vote of the Delegates to the 2024 Republican Party of Texas State Convention.
The proposed Legislative Priority on School Choice and Educational Freedom received an overwhelming 78.56% vote in favor by the Delegates to the 2024 State Convention putting it in 10th place among the submitted Legislative Priorities. It was as only 2.14% from the 8th Legislative Priority “End Federal Overreach”, which received an 80.70% vote as a priority of the Delegates.
Educational freedom is such an important issue to President Trump that it is highlighted in Chapter Seven of The 2024 Republican Platform – Make America Great Again! See: CHAPTER SEVEN of the RNC Platform-2024.docx
In fact, all the way back in June of 2020, President Trump had called school choice “the civil rights issue of all time” in this country. See: Trump calls school choice the civil rights issue of all time.docx
The public school monopoly has given us: overall low academic achievement outcomes, pornography in school libraries, Drag Queen shows, and transgender indoctrination of minors. Let Texas parents spend their child’s school budget in the public, charter, private, religious, or home school of their choice. Let’s promote competition in education, where those public schools who miserably fail to provide quality educational outcomes for their students are allowed to fail if parents in those communities choose to spend their child’s educational budget in another school with better outcomes. The great rural schools in West Texas and elsewhere will have no problems in continuing to receive continued state funding if they are meeting the demands in their locality.
Overall, we believe most SD 7 Delegates would be pleased with the composition of the new 2024 SREC. It is the most conservative body we have seen in our five years of direct service to this body.
| 
