Republican Party of Texas
The Republican Party of Texas (RPT) is the affiliate of the United States Republican Party in the state of Texas. It is currently chaired by Matt Rinaldi, succeeding Allen West who resigned prior to the expiration of his term to run for governor of Texas.[5][6] The party is headquartered in Austin. The RPT is legally considered to be a political action committee. It is currently the state's favored party, controlling the majority of Texas's U.S. House seats, both U.S. Senate seats, both houses of the state legislature, and the governorship.
Republican Party of Texas
2022 platform[edit]
Some 5,100 delegates and alternates attended the party's June 2022 convention in Houston, its first in three years. The Log Cabin Republicans, an organization that advocates for LGBT rights, was banned from attending the convention. Attendees approved resolutions including the false assertion that President Joe Biden "was not legitimately elected." The convention included three screenings of 2000 Mules, a film by Dinesh D'Souza that alleged an organized criminal "ballot harvesting" scheme by Democratic-aligned operatives to rig the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump. The party adopted a platform change declaring homosexuality "an abnormal lifestyle choice" and further declared opposition to "all efforts to validate transgender identity". Attendees also approved a resolution calling for the full repeal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The new platform called for a ban on "teaching, exposure, and/or discussion of sexual matters (mechanics, feelings, orientation or 'gender identity' issues)" in schools, including the prohibition of teaching sex education, while calling on Texas schools to teach about the "dignity of the preborn human". The new platform also stated: "Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto." The party rebuked longtime Texas senator John Cornyn for participating in bipartisan negotiations regarding guns, after a recent series of mass shootings.[24] The platform also called for the creation of a state-level electoral college system inspired by the United States Electoral College, in which voters from each senate district would vote for electors who would then elect candidates to statewide offices.[25]
Former president Donald Trump praised the platform, saying that "they know that a Country cannot survive without Free and Fair Elections."[26] The resolutions were described by The Washington Post as embracing far-right rhetoric[27] and as a far-right platform by The New York Times.[28] Reason called the "LGBT component" of the platform "a weird throwback" that is "reminiscent of how conservatives used to talk about gay marriage back in the 1990s."[20] The decision to exclude the Log Cabin Republicans from the convention was criticized by Donald Trump Jr., who said in a statement to Breitbart News that it amounted to “canceling a group of gay conservatives who are standing in the breach with us”.[27] The American Conservative described the platform as showing a turn "toward a conservation of the spirit of Christendom, even if it means departing from the Union." that "gives the RNC much to ponder."[29] According to the Houston Chronicle, "Measures adopted to the party's platform at the convention are not set laws, rather they act as a 'mission statement' of sorts for the party over the next two years",[30] and according to the National Public Radio "It remains an open question as to how closely the priorities outlined in the 2022 platform reflect the views of regular Republicans in Texas".[19] Party platforms in Texas are non-binding, a frequent source of frustration for the most hardcore partisan activists.[17]
Auxiliary organizations[edit]
The party has a number of affiliates and auxiliary organizations, including the Texas Federation of College Republicans,[32] High School Republicans of Texas,[33] Texas Federation of Republican Women (TFRW),[34] Texas Republican County Chairmen's Association,[35] Texas Federation for Republican Outreach,[36] Texas Republican Assembly,[37] and Texas Federation of Hispanic Republicans.[38]