Republican Party of Navarro County

Redistricting Update: New Order from San Antonio Three-Judge Panel

AUSTIN - Friday afternoon, the Republican Party of Texas (RPT) was informed that the three-judge federal panel in San Antonio has issued an order for a status conference on February 1st. As the ordered status conference is the same date on which the recently extended filing deadlines are supposed to end, the RPT is concerned that delaying a status confernce until this date will place the April 3rd unified Primary Election in jeopardy. This may also put in jeopardy the Democratic and Republican State Conventions which are scheduled in June. Therefore, the Republican Party of Texas has instructed its lawyers to file a motion with the panel to reconsider a status conference at such a late date and to request that the status conference be moved up so that the possibility of an April 3rd primary can be maintained.

As a note to our candidates, county chairs, precinct chairs and Republican activists - until we receive a ruling on our anticipated motion to reconsider, we suggest everybody continue with plans toward an April 3rd primary. However, everyone should now be on notice that there is a possibility that this date could be moved. We will continue to try and keep you advised as soon as developments occur.

U.S. Supreme Court Rules on Texas Redistricting

AUSTIN - Today, the United States Supreme Court issued an opinion http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-713.pdf which vacated the orders implementing Texas redistricting maps prepared by the Western District of Texas three-judge panel. The opinion also remanded the case back to the Western District of Texas three-judge panel for further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court’s opinion.

This opinion means that currently there are no district lines for State House, State Senate and Congressional districts. By vacating the three-judge panel’s order, the Supreme Court did not reinstitute the legislative maps drawn by the Texas Legislature in 2011. Rather, the opinion states that the three-judge panel is to issue new Texas redistricting maps in a manner consistent with the guidance found in the Supreme Court opinion as to what factors should be considered in drawing these new maps.

The Republican Party of Texas interprets this opinion as meaning that the three-judge panel exceeded its authority by altering district lines where there had not been established a probable basis for constitutional or legal challenge. However, as a note of caution – today’s opinion by the Supreme Court did not order the enactment of maps and lines drawn by the Texas Legislature in 2011. The opinion still allows the three-judge panel to make some alterations to the legislatively drawn maps.

In addition, it should be noted that when the Western District three-judge panel issues new maps for the 2012 elections - these maps are "interim" only. Final maps for Texas redistricting still have to be cleared under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which will take place in front of a Washington D.C. federal panel. At this time, we do not know exactly when new lines will be published by the Western District federal panel, nor do we know where the district lines will actually be.

The RPT applauds the good news that the Supreme Court acted relatively quickly, and that the Justices acted in time to allow for an April unified primary. To keep the current election schedule, it is incumbent upon the Western District three-judge panel to also act expeditiously and redraw the maps in the next week or so. We are hoping that they will do so.

In commenting on the Supreme Court decision, RPT Chairman Steve Munisteri stated, "We are pleased that the Supreme Court recognized that the Western District three-judge panel exceeded its authority in drawing lines for our elected officials. The opinion stated very clearly that the Legislature's intent and judgment is an important consideration and "starting point" in the process of judicially redrawing maps and that the Legislature’s intent should not be overlooked. I am especially pleased that the Supreme Court apparently took notice of the Republican Party of Texas’ advisory which we filed last week and our subsequently filed brief in support of that advisory. In those documents, we alerted the Court to the fact that an expeditious decision was needed in order to maintain our current April 3rd primary schedule, to prevent havoc with our elections, and to protect the parties’ State Conventions as well. Again, we would like to thank Chris Ward and the law firm of Yetter Coleman LLP who did a fabulous job in providing a brief pro bono on a quick turnaround."

Munisteri continued, "I am hopeful that the Western District three-judge panel will issue new maps in time for us to maintain our current April 3rd primary. Until the panel issues new orders, we will not know how many legislative districts will likely be Republican and how many will be Democrat. Thus, any conclusion as to the overall result of today’s ruling by the Supreme Court will have to be withheld until that time. In the meantime, the RPT will continue to advocate for an election schedule that will allow an early April primary."

The Republican Party of Texas also issues the following advisory to all of our county chairmen, precinct chairmen and party activists. At this time, it is not known with certainty whether the April 3rd primary schedule will hold. The timely decision by the Supreme Court today makes it possible for the April 3rd primary schedule to hold, but we will not know this for certain until we get further guidance from the three-judge panel in San Antonio. As soon as we receive additional information from that panel relative to this issue, the State Party will issue an advisory through our website, social media, and email database.

Click here to read the full Supreme Court decision.

Click here to read the RPT advisory brief submitted to the Supreme Court.

Chairman's Update : December 2011

We kicked off December with our quarterly SREC meeting here at RPT headquarters in Austin - click here to see a recap. The following week it was back on the road with a trip to Limestone County where I spoke to the Limestone County GOP who had a packed house and several former Democratic office holders who stood up to speak about their conversion to the GOP. Prior to my speech, I had a chance to have dinner with our

Republican County Judge Dan Burkeen, who also happens to be one of my good friends dating back to our college years as members of the College Republicans and Young Conservatives of Texas. Dan and I also practiced law together for a number of years in Houston. From all accounts, Judge Burkeen is doing an excellent job administering the county! The next day I traveled to Dallas to meet with potential contributors and then it was back to Austin for a statewide teleconference with Republican leadership. Also during December, I was very pleased with the participation that we had on our December 15th Grassroots Club statewide teleconference. The lunchtime phone conference had a great number of participants and some excellent questions for discussion - if you haven't signed up for the Grassroots Club, then please do so soon so that we can include you on the next one!

One of the biggest news items of the month occurred on Friday, December 9th, when we received the good news that the U.S. Supreme Court had decided to stay the implementation of the maps drawn by the federal three-judge panel sitting in Bexar County. For the rest of December prior to the holidays, we heavily turned our attention to dealing with the repercussions of the court's ruling. The majority of this month's update will be a full report on the details and timeline surrounding these activities.

Following the Supreme Court stay, the San Antonio panel ordered all parties to the lawsuit to have a conference call and to determine if we could all come to an agreement for a recommendation to the court. There were a number of issues to be decided: how to move forward with filings, when and how to hold a primary, questions surrounding the State Conventions and numerous questions on how to alter or work around deadlines connected to these events.

The Democrats originally suggested a unified primary in May. We could not agree to this because it was our opinion that such a late primary would make it impossible for the parties to hold their State Conventions as scheduled in the first week of June. The idea of some form of primary being held in April was floated but nothing could be agreed to at that time. With no agreement being reached, the court scheduled a hearing on December 13th to deal with these issues. On very quick notice, the RPT hired Andy Taylor - an election law and redistricting expert - to help us beef up the Party's legal team to deal with these issues at this hearing. As a bit of background, this hire was necessitated in part because the Attorney General's request for a stay outlined a possible path forward in the event that the Supreme Court granted that motion. That path included a split of the election process - two primaries - with one primary occurring on March 3rd as originally scheduled for all races not affected by redistricting, and a second primary in late May for the races which are affected by redistricting.

Immediately prior to the December 13th hearing, the Attorney General's office informed the State Party that they would not be advocating for any particular solution in front of the panel. Consequently, in order to ensure that Republican interests were made known to the panel, the RPT added Andy Taylor to assist our volunteer assistant general counsel Eric Opiela, as well as our retained counsel Donna Davidson. I would like to note a special thanks to Eric Opiela, who has donated countless hours of legal time and assistance to representing the Party, as well as a thank you to Donna Davidson who discounted her rates by 50%, and Andy Taylor who discounted his rates by 20%. This helped reduce the Party's legal obligations down into the tens of thousands instead of a number which would have definitely reached into the hundreds of thousands.

At the hearing, I had our legal team call me as a witness so I could explain the concerns of the Party. I made the three-judge panel aware that under the Election Code, state parties are required to hold State Conventions in either June or July, at which national convention delegates would be selected as well as party officers and the adoption of the state platform. I pointed out that the Election Code requires there to be precinct conventions held in connection with the primary, and then further calls for subsequent county/district conventions. These requirements necessitate that some sort of primary be held early enough to allow both state parties to have time to complete the delegate selection process, organize the delegates for the convention, and have time to hold committee meetings (such as credentials) prior to the first week of June when the State Convention was scheduled to start.

I further explained to the panel that it was virtually impossible to change the date of the convention because we have 18,000 delegates and alternates spots at our State Convention. Very few locations in the state can accommodate such a large number of people and also provide sufficient hotel rooms, and these locations generally have to be lined up several years in advance. I also testified that the Republican Party of Texas had already signed numerous contracts with the hotels as well as the Fort Worth Convention Center, obligating the Party to guarantee hotel rooms and lease the convention facility. Because it is an absolute necessity that a primary be held early enough to accomplish hosting the 2012 State Convention, and for the further reason that it is not a certainty that the Supreme Court will issue a ruling in time to allow there to be a primary for the Texas House, Texas Senate and Congressional races by early April - I floated the idea that two primaries be considered.

I did so because at that time, it was not entirely clear that a schedule could be agreed upon to allow a realistic chance of a single unified primary in April. It would be a shame to force our Presidential primary later in the calendar only to later determine that we had to have a split primary anyway. When questioned by the Democratic lawyers, I also noted in response that there was a diversity of opinion among party leadership and elected officials as to whether it would be better to have a split primary or a single unified primary. I testified this way because I had received feedback from numerous legislators and concerned party leaders advocating different ideas. Some wanted a single unified primary at a later date. Some wanted to have a split primary with just the Presidential primary in March and all the other races later. Some wanted a split primary with the Presidential and all the statewide races in March and all the other races later. And finally, some wanted a split primary with the Presidential and all races not affected by redistricting in March, and a primary for the affected races to be held later.

It became apparent throughout the course of the day as county clerks and elections administrators testified and the panel received feedback from around the state, that holding two primaries would mean extra cost to taxpayers at the state level and also locally. Clerks from some of the smaller counties testified that they would be forced to consider laying off small town municipal workers such as police and firemen in order to fund a second primary. Other witnesses testified that two primaries would lead to voter confusion, voter fatigue, worker fatigue and logistical problems. After disseminating this information among our party's state leadership and elected officials, a consensus developed that it would be best to save taxpayer money by having a single unified primary if, and only if, a realistic schedule could be agreed to with the Democrats that had a significant chance of actually accomplishing a single unified primary.

Consequently, over the next several days the Republican Party of Texas negotiated directly with the Texas Democratic Party to come up with a solution. With agreement from multiple other plaintiffs' groups, we were able to agree on a schedule for a single unified primary on April 3rd. All the parties submitted a recommended order setting an April 3rd unified primary along with agreed-upon dates and deadlines, and the panel signed the order on December 16th. See our previous recap here.

It is very important to note that there is no certainty that a single unified primary on April 3rd can be accomplished. In order for the April 3rd date to be achieved, we will have to have a ruling from the Supreme Court within a week or two from today's January 9th oral arguments. The three judge panel in San Antonio will then have to issue new maps by the end of January, in order to stick to the proposed schedule which cuts off filing on February 1st, and allows for a short, re-opened filing period prior to that deadline. In the event that either the Supreme Court does not rule in time, or the three-judge panel cannot complete the maps in time, then the April 3rd date cannot hold.

At that point, the federal panel will have basically only two options. 1) If the delay is a short one (say a week or so) the panel can consider moving the unified primary to a later date in April, although that will be difficult to do and still allow the parties enough time to complete the process for delegate selection to the state convention. 2) Or, the panel will have to split the primary into two elections after all - with one primary being on April 3rd and the second being at a later date that is dependent upon how quickly new lines can be drawn.

One thing I need to reiterate to everyone - from my point of view, there is no choice but to have two primaries if you do not have the new Congressional, State House and State Senate lines in time to have an early April primary. There has to be a primary for at least some races by early April, in order to have the two parties' state conventions.

Cancelling the state conventions is not an option for several reasons. First, the already incurred contractual obligations of the parties would jeopardize the financial health of both parties. Second, it is important that the State of Texas be able to pick delegates to the Republican National Convention so that we can have an impact on the Presidential race. Texas has the second largest delegation to the National Convention with 155 delegates. Third, the Texas Election Code requires that we have a state convention. And fourth, we need to have elections for party officers, including State Chairman, Vice-Chairman, National Committeeman and Committeewoman, and the members of the State Republican Executive Committee. It is the Republican Party of Texas' position that a single unified primary in May makes it impossible for the State Party to hold its state convention in June - there simply is not enough time.

As you can imagine, we've received a number of questions on this process. One of the most common questions asked is why all the filing deadlines were extended, and not just those for the races affected by redistricting. The reason is two-fold. First, the races not affected by redistricting lines have a potential effect on the races which are affected by redistricting lines. The reason being, once the lines are drawn, candidates from these affected races may decide that they do not want to run for those races, but feel instead that they wish to become a candidate in some other race which has not been affected. Conversely, after the redistricting line are issued, there may be a candidate who already plans to run for office in an unaffected race but decides they would rather run for one of the new races after viewing the finalized lines. The Election Code does not allow the withdrawal and refiling of applications for races, so in order to address this problem, the only solution is to extend the deadline for all races and to also allow the withdrawal of filings - which the Court ordered be done. In short, the races not affected by redistricting are inter-connected and potentially affected by the races which are involved in redistricting. The second reason the deadlines have to be extended for all the races is to avoid voter and worker confusion over two separate filing periods. As we have already seen, the situation has become confusing enough under the current schedule without adding yet another layer of deadlines and difficulty.

We have also received feedback that some county clerks are concerned that the schedule is too tight and too difficult. The truth of the matter is - it is very tight and will be very difficult. However, the schedule has to be tight in order to accomplish an early April primary. As noted earlier, if you had a looser schedule and a later date, you could not have a single unified primary because of the state conventions. The long and short of it is that there was no good alternative to solve the problem of how to plan for a primary when we don't have maps yet for Congress and the State Legislature. I negotiated what I thought to be the least problematic solution from among several flawed alternatives.

It should be pointed out that even if we meet this schedule, that the Republican Party of Texas will face challenges it has never faced before. This year we have the largest number of delegates and alternate spots ever available at approximately 18,000. This will make us among the largest (if not the largest) political convention in the world in 2012. Yet even under the best of circumstances the State Party will have one month less to make arrangements for the delegates and alternates selected. I am told that in the past, it has always been a scramble and a difficult task to get everything done for state conventions in June when the primaries are in March. If we have a primary on April 3rd this year, and a state convention on June 7-9, this will provide us approximately five weeks less time to do more work as compared to the last state convention when the primary was the first week of March and the state convention was the second week of June.

I know it is frustrating to our candidates, party leadership and grassroots workers that we do not have our normal degree of certainty as to where districts will be, who will be running, and what dates we will vote. This is frustrating to me and the party staff as well. It is an extremely difficult and somewhat chaotic situation. Be assured, that the staff and I are doing our best to respond to every inquiry and adjust to every new development. Please have some patience with us knowing that we are in uncharted territory and facing a very, very difficult and challenging situation. I suspect that the majority of both my and the staff's time will be focused on trying to work through the issues relative to the primary and state convention.

On a positive note, we have been moving forward with additional meetings relative to our Victory 2012 organization. We have been in regular contact with our statewide Victory chair, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett and we hope to provide you with an exciting update on Victory 2012 shortly. I can tell you now, that I believe we are well ahead now of where we were at this time two years ago and I am optimistic that we will have a robust election effort.

I am also pleased to report that we ended the year with over a million dollars cash on hand, and paid all of our bills down to zero as usual at the end of the year. Some of the money on hand are primary funds for the county parties, and some of the money is in dedicated accounts. We did end the year with around $600,000 in useable funds, which is not too bad for an off-election year, and is the second consecutive year that we have ended the year with no monies owed and approximately $600,000 or more in usable funds.

December was also a very hectic month at the office as we had a flood of candidates come by the office to file. The filing period was particularly challenging for our staff since a stay was placed on the maps in the middle of the filing period, forcing us to suspend filing for a period of days. The court later re-opened and extended the filing date for all offices - I am proud that our staff handled the confusion and deluge of inquiries with a great deal of patience and that we were able to accommodate all of the filers. We have placed a posting on our website of all the candidates that have currently filed. We expect that there may be some additional candidates, as well as some candidates that may withdraw their filings once the courts issue a final ruling on the district lines.

In closing, I hope everyone had a joyful holiday season. It is now time for us to all get back to work, ready to wage battle for our Party and our candidates in 2012 to reclaim the White House and protect our gains in Texas! Thank you for your support.

Steve Munisteri, Chairman, Republican Party of Texas

RPT Files Advisory with U.S. Supreme Court

This morning, the Republican Party of Texas filed an advisory with the United States Supreme Court informing them of the adverse consequences of moving a unified 2012 Texas Primary Election beyond early to mid April.

Please see the following link to view the advisory in PDF format. http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/RPT-SCOTUS-Advisory.pdf

In stating the reason behind the advisory, RPT State Chairman Steve Munisteri said, "The RPT became concerned that the Supreme Court was under the mistaken impression that it was workable to hold a unified primary as late as June 26th. This concern arose from questioning of counsel by Justices Alito and Sotomayor at Monday's Supreme Court hearing on Texas redistricting. A review of the transcripts of the hearing confirmed that the Justices had indeed been told that a Texas Primary as late as June 26th was workable."

Munisteri continued, "In fact, as noted in my previous Chairman's Report (see link here http://www.texasgop.org/posts/221-chairman-s-update-december-2011) it is impossible to have a single unified primary on June 26th and to still comply with our Texas Election Code. The reason is that the Election Code requires the Parties to have a state convention in June or July and then further mandates a process of selecting delegates to those conventions over a several weeks period of time. This requirement, combined with the time it takes to organize a state convention, would make it impossible to hold a primary as late as June 26th, and still have a convention in a timely fashion. In addition, it is not practically possible to reschedule either party's state convention, which are scheduled for June 7-9 for the RPT, and June 8-9 for the Texas Democratic Party. The reason for this is that you have to line up a convention facility sometimes years in advance, and the State Party has already contracted with the Fort Worth Convention Center and surrounding hotels."

The Chairman continued, "In addition to the the Party's convention problems, there are other practical problems why a June 26th primary is unworkable. An immediate concern is the reported jump in cost to the taxpayers as a large number of polling locations in Texas are school facilities. While these locations are normally free in the spring, they would not be available in the summer, and/or there would be a charge to utilize them. Another looming problem is manpower - many of the workers required to hold the elections, have no doubt already planned for summer vacations during that time, or will be forced to obtain child care or weigh other conflicting considerations. Furthermore, it is also expected that voting during the summer months would lower voter turnout, to say nothing of the fact that the Presidential Primary will be of little or no importance on June 26th, as opposed to April 3rd. For these reasons, the State Party felt compelled to take the extraordinary step of forwarding an advisory to the U.S. Supreme Court to raise these issues. I would like to make particular note of the help we received from Austin attorney Chris Ward of the firm Yetter Coleman LLP in drafting the advisory. Chris generously donated his work pro bono, and we are very grateful for his service."

Thank You to State Representatives

Byron Cook, Kelly Hancock and Jim Keffer

The Republican Party of Texas wishes to extend our appreciation and thanks to State Representatives Byron Cook, Kelly Hancock and Jim Keffer, for graciously hosting a recent fundraiser in Austin on behalf of the RPT. The event raised $25,000 in support of the state party and our battles in 2012!

Chairman Munisteri thanked the representatives, saying "Already, we have seen that 2012 is shaping up to be a year of unexpected change and challenges for the Texas GOP. In times of uncertainty, it is a blessing to be able to count on the strength of support from our elected officials. This financial support comes at a critical time when we are putting together the opening stages of our plans to fight the re-election of President Obama and for the protection of our Republican gains across Texas."

Munisteri continued, "These particular three representatives - Cook, Hancock, and Keffer - have always come to the assistance of the Party when asked. In this particularly challenging spring, when the Party is facing increased costs due to redistricting lawsuits and our need to prepare simultaneously for our Victory efforts, their help was particularly timely and I would like to thank each of them on behalf of the entire Republican Party."

We Did It - 254 Republican County Chairmen

Texas Will Hold a Statewide Republican Primary In 2012

Today, the Republican Party of Texas is very excited to announce that for only the second time in the last decade, every county in Texas has a current Republican County Chairman and will hold a Republican Primary election in 2012. The last time this has been accomplished was in the year 2002.

Texas has more counties than any other state in the country with 254 counties spread across the Lone Star state (nearly 100 more than the next highest, Georgia with 159.) The Texas Election Code states that the November General Elections are held by the State and therefore, counties are not required to have a local party county chairman in order to hold that election. However, Primary Elections are a function of the State Party, and do require a local county chair in order to hold that election.

After the last Republican State Convention there were over 20 vacancies in the state. RPT Political Director Travis Griffin and Beth Cubriel, RPT Organization Director, worked to fill all but nine places by the end of October 2011. The remaining vacancies were in the counties of: Brooks, Culberson, Dimmitt, Hudspeth, La Salle, Loving, McMullen, Presidio, and Zapata. The largest road blocks to filling these spots were the location and sparse population of the counties – all centered in the southwest and border regions of Texas, and areas where there is not typically much in the way of Republican Party activity.

At the third quarter SREC meeting, the Volunteerism Committee, chaired by Leslie Recine, voted to specifically address these vacancies and to provide funding for a new RPT staff member to help achieve the final goal of filling every county. Using these funds, Chairman Munisteri hired Cassie Daniel as an RPT field representative to focus on this important task.

After suggestions and help from SREC members, other party activists and county chairs in the surrounding counties Cassie was able to steadily recruit and fill each of the open positions over the last two months. Typically the County Chairman is elected on the primary ballot. Many of these counties do not have any Party activity and therefore the State Party Officials Committee can approve individuals selected to fill a vacancy. On the last day before the filing deadline, Zapata County was filled as the last remaining vacancy, giving the RPT 254 of 254 positions filled.

Through Cassie’s work, the Republican Party of Texas has not only achieved its initial goal of holding a statewide primary – but several counties have incumbent candidates who are now switching parties to run as Republicans! In McMullen County, there are three current elected officials that now have the chance to run as Republicans with an additional two candidates who are running on the Republican ticket!

For a full listing of all 254 Republican County Chairmen – please visit our website.