Sued Texas GOP ordered to follow convention rules

[Melissa G]

It's in the Houston Chronicle but I got it off Quorum report...
http://www.quorumreport.com/

Sued Texas GOP ordered to follow convention rules
Republican activists' Houston case warned state leaders will try to shut out grass-roots opposition at meeting next week


By ALAN BERNSTEIN
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

A Harris County judge on Wednesday ordered the Texas Republican Party to comply with state election law at its state convention in Houston next week after Republican activists alleged that the party illegally uses procedures to minimize grass-root dissent.

Visiting Judge Tom Sullivan issued the temporary restraining order on Wednesday, a few hours after it was requested in a lawsuit filed by activists across the state.

Represented by lawyer Gary Polland, a former Harris County Republican Party chairman, the group alleges that party leaders violated procedural laws at past conventions and plan to do so again. The next hearing on the case is scheduled for Monday.

Texas law says a political party's state convention must choose a permanent chairman before doing most official business. Polland and Wharton County GOP Chairwoman Debra Medina said the party instead elects a permanent chairman late in the convention, shutting off dissent beforehand about the selection of convention delegates and new state party leaders, the adoption of a platform and other actions.

"If they want to exclude the grass roots and control the process it's not right," Polland said.

[sonias]

1. I saw that headline on AAS and thought is was us again

Thank god it's not a suit against the Democratic Party again!

AAS 6/4/08
Group sues over convention rules

AUSTIN — A cadre of GOP activists filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Texas Republican Party over how its leaders will conduct business at next week's state party convention in Houston.

The group's coordinator, Ron Paul supporter Debra Medina of Wharton County, said the activists want to ensure enforcement of the state election code and have a chairman elected before any official business is conducted at the convention.

That way, challenges to more than 200 convention delegates can be fully debated and fairly resolved, Medina said. Typically, the state party waits until the second day of the convention to select a chairman, she said.

A Harris County visiting judge issued a temporary restraining order Wednesday instructing the party to comply with state law at its upcoming convention, the Houston Chronicle reported on its Web site.

"We as Republicans hold ourselves to be the party that respects the rule of law," Medina said. "We've come to recognize that we have some serious problems within our own party."

:toast: for the meltdown in the TX Republican party!

Sonia

[Melissa G]

2. God Bless Ron Paul et al for messing with the Pub Power structure.

In the article Medina calls them "Goldwater Conservatives, Reagan Republicans, Robertson Crowd, Ron Paul Republicans, and, well, real Conservatives"


From www.fairconvention.org...

We live again in an era where the Forms of Government themselves are under attack. Not only do we battle against special-interest legislation, activist judges, and executive orders, we now have begun to battle the forces of relativism and totalitarianism taking root in our own Party. The basic principles of debate and Republican government are under assault.

...to prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world:

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Democrat victories and Republican voter dissatisfaction are putting the Republican majorities in Texas more at risk than they have been in years
*

Meanwhile, Party leadership appears to be going out of its way to ignore these problems, while working to exclude desperately needed new voters and volunteers
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In the most extreme cases, Party officials allegedly added unelected delegates to the rolls at county conventions, disenfranchising local Republican voters, and then removed those who objected
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State Party leadership has responded to these and other challenges with further exclusionary tactics, a disturbing lack of transparency, and frank refusal to simply agree to abide by Party Rules and State Election Law at the upcoming Convention

These realities have once again led some to call for the current Forms to be "altered or abolished." We in the Republican Party, however, know there is no need to abolish these Forms, only to return to them. By the grace of God, the Founders and Custodians of both our Country and our Party provided us with Forms adequate to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Our Constitution, the laws of the State of Texas, and the Rules of the Republican Party of Texas provide more than adequate protection for the people's ability to demand accountability from their officials. This is true from the First Amendment's guarantee of "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances," to the Republican Party of Texas' recognition that "it is we who defend the embattled traditions that made our nation the greatest in all recorded history." All that is required is that We the People take hold of our responsibilities and assert ourselves as heirs to the Constitutional Federal Republic that so many others fought and died to create and sustain.

Why a Fair Convention? Because the State Convention of the Republican Party of Texas is the largest political convention in the United States, and it provides opportunity like no other for Texas Republicans to step up and set a course the rest of the country can follow. This opportunity should not be squandered on political posturing and power plays. Our Party and our Nation face serious threats, and these threats demand that all of us, as those honored enough to be duly elected representatives of the Republican Party of Texas, treat them with the respect and seriousness they deserve. We must not bow to fear or intimidation or the siren song of power -- we must instead maintain the freedom to assemble and act as a deliberative body, "to determine, in full and free discussion, courses of action to be taken in the name of the entire group." We must do the business of the Republican Party of Texas, and we must demand fairness and respect for the Republican Form of Government. If we do not, we will have allowed activism and relativism to replace the Rule of Law in the one place where it should be the most protected, and we will have no means left to determine how best to continue to promote and defend our lives, our liberty, our values, and our families.