Today the executive committee of the Republican Party of Texas had an opportunity to reach out to minorities and show they were serious about growing party membership. When offered this opportunity, the members of the executive committee responded with a resounding “no.“
The Republican liberty caucus of Texas is saddened by today’s vote of the executive committee not to offer a booth at the state Republican convention to the Log Cabin Republicans, singling them out as the one group of Republicans who will not be allowed to be represented at the convention. For a party that had a gay national chairman just a few years ago this is a step in the wrong direction.
Every two years when the convention meets the platform is substantially revised and updated. Traditionally, party members have participated in this process and lobbied for positions that they think should be changed to reflect the changing interests a party. One of the best ways to get your group’s message out to the membership is through a booth on the convention floor. Businesses, union groups, political action committees and issue oriented activist groups – many of which hold positions counter to the party platform – will all be represented, but this one group made up entirely of grassroots Republicans will not have a voice at the convention, solely because they have one position which is not in keeping with a plank of a platform which was added less than a decade ago.
The Republican Party of Texas seems to have forgotten Ronald Reagan’s maxim that “the person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor.”
“It saddens me the RPT continues down the road of exclusionary policies while fully supporting elected Republican officials who vote against our platform planks on a regular basis,” said Jeff LeBlanc Chairman of the Texas RLC. “The free exchange of ideas is a good thing. A convention is the place for that. As one speaker put it today, at this rate we will eventually run out of people to exclude. This notion of safe spaces, once reserved for liberals, creeping into the RPT is frightening and flies in the face of individual liberty.”
The Republican Liberty Caucus will continue to work with the Log Cabin Republicans just as we work with any group within the Republican Party that advocates for our candidates and our core principles. We will do what we can, as we have in the past, to see that their concerns are raised at the convention and that their members are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve but are often denied within the party.
