The last few months have been riddled with discussion, debate, and even some heated arguments pertaining to the issue of our Republican Party of Texas chairman receiving some sort of compensation for his service to the party.
Providing the means for our chairman to work full-time for the RPT means more media face time to spread our message, increased personal engagement with the party activists, and more time to fundraise for the organization and our candidates across the state.
It also means that the chairman can be involved in more aspects of running the state party. As it stands, employment obligations understandably come before party obligations, but full-time compensation for the chair means that the party comes first. Compensation also opens the pool for future qualified chair candidates who, because of financial constraints, might otherwise have passed on the job despite being a great fit.
Lastly, compensating our chair means more accountability for job performance, increased job expectations, and an overall opportunity to grow our state party which is desperately needed now more than ever.
Facts and Misinformation
This conversation, as far as I can remember, was started in 2014 and not in 2018 as some are implying. More importantly, James Dickey is not personally asking for this; this is a body-driven measure.
Chairman Dickey has raised a historical amount of money for the RPT, and while over the last 10 years all RPT chairmen have received expense reimbursements, we have not compensated the chairs for their work — something that many other state parties do.
We keep hearing, “The RPT should have proposed this at the state convention.” The fact is this had been discussed at the 2016 convention but was quickly squashed due to the contentious chairman’s race.
Another thing we hear over the issue is, “RPT convention delegates should weigh in on this decision.” When your county or Senate district convention convenes, do they talk about or set the budget for your county party? The answer is no.
Just like we all elect precinct chairs to handle those issues on the county party level at their executive committee meetings, delegates elect their SREC members to address these issues at the state party’s executive committee meetings. So, YES, contact your SREC members and let them know your thoughts about this issue.
We woke up in a different Texas on Wednesday, November 7 than we went to sleep in the night before. The Republican Party of Texas must meet that challenge head on and this cannot be done successfully with a part-time chairman. Either we must be bold and step up to this challenge or continue to follow the status quo while losing Texas to the Democrats.
I choose to fight for my children’s and grandchildren’s future. I choose to fight for my beliefs, values, and principles, and I choose God and Texas.
We will be voting to approve our annual RPT budget on Dec. 1, our next SREC meeting.
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