In a heavy-handed attempt to stifle grassroots voices, an establishment-friendly party chairman unilaterally shut down a legitimate motion to censure their liberal state representative on the valid grounds of his outright obstruction of conservative reforms.
Yesterday, Hill County Republican Party held its executive committee meeting. During that meeting, a motion was presented to censure State Rep. Byron Cook (R-Corsicana) for his obstructionist role within the Straus regime and specifically as chair of the powerful House State Affairs Committee.
The resolution names a grand total of ninety-three specific instances in which Cook worked against the Republican party platform in his official role as State Affairs chairman – with a heavy focus on pro-life reforms that he killed.
The resolution was presented last night during the executive committee’s meeting during new business. The motion was seconded and should have then been put to a vote by the full body – however, according to several attendees, Hill County GOP Chair Will Orr tabled the motion without a vote.
First arguing that the motion was inappropriate on the basis that most attendees were there to hear Congressman Roger Williams, the motion was brought back up during the new business portion of the meeting, after the Congressman’s speech. Orr then claimed the item was not on the agenda and thus tabled the item.
Except that’s exactly why it’s called new business. It was a floor motion that was brought legitimately and seconded.
“After the motion was appropriately made and seconded from the floor by members of the Committee, Mr. Orr took all power of the committee into his own hands and tabled the motion without a vote!” one activist, John Dalton, noted in a public Facebook post.
Interestingly enough, Orr was also the vote canvasser in charge of Hill County during the 2016 Republican Primary – where mismatched vote totals erred in Cook’s favor. Coincidentally, Cook won that election by such a slim margin that he just barely escaped the threshold for a constitutionally required recount.
“Cook won that election, based solely on the vote totals from Hill County,” Dalton continued in his post.
Of course, it’s fairly commonplace for longtime establishment representatives such as Cook to have sycophantic party chairmen in place in their districts. Fortunately, however, many members of these parties are actual conservatives – and as Bexar County demonstrated, it’s just a matter of time before the true will of the body manifests.
