Joining the growing list of county Republican parties condemning Texas Speaker Joe Straus for his repeated obstruction of conservative reforms, the Liberty County Republican Party unanimously passed a resolution of “no confidence” in the speaker and recommended censure.
According to the resolution, LCGOP is now the 14th county party to pass such a resolution in recent months.
LCGOP called Straus out for his penchant for working with Democrats and liberal Republicans to suppress conservatives, saying, “Session after session, democratic legislation has a far greater chance of being passed than conservative legislation,” and, “in past election cycles, the Speaker has supported Democrat and liberal Republican candidates, and has influenced the drawing of new district lines to enhance electoral outcomes for liberal candidates.”
“Therefore, be it resolved that the Liberty County Republican Party, through its executive committee, votes no confidence in the Speaker of the Texas House Joseph Richard Straus III and recommends he be censured by the State Republican Executive Committee of Texas per Rule 44, for his dismal failure to support the core principles of the Republican Party of Texas Platform.”
Straus’ home county was the first to formally rebuke him and, increasingly, other counties have been following suit.
“We noticed the ground swell across the state against the Speaker. For us in Liberty County, unfortunately, we’ve always had representatives sympathetic to the speaker and have tried to pass things similar to this in the past unsuccessfully,” said Jeff LeBlanc, chair of precinct 29. “It became clear as soon as the discussion started that this opinion was held strongly by a number of precinct chairs. Added to that, the larger than normal number of chairs in attendance was a fair sign that the lack of any meaningful work from the Texas House this special session, or regular for that matter, is not going unnoticed.”
The resolution passed unanimously with a quorum and is going to their SD 3 State Republican Executive Committee members, Terry Holcomb and Judy Parada, as well as to RPT Chairman James Dickey and State Rep. Ernest Bailes (R-Shepherd).
As other county Republican parties meet within the next few months, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more join their statewide counterparts.
*State Rep. Ernest Bailes was contacted but could not be reached for comment by time of publishing.
