Platform Resolutions: Don’t Miss the Great Grassroots Opportunity in Texas This Weekend!

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” -- Plato circa 400 B.C.

This weekend, most of the counties and state Senatorial District conventions will be held around our great state. Due to the redistricting debacle and court-imposed timetables, the procedure is radically different than in the past.

This year, if you want to participate in your Senatorial or County convention, just show up! (Information on where yours will be held is conveniently located at the Republican Party of Texas website page. 

As part of this convention process, each County or Senatorial District will have a “Resolutions” committee that has in each case across the state been working hard to have a draft resolutions document ready for voting on by your convention. Most or all conventions will have a time where interested citizens like yourselves can submit additional platform planks to your committee. A good place to start is with the 2010 Republican Party of Texas State Platform, which many consider to be the best platform in recent history. However, it is not perfect, and new issues have arisen since then.

Other conservative groups around the state have resolutions posted on their websites. A couple worth mentioning are Texas Eagle Forum and Texas Americans For Prosperity. Below are some others that we’ve heard of over the past few weeks that you may be interested in presenting at your Senatorial District or County convention this Saturday. Of course, you may write your own or tweak the language of any you find worthy to your liking.

Note that most convention rules will require that you submit three copies before it can be considered, so bring them and a few extras.

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Rights vs. Products – We oppose calling welfare and other income and product redistribution schemes “rights”. We know that fundamental human rights are inherent to individuals and are granted by God and protected by the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. They are not products of others labor, and hence it is destructive to the concept of unalienable rights for products (such as healthcare, housing, transportation, etc.) to be treated as if they were rights. Unalienable rights (such as life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, property rights, free speech, religious freedom, self-defense, etc.) do not impose on others rights, whereas income and product redistributions invariably do so. We support clear separation in legislation and in education between unalienable rights and products of labor.

Full Time “Stay at Home” Moms – In stark and clear contrast to recent denigrating of the importance of motherhood by the Democratic Party, we strongly support women who choose to devote their lives to their families and raising their children and recognize their sacrifice and their hard work involved in doing so. We deplore the left’s “War on Motherhood”.

Right to Life is Sacred to Many Faiths - We strongly oppose any federal or state requirement or other mandate to provide abortions or contraception since this would clearly violate many individuals, businesses, churches, and non-profit personnel’s faith and beliefs. Government must at all times and places obey the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution!

If It’s Good Enough For Us, It’s Good Enough for Them – The Government shall not, by rule or law, exempt any of its members from the provisions of such rule or law.

ObamaCare – We urge the Congress to immediately defund, repeal, and reject the national healthcare takeover, also known as “ObamaCare” or any similar legislation. Even though barely implemented, it has caused medical insurance costs to increase, and estimates of costs are already dramatically higher than originally stated by its proponents.

Census of Citizens for Voting - Importantly, only citizens of the United States should be counted for the purposes of determining voting district boundaries. Non-citizens shall not be included in the determination of voting district boundaries, even if counted.

Preservation of American Law - We call upon the Texas Legislature to safeguard our Constitution’s fundamentals, particularly the individual guarantees in the Bill of Rights, the sovereignty of our nation and its people, and the principles of the rule of law by introducing and passing a bill banning the use of foreign law in Texas state courts.

Agenda 21/Sustainable Development – We urge that Texas communities be informed of the insidious nature of Agenda 21, reject the radical social, environmental and economic goals of “Sustainable Development,” and reject the strings attached to federal government grants being used to implement Agenda 21.

Fair Payment to Landowners – When land or adjacent land is put into a conservation easement or taken by imminent domain, surface and mineral rights owners must be compensated fairly.

Funding via Bond Elections – We support active participation by registered voters and abhor taxing authorities’ attempts to obtain approval for bonds by selective scheduling of election dates and polling locations to minimize voter turnout. Hence, we support a requirement that at least 25% of registered voters must turn out and vote in order for a financial obligation to be placed on the entire citizenry.

Transparency – We support legislation requiring all school districts to post their check registers online or made readily available to the public. We commend the Texas Education Agency and school districts that have recently done so.

Militia vs. Paid Army -- We recognize that the original meaning of the word “militia” in the Constitution refers to an armed citizenry, not the formal paid professional military.

Appropriate Emergency Responses – To reduce waste, we urge EMS, fire departments, and other first responders to exercise restraint in use of human and hardware assets to respond to non-life threatening or minor emergencies or calls from known repeat callers and false alarms.

Smart Meters – The Republican Party of Texas opposes the mandated use of Smart Meters and rejects any attempt on the part of utility companies to monitor movement and ration electricity to our homes.

Protecting Union Member’s Dues – We support legislation requiring labor unions to obtain non-coerced and informed consent of the union member before that member’s dues can be used for political purposes.

Electoral College – We support the Electoral College, since it is a part of the States’ authority under the U.S. Constitution.

Voting Rights Act – We support “one man one vote” and deplore gerrymandering and other distortions in drawing voting district boundaries. However, the Voting Rights Act ban on “packing” is being ignored so that particular demographic groups may be packed into a district to effectively reduce their representation. This practice is abhorrent, illegal, and must be stopped. We believe that creating voting districts for the benefit not of demographic groups but of political parties is especially destructive to the goal of representative government and must be abolished.

Keystone XL Pipeline – We strongly support the immediate construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would significantly and quickly shift reliance on crude oil imports from countries that do not share American values and interests to Canada, one of our closest, most reliable, and culturally similar allies.

Support Oil & Gas Exploration – We support releasing most federally controlled lands and waters to seismic exploration and subsequent drilling in order to enhance our energy supplies.

Internet Transparency to Assist with Legislative Accountability – We support rules requiring that all votes on bills cast in the Texas House and Senate be record votes freely available to the electorate via the internet.

Rosebush-Blocker Rule – We strongly oppose the Rosebush-Blocker rule in the Texas Senate.

November Election – All public elections, except for primary elections, should be held on the same date and in the same voting locations in November, including local school boards and any bond indebtedness authorization.

Constitution in Public Schools – We believe that all state-funded schools should read and teach the Constitutions of the United States of America and the State of Texas, and we encourage their prominent and permanent display in those schools.

Abolish Sarbanes-Oxley - The Sarbanes-Oxley legislation should be abolished as it has been shown to saddle businesses with unproductive requirements hurting competitiveness in the world marketplace, and has not been shown to have significant benefit to either the businesses or consumers.

Abolish Dodd-Frank – The Dodd-Frank legislation should be abolished as it has created a huge and unaccountable bureaucracy that is financially costly to financial institutions, especially smaller “regional” banking institutions, and those costs will ultimately result in higher costs to consumers without any demonstrable benefit to consumers.

Abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Agency – The CFPA has been given vast bureaucratic powers over financial institutions with little or no accountability to anyone. Since benefits of the CFPA are elusive and costs to financial intuitions are already mounting, it should be abolished.

NASA Int’l Space Station – We encourage NASA to return to Ronald Reagan’s original name for the ISS, which was “Space Station Freedom”.

Short & Germane Legislation – All federal legislation should be short and relevant to a particular issue or problem. No bill should be longer than the US Constitution, and all earmarking should be immediately abolished.

Deductible Vehicle Licensing – We urge the Legislature to restructure the Texas vehicle licensing requirements to ensure deductibility on federal income tax returns, a benefit citizens in many states already enjoy.

No New Taxes – We urge that neither the property tax nor an income tax be used to raise additional revenues.

International Bailouts – We strongly oppose direct or indirect bailouts of foreign financial institutions with taxpayer funds, loans, or other guarantees unless expressly authorized by both houses of Congress.

Legislative Priorities - We urge the Republican Party of Texas state platform committee, and subsequently the RPT SREC to continue to promote transparency and accountability by having the RPT monitor and report online the voting record of each state and federal elected official relative to selected Legislative Priorities. Officials should submit their own voting record to the online system which can then be viewed by all.