In his latest report, Peter Morrison offers his review of the recent Texas primary and offers some insight into the strategery employed by the RINO’s in the state congress to thwart true conservative candidates.

Summary of this report:

The Texas primary has come and gone, and it brought both good news and bad news to Texas conservatives. Joe Straus survived a primary challenge for his own seat, but many of his cronies went down to defeat.  Unfortunately, we lost a few staunch conservatives, and the new redistricting maps drawn up by Straus and his moderates played a big part in that.  Several races are still undecided, and are headed for runoffs in July, giving us another opportunity to elect strong conservative leaders. We also have a challenger for Speaker of the House.

Full report:

After being delayed by lawsuits, the Texas primary finally took place on May 29th.  Texas conservatives had high hopes that the passion and energy that were unleashed a few years ago had not diminished, and that the results of the GOP primary would be a clear message to the GOP about what kind of candidates we’re looking for. Unfortunately, the results weren’t that clear cut, but were more of a mixed bag.  There was some bad news, but there was a lot of reason for hope, too.

We’ll start with the bad news, which is that some very good people were defeated in their bids for re-election.  Three candidates whose defeats will have the most impact were Gail Lowe, Leo Berman, and Wayne Christian.  Gail Lowe, who fought so valiantly to make sure that schoolchildren in Texas get a real education based on the actual facts of history, instead of left-wing PC fantasies, lost her seat on the Texas State Board of Education. Leo Berman and Wayne Christian, two of the finest conservatives in Austin, both lost House re-election bids to GOP challengers.

Of course, there are many factors that come into play in every election, but there’s no getting around the fact that one of the biggest factors in some of these losses was the redistricting plan created by Joe Strauss and his team of RINOs. It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that one of the purposes of the new redistricting map was to punish certain strong conservatives. It seems clear that the RINOs deliberately forced candidates like Wayne Christian and Gail Lowe into these new, artificial districts filled with people who don’t know them, and whose voting patterns would make it much more difficult for them to be re-elected.  Here’s what Michael Quinn Sullivan said about the Wayne Christian loss:

“A dark spot on the night was the loss of State Rep. Wayne Christian. But even there, the Straus team had to radically re-draw Christian’s district and spend heavily from the Austin lobby.”

The good news is that most conservative Republicans won their primaries and that several Straus supporters went down to defeat, including three of his closest cronies (Vicki Truitt, Rob Eissler, and Mike Hamilton). In addition, two more of Straus’s pals (Chuck Hopson and Sid Miller) didn’t win their contests; they only managed to qualify for a runoff election on July 31st.  Other contests resulted in runoffs, too.  This means that there are still several opportunities for conservatives to make a difference when it comes to deciding who will represent us in November.

In fact, there’s no reason conservatives can’t be the deciding factor in every one of the upcoming runoff races. That’s because turnout will probably be very low.  According to official government figures, only 1.4 million registered Republicans came out to vote in the primary on May 29th. That’s an 11% turnout.  Numbers for runoff elections are usually even lower than that.  One political expert is predicting that between 6% and 8% of GOP voters will come out on July 31st. Compare that to a general election, when about half of all registered voters generally come out to vote.

A low turnout is great news for committed conservatives.  The lower the turnout, the more impact each vote has, which means that if we all take a little time out of our schedules and go to the polling place on July 31st, while most other voters are too apathetic to bother, we can dominate the runoff races, elect people who will stand for our principles, and send another strong message to Joe Straus and the RINOs in the Republican establishment.  We can’t let up now; it’s imperative that we keep letting the GOP establishment know that we expect our elected leaders to fight for true conservative values, instead of going along to get along.  It might take a while, but if we refuse to give up, eventually they’ll get the message.

On that note, Rep. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola) has filed paperwork with the Texas Ethics Commission declaring that he will mount a run for Speaker of the House, opposing Joe Straus.  This is excellent news. It takes real courage to oppose a sitting Speaker, because there are consequences when you go up against the man who calls all the shots.  Rep. Hughes has already proven that he’s not afraid to challenge the status quo. He vocally withdrew his support for Straus in 2010, after he received word that GOP members who didn’t support Straus would be punished by having their districts redrawn unfavorably.  He never wavered even as he endured a firestorm of criticism after his announcement. Many lesser men would have apologized or said “my remarks were taken out of context.”  Bryan Hughes is a true conservative with a lot of character, and he deserves our full support in his challenge to Straus.

Here are the runoff races to be decided on July 31st. I’ve marked candidates that I’m endorsing with an asterisk. (I’m not offering an endorsement in every race.)

Railroad Commissioner – Full Term: Christi Craddick vs Warren Chisum
Railroad Commissioner – Unexpired Term: Barry Smitherman vs Greg Parker

State Board of Education:

*Gail Spurlock vs Tincy Miller
*Tom Maynard  vs Rebecca Osborne

Supreme Court Justice, Place 4 – *John Devine vs David Medina

State Senator, District 25 *Donna Campbell vs Jeff Wentworth

Texas House:

*JD Sheffield vs Sid Miller
*Travis Clardy vs Chuck Hopson
*Jon Cole vs Jeff Leach HD
*Jim Landtroop vs Ken King HD
*Stephanie Klick  vs Kenneth Sapp

US Senate – *Ted Cruz vs David Dewhurst

US House

District 14 – Randy Weber vs Felicia Harris
District 15 – Eddie Zamora  vs Dale A. Brueggemann
District 25 – *Wes Riddle vs Roger Williams
District 34 – Adela Garza vs Jessica Puente Bradshaw
District 36 – *Steve Stockman  vs Stephen Takach

So make sure to vote on July 31st, and let’s do everything we can to support Bryan Hughes in his run for Speaker of the House.

The Peter Morrison Report
http://www.PeterMorrisonReport.com
http://www.facebook.com/morrisonreport

Sources:

http://www.news-journal.com/news/local/did-new-voting-lines-doom-incumbent-east-texas-legislators/article_16361306-5135-55f5-befa-506fdf5887a6.html

http://libertylinked.com/posts/9898/the-loss-of-texas-conservative/View.aspx

http://www.myfoxhouston.com/story/18659323/texas-primary-turnout-was-low-runoff-may-be-lower

http://www.empowertexans.com/features/texas-voters-repudiate-team-straus/

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-house-of-representatives/speaker-of-the-house/bryan-hughes-withdraws-support-for-straus/

http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/politics/straus-faces-hughes-in-speaker-race