The Republican Party in Texas made a series of far-right statements as part of its official party platform over the weekend, claiming that President Biden was not legitimately elected, issuing a “reprimand” to Senator John Cornyn for his work on bipartisan gun legislation and referring to homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice.”
The platform was voted on in Houston at the party’s state convention, which concluded on Saturday.
The resolutions on Biden and Cornyn were approved by a voice vote of delegates, according to James Wesolek, director of communications for the Texas Republican Party. Statements about homosexuality, as well as additional stances on abortion that asked students to “learn about the humanity of the unborn child,” were among more than 270 boards that were approved by a platform committee and voted on by the group. largest convention. delegates using paper ballots. The results of those votes were still pending on Sunday, but Mr. Wesolek said it was rare for the full convention to vote against a board after it had been approved by committee.
The resolutions adopting the false claims that former President Donald J. Trump was the victim of a stolen 2020 election, as well as the other statements, were the latest examples of Texas Republicans moving further to the right in recent months. Republicans control both houses of the legislature, the governor’s mansion and all state offices, and have used their dominance to push for tougher anti-abortion legislation, create supply chain problems by temporarily adding additional state inspections in the border and rename the Trump-backed state. attorney general over a member of the Bush family in a primary runoff in May.
Mr. Wesolek disputed the notion that the remarks were linked to the state party’s rightward tilt. “That was the will of the body,” Wesolek said Sunday. “We pride ourselves on being a grassroots party.”
At times, state party conventions in Texas have been places to publicly air internal divisions. In 2012, Governor Rick Perry was loudly booed at the state Republican convention when he said he was backing the powerful lieutenant governor over Ted Cruz in a contested Senate primary. On Friday, Cornyn, a key negotiator in gun talks with Democrats, was booed by convention attendees during a speech in which he tried to reassure Republicans that the new legislation would not infringe on the rights of gun owners. .
The state party resolution covering unsubstantiated claims of the stolen 2020 election stated that “substantial voter fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected results in five key states in favor of” Mr. Biden. The state party, the resolution continued, rejected “the certified results of the 2020 presidential election, and we hold that Interim President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not rightfully elected by the people of the United States.”
The resolution encouraged Republicans to “show up to vote” in November and to “bring your friends and family, volunteer for local Republicans, and overcome any potential fraud.”
State Representative Steve Toth, a Republican who represents part of Montgomery County, a Houston suburb, said he left the convention before voting on the resolutions but expressed support for them. He said he hoped Biden’s resolution would “encourage Republicans and Democrats to come together and call for a forensic audit” of the 2020 election.
Jason Vaughn, 38, a Republican delegate from Houston, took credit for adding the “show up to vote” language in the Biden resolution. “My fear is that if we keep telling people they stole the election, they’re not going to vote,” Vaughn said.
Mary Lowe, a delegate from suburban Fort Worth who focused on education issues at the convention, said she was surprised the 2020 election results were in the spotlight of her fellow Republicans. But she, she added, “I don’t know a lot of people who felt like Biden won.”
Ms. Lowe, president of the Tarrant County chapter of a group known as Moms for Freedom, said she was among the delegates who were outspoken critics of Mr. Cornyn. But she added that she was embarrassed by the jeers and did not participate in them.
“I don’t think booing is polite,” Lowe said. “I think elected officials should be treated with due decorum.”
Jamie Haynes, 47, a Republican delegate who lives in the Texas Panhandle with her husband and who says that together they have “a lot of guns,” said the jeers directed at Cornyn showed there was a “strong and resounding opinion of that Republicans don’t want their gun rights shaved off, not just taken away, but even shaved off in any way.”
The resolution berating Cornyn that passed the convention opposed red flag laws, which allow guns to be confiscated from people deemed dangerous. These laws, according to the resolution, “violate the right to due process and are a punishment prior to the crime of people not found guilty.”
The homosexuality board was approved by the platform committee by a vote of 17 to 14, according to Mr. Vaughn, an openly gay member of the committee who voted against it.
“It does nothing for us to move forward as a party and win voters,” he said in a video of the committee meeting. In an interview, Vaughn said the change in the convention was the result of a small number of people “making the process miserable because they want to do all these extreme right-wing things.”
Mr. Toth disagreed, saying that when it comes to abortion, gay rights and the 2020 election, the Republican Party has been consistent in sticking to its conservative principles. “Defense of marriage? abortion? Second Amendment? Where have we moved to the right? he asked him. “Republicans have always been strong advocates of constitutional family values.”
A congressman and Democrat from Texas, Rep. Colin Allred, called the GOP’s actions regressive.
“The Texas Republican Party is trying to take us back to a time when women couldn’t make decisions about their own bodies and when Americans lived in fear of being punished for being themselves,” Allred said in a statement.
Reference-www.nytimes.com