Texas Republicans Adopt Hard-Line On Immigration, Gay Rights
Source: AP
FORT WORTH, Texas (Reuters) - The already conservative Texas Republican Party took a further turn to the right at its convention this weekend by adopting hardline positions on issues including immigration and gay rights.
The conservative Tea Party branch of the party, led by U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and carrying great weight in the state, was able to shoot down a 2012 party policy known as the "Texas Solution" that would allow undocumented workers to hold jobs that go unfilled by U.S citizens.
"Like never before, our freedom is under assault. Again today, Texans will stand up and lead the fight to defend our freedom," Cruz said.
The policy adopted at the last party convention in 2012 was seen as a pragmatic position to keep Republicans relevant as demographic trends indicate that by 2030, Hispanics, who tend to lean more toward the Democrats, will make up the majority of the state's population.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/08/texas-republicans-gay-rights_n_5469979.html
TygrBright
(20,733 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)From the Texas GOP party platform:
pampango
(24,692 posts)They would have us living in caves.
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)LoisB
(7,079 posts)LoisB
(7,079 posts)olddad56
(5,732 posts)Ted Cruz is beyond evil.
czarjak
(11,194 posts)"Draw that tent tighter." Or maybe it's Sean's, "Hang on to those conservative principles."
pampango
(24,692 posts)Tea party activists seized control of the Texas Republican Convention on Saturday, winning a harder line on immigration in the official party platform and lifting firebrand U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz to an easy victory in a 2016 presidential straw poll.
Following hours of often contentious debate and an especially raucous vote, the roughly 7,000 delegates torpedoed platform language approved at their convention just two years ago endorsing a guest-worker program for people in the country illegally.
That (the guest worker plan) initially passed, but then collapsed as the tea party flexed its muscles the latest sign that grass-roots activists have pushed the always conservative Texas GOP even further to the right.
Delegate Jack M. Finger of San Antonio walked the floor with a hand-scrawled sign reading "No! Not even a hint of amnesty!" "There is language that allows us to slide toward amnesty," Finger said of the plan that eventually was defeated. "Guest worker, visa permit, all that puts us on a road to make our citizenship meaningless."
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2014/jun/09/texas-gop-backs-away-guest-worker-plan/
The 'guest worker plan' seemed to be the republican compromise to split the difference between "amnesty" and "self-deportation". (And without a path to citizenship, it eliminated the threat to republicans posed by more Hispanics becoming citizens and voting.) The tea party folks would have none of it and sent a clear message to Texas' Hispanics.