‘You’re lying’ vs. ‘You support Democrats’: Texas Republicans’ Christmas meltdown | Opinion
While the rest of Texas was wrapping pipes last week or Christmas shopping for just the right flavor of Buc-ees Beaver Nuggets, some Texas Republicans were not exactly in the holiday spirit.
Backers of House Speaker Dade Phelan tangled with the state Republican Party chairman on Twitter, stoking the flames two weeks before the biennial Texas-sized political Dumpster fire known as the Texas Legislature.
This was no simple elbowing between Republicans. State Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, told state party Chairman Matt Rinaldi outright, “You’re lying” about the party’s support (or lack of) for business Republicans, mentioning a Collin County House race that swung to a Democrat.
Rinaldi, pivoting to party activists’ current anti-establishment issue du jour, replied, “Can you explain why you support appointing far left Democrats who support murdering the unborn, mutilating children, and destroying our economy to leadership positions?”
The party’s official @TexasGOP Twitter account chimed in: “The death kicks of the establishment are strong.”
Gosh.
Not even a “merry Christmas.”
To explain Texas politics, if you side with Phelan, Gov. Greg Abbott or Sen. John Cornyn, you are the “establishment” in the eyes of some core Republican activists.
The party structure is run by the same few fringe hobbyists who chose Garland Republican Allen “We Are The Storm” West to run the state party before Rinaldi, a former Texas House member twice ranked among the “most conservative.”
Some Republicans are so hostile to their most popular elected officials that Abbott did not even attend the state convention in Houston. He spoke to a reception nearby.
This holiday break before a legislative session is always when a few activists get riled up against the current House speaker and want a “true conservative” elected when the Legislature meets Jan. 10.
This year, the quixotic challenger is state Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington.
It won’t matter. The speaker always wins.
Houston lawyer Mark McCaig picked the original Twitter fight with Rinaldi Dec. 20, writing as “Texas Republican Initiative” (@TXRepInitiative) that the state party had $1.2 million cash on hand before the November election but spent nothing to help House candidates in close races.
The state party is “a handful of cranks in the convention hall who think elected officials should listen to them instead of to their voters,” McCaig said by phone after the Twitter exchange with Rinaldi.
“The party didn’t really do anything this election. They do next to nothing.”
Rinaldi deflected Twitter comments from McCaig and Leach, complaining instead about the Legislature’s 30-year practice of bipartisan leadership and appointing committee chairs from both parties, unlike Congress.
Phelan appointed Democrats to chair 13 of the 34 House committees last session, some less powerful than others. Republicans still dominate the House and pass plenty of conservative legislation, but without the polarization of Washington.
Twitter critics “decided to attack me personally” for campaigning against Democratic committee chairs, Rinaldi said by phone.
“We’re doing a lot of great stuff,” he said, saying $1 million went toward “election integrity” and poll watchers in what he described as “high-risk areas.”
The party is not involved in the speaker election at all, he said. Just arguing over committee appointments.
“In the rest of the country, if Republicans win the election, they control the leadership,” he said.
Texas has bipartisan leadership because both parties used to have leaders who met in the middle.
“But not when Democrats call Republicans racists and Nazis and insurrectionists and say what horrible people they are,” Rinaldi said.
(The way I remember it, name-calling in politics began in the 1990s. That was when one side began calling the other “baby killers.”)
McCaig said the chairmanship issue is “a big litmus test they’ve made up so they can foment discontent.”
Rinaldi never complained about it when he was in the House, McCaig said.
The Twitter debates continued from Dec. 20 through Dec. 21. Among the dozen or so sharp comments, Leach wrote that Rinaldi must “have to ask Godfathers [Jonathan] Stickland and [Michael Quinn] Sullivan” for their “permission and blessing” to reply.
Stickland, a Willow Park Republican, leads the libertarian-Republican Defend Texas Liberty PAC. Sullivan is the former executive of Empower Texans.
Both groups drew heavy funding from faith-and-values West Texas oil millionaires Tim Dunn of Midland and Farris Wilks of Cisco.
Asked by phone about the party’s relationship with elected officials, Rinaldi said there is definitely a “disconnect” with state party activists.
Obviously some Republicans plan to keep it that way.
