A Proposed Strategic Plan for
the HCRP for 2009-2010
Creating New Opportunities by Applying
Ageless Principles to Local Challenges:
A Strategy for Republicans to Win Future Elections in Harris County
The Plan Part 1 Part 2 Part 3Introduction
The basic mission of any political party is to facilitate the election of its candidates to public office. The national Republican Party has been failing at this mission over the last two election cycles, and that trend has also affected the HCRP. Republicans lost straight-ticket voting in Harris County in 2006 and 2008, and lost most countywide races in 2008. For many reasons, it appears that voters have lost trust in the party, both locally and nationally.
Our opponents understand what has happened and intend to exploit the situation to advance their agenda quickly. One need only listen to President Obama's speeches, and read his budget blueprint for 2010, to see that he intends to unravel the gains conservatives made over the last 30 years-and to do so quickly. In this environment, Republicans do not have the luxury of just waiting for political fortunes to change.
The party at all levels must develop a new strategy designed to regain the trust of the voters. We will need their trust in order to have the credibility to halt the Democratic agenda, to gain support for an alternative conservative agenda, and to be ready to fight and win the elections in 2010. The good news is that the grassroots of our party understands the situation -even better than do some of our leaders.
Since immediately after the polls closed on November 4, 2008, Republicans have been demanding real leadership and a new strategic plan for winning elections. The state of the Republican Party in Harris County and across the state is perilous, and a plan must be put in place and competently implemented to re-orient the strategic direction of the party toward winning elections again. Based on the current electoral math, if the trends at play in 2006 and 2008 continue into 2010, there is a great risk of not only losing more Republican officeholders in Harris County, but of losing our statewide offices as well.
In response to these concerns, the first version of a proposed plan for the HCRP was disseminated in late November, 2008, in order to initiate a focused discussion about the future strategy for the HCRP. Some people began referring to it by the name of its primary author, Ed Hubbard, and so you may have heard it referred to as the "Hubbard Plan". Working with concerned local Republicans, the plan was posted on a website, www.FutureOfTheHCRP.com in early December, 2008, with links to other sites formed by grassroots organizations.
At the time this initial plan was written, there was an indication of widespread concern for the party as indicated by Republicans across the country. Many groups have been thinking and writing about a new strategy for the party for some time, as evidenced by Newt Gingrich's American Solutions, Rebuild the Party, and a variety of books that had been written prior to the last election. For example, Leslie Sanchez's Los Republicanos, and Michael J. Gerson's Heroic Conservatism were devoted to describing ways in which the party could develop new strategies and messages consistent with our principles.
Since the time this initial local plan was disseminated, national strategic plans were proposed by the leading contenders for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, and a new book has appeared entitled, Grand New Party. All of these analyses will be helpful to Republicans if they can assist in bringing strategic ideas together into a strong working plan.
The initial proposal for the HCRP was intended to facilitate debate rather than be a concrete alternative. Unfortunately, some factions have developed and split into sides for or against the plan and its proponents. However, all of the interest and input generated by the dissemination of the plan does appear to have caused the current leadership of the HCRP to respond to local Republicans with a new level of communication and action. Since the posting of the plan, the HCRP has upgraded the party website, begun sending regular emails and video blogs, started a First Friday meeting program for the business community, appointed a new Director of Outreach, and even tantalized the party faithful with some ideas about a new strategic plan.
We understand that over the next two months the HCRP plans to unveil elements of its new plan to Republican precinct chairs, but not to Republican voters. At a time when we need to rebuild the bonds of trust with our voters, we believe this is an unwise and too narrow approach, no matter how good the plan may actually be. It is imperative that broader factions of the Republican Party be brought into this process.
Today, Republicans of all ages want to take part in the strategic planning of the Republican Party here in Harris County, just as they participated with questions and comments in the recent race for the Chairmanship of the RNC. In this spirit, we are disseminating this expanded version of the original "Hubbard Plan" for review and comment by Republican voters.
The parts of this expanded plan include a Mission Statement that clarifies the basic strategic goals that must be achieved over the next 18 months, ten objectives for implementing the goals, a proposal for the re-design of the organization of the HCRP leadership needed to accomplish the objectives, and more detailed action plans for implementing the objectives.
As with the initial draft plan, this proposed plan is designed not as an end product to be immediately implementedAithough we believe it could serve that purpose -but, instead, as a tool for local Republican voters to use to discuss, debate, and design a new winning strategic plan for the HCRP.
Mission Statement:
To be prepared to elect Republican candidates in every race in the 2010 general elections:
By reuniting all of the factions within the Republican Party of Harris County under an umbrella of shared principles,
By expanding the base of the reunited party into new "communities" of voters that we recently lost, or that have not voted Republican in recent years,
By waging a local 13-day ground war during the general election with every modern resource available, and
By enlarging the contributor base and increasing the funds-on-hand, in order to finance these needed reforms.
Objectives:
3. To expand the Party into new communities.
4. To introduce our principles, messages and policies to new voters.
7. To raise the money needed to effectively implement the plan and operate the Party machinery.
8. To better coordinate with other county chairs in the region to elect our shared candidates.
Organization:
Bylaw changes will be needed for the HCRP to implement all of the needed improvements. Until changes to the bylaws can be accomplished there must be an alternative method to quickly begin implementing some of the objectives laid out in this plan. This would allow a team to be put in place quickly while new bylaws are drafted and debated.
Based on many conversations and emails with local Republicans, the primary bylaw changes needed to implement the plan involve creating a whole new group of Vice Chairs, and creating new local representative positions. The following outline for the needed organization is listed for the periods both before Bylaw changes can be made, and after the recommended changes are adopted.
Before Bylaw Changes
Management Team - The administration would be divided between the County Chair, the Vice Chair, and the Treasurer. The Chair would have overall management responsibility, and would be in charge of developing the reform plan for the organization, the shared principles and positive message, candidate recruitment and training, and the get-out-the-vote effort. The Chair also will serve as the liaison to other county and state party officials. The Vice Chair will oversee the Outreach team and the Treasurer will be in charge of fundraising and budgeting.
Outreach Team - This team will organize outreach efforts to expand the base of the party, including the development and implementation of a plan for communicating our principles and message into the African-American, Asian, Hispanic, Indian/Sikh, Muslim, and youth "communities" of the county ("Target Outreach Communities").
Advisory Committee - The mission and make-up of the Advisory Board would remain as currently described in the Bylaws.
Executive Director - This person will be a full-time employee who will coordinate and implement the reform plan pursuant to the direction of the Management Team.
After Bylaw Changes
1. Management Team - In order to effectively implement and manage the new plan, there will be the need to create four Vice-Chair positions, in addition to expanding the roles of the current positions of Treasurer, Secretary and Parliamentarian. The new Vice-Chair positions would be Fundraising, Outreach, Campaign Support, and Communication.
The Vice Chair for Fundraising and the Treasurer would form the Finance Group to develop and fund the budget of the party. The Vice Chair would select (with the approval of the County Chair) five individuals to serve on a fundraising committee to develop and implement a comprehensive fundraising campaign. The fundraising committee would replace the current fundraising responsibilities of the Finance Committee of the Executive Committee.
The Vice Chair for Outreach would recruit and manage a committee representative of the diverse communities within the county (with the approval of the County Chair), including a representative from each Target Outreach Community, as well as one precinct chair selected from each county commissioner's precinct. This committee would replace the current Outreach Committee within the Executive Committee, and would develop and implement Republican outreach objectives.
The Vice Chair for Campaign Support would recruit, train, and support candidates, precinct chairs, election judges, poll workers, street captains, and community representatives, and coordinate and train campaign consultants. The current Candidate Committee of the Executive Committee would be charged with supporting the efforts of the Vice Chair.
The Vice Chair for Communication would develop and maintain the party message, and the means by which the message is communicated within the party and to the public.
The roles of the Secretary and Parliamentarian would be expanded to include oversight of legal compliance, ethics rules and compliance, and a permanent long-range planning process.
2. District Chairs, Precinct Chairs, Election Judges, Poll Workers and Community Representatives - Currently, there are two levels of chairs below the County Chair and Vice Chair in the HCRP: Precinct Chairs, and Senate District Chairs selected by the precinct chairs from each of the 7 Senate Districts within Harris County. To facilitate greater coordination and mobilization, the HCRP should create other district-chair positions and committees within the Executive Committee, which the Texas Election Code addresses in Sections 171.051-072.
Specifically, not just the Senate Districts, but each electoral district and county commissioner's precinct within Harris County is allowed to form an executive committee of precinct chairs, and to select a district or county commissioner's precinct chair to preside over these committees. This organizational tool would facilitate greater coordination among the precinct chairs involved in each race within the county. Therefore, the HCRP should create such positions and committees.
The precinct chairs should be given defined responsibilities focused on mobilizing and coordinating the get-out-the-vote activities in each precinct. To help the precinct chairs, they should be encouraged to deputize neighborhood or street captains to help in the face-to-face mobilization activity in each precinct. (Currently, in fact, our precinct chairs are expected to perform too many tasks in addition to mobilizing the precinct for elections, while we cannot fill almost half the precinct positions.)
No precinct chair or street captain should be an election judge, poll worker, or community representative. Instead, there will need to be recruitment and training for additional activists to fill these other positions. In addition to training, poll workers should be equipped with modern technology to record and communicate voting activity on a real-time basis to the party during an election.
In addition to these positions, additional representatives are needed in each of our communities focusing specifically on the needs of the 34 cities and 23 school districts in the county. Therefore, this plan proposes creating the new appointive position of "community representative" in each city and school district to work with the Vice Chairs for Outreach, Campaign Support, and Communication, and with the precinct chairs and district and county commissioner's precinct chairs, to focus specifically on recruiting, training and supporting candidates for the city and school district offices, and to respond to community-based issues on behalf of the party.
These community representatives should provide the party with an increased and overlapping grassroots infrastructure in each political subdivision of the county. For example, as Republicans enter a new neighborhood with our outreach program, we can offer new activists several avenues for immediate involvement in the party, including: precinct chairman; street captain; election judge; poll worker; community representative for their city; and community representative for their school district. Also, local candidacies and membership in one or more affiliated clubs could be offered. With a position within the party, these new activists will have a base from which to recruit others to the party.
As we conduct outreach and expand the number of our activists, the division of grassroots labor among an increased number of people should help establish and maintain an intensity of support that will help the party in each election cycle.
3. Advisory Board - The structure of the Advisory Board should be changed in order to open up the governance of the party to all of its factions as part of the effort to reunite the party. Obviously, if we include a representative of every Republican club in the county, we could never get a quorum for the meeting, let alone get anything done. However, we could create a Board whose membership is capped at 15 members, half of whom would rotate on and off the board annually, which is manageable number.
The Board would include each Senate District Chair (7), and one representative, on an annual rotating basis, from each group of affiliated organizations (i.e., the local Pachyderms Clubs would have one rotating seat, the TFRW Clubs would have four rotating seats based on the four county commissioner's precincts, and the Young Republicans and other clubs would share a rotating seat). The County Chair would chair the Board, and all other officers would be ex-officio members whose attendance would not impact the quorum requirement of the Board. A board of 15 voting members is manageable, and the rotating nature of half of the seats would assure the board of new input on an annual basis.
4. Executive Director - As is now the case, this person would be a full-time, paid employee of the HCRP tasked with implementing the voter mobilization, get-out-the-vote, and campaign coordination activities of the party. The Executive Director also would administer the day-to-day activities of the party headquarters and any satellite offices and supervise the activities of volunteer and paid staff. The Executive Director would not have any policy communication, creation or implementation responsibilities, except as specifically authorized by the Advisory Board.
5. Other Bylaw changes - Two other changes should be made to the bylaws: creation of a removal and replacement process for precinct chairs and other party officers; and creation of a more effective process for reporting the state of the party's finances to the Executive Committee.
Except for the failure of a precinct chairman to consistently attend Executive Committee meetings, there is no mechanism for removing and replacing party officers, even though the Texas Election Code and the State Party Bylaws are silent on the issue (and the Democratic Party has adopted such a mechanism under very narrow circumstances in its State Party Bylaws).
We propose that the Rules Committee consider creation of a procedure for the removal and replacement of party officers who are found to have violated the Bylaws, Texas Election Code, or any other state rules or regulations (including ethics rules); to have violated any other state or federal law or regulation applicable to those individuals or the party offices they hold; to have failed to meet the duties and obligations of their offices as set forth in the Bylaws, laws, or regulations; or to have failed to promote the mission or implement the objectives of the HCRP consistent with the responsibilities of the party offices they hold.
As for the finances of the party, the Treasurer is to provide a report to the Executive Committee at each meeting, but currently the report does not contain much useful information about the real availability of funds held by the party. The Treasurer should be required to provide a finance report containing specific information as to the funds available in the HCRP accounts, the sources of the funds available, and any legal restrictions on how some or all of the funds available may be spent, regardless as to whether some or all of this information could be derived from other publicly-filed reports. The report also should note the budget and fundraising goals for the year-to-date and the extent to which the goals have been met. In this way, the Executive Committee will receive current information about the financial capability, needs, and performance of the party.
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