Mixed Court Win for Texas Republican Party Convention

HOUSTON, TX – The Republican Party of Texas (RPT) won in federal court Friday after a week-long battle with the City of Houston’s Democrat Mayor Turner, requiring the City and Houston First Corporation to honor its contract to host the RPT State Convention. After the hearing, Judge Lynn Hughes ruled the George R. Brown Convention Center must be made available to the RPT, if requested, this weekend. Both parties would have to act reasonably to ensure that the RPT could perform its duties concerning the nation’s national elections this November. 

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner shut down the RPT’s scheduled in-person Convention last week, just ahead of the start of it’s in-person Convention, requiring the RPT’s immediate lawsuit. After the attempted mandamus was lost at the Texas Supreme Court this past Monday, the RPT’s SREC took immediate action to move to an online convention. Unfortunate technological delays prevented the party’s progress yesterday in opening its Convention, and gave impetus to join with the existing federal suit filed by Dr. Steve Hotze when invited at the final hour. 

“After the technical issues we experienced at RPT yesterday, immediate redundancy became a key objective. I was invited to join this lawsuit and took the opportunity to provide a last-resort method in-person if we needed it to secure our national election obligations,” said RPT Chairman James Dickey. “The RPT is on track to hold its convention online with its approved plan from the State Republican Executive Committee. Our online convention provides the greatest opportunity for as many delegates who want to participate in the Convention as possible. Delegate rights and delegate empowerment are critical to us and define the Republican grassroots. We learned a hard lesson yesterday and with this win today, if for any reason there is an issue tomorrow, we know that we have a single location where, with the necessary SREC authorizations, we could hold Congressional District Caucuses to elect our National Delegates and Alternates and Presidential Electors for President Donald J. Trump.”

Dickey continued, “We applaud Judge Hughes for affirming the position the RPT took in our original lawsuit, making clear that Mayor Turner cannot use pretext to infringe our right to an in-person Convention. “I hope this ruling sets a precedent for other state and local Republican parties and organizations who come against a bully Democrat mayor’s malicious shutdown.”