FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 28, 2018
Beebe calls on Allison to Commit to a Republican for Speaker
(San Antonio, TX) Allison silent after 80% of District residents voted for GOP to choose GOP-supported speaker
A contentious issue in Republican politics has been whether to support a Speaker candidate who is backed by a majority of elected Republicans in the Texas State House. Controversial former Speaker, Joe Straus, was initially elected with the support of all Democrats and a small minority of the most liberal Republicans. Seeking to avoid a repeat of that election, the State Republican Executive Committee passed a resolution stating that the Republican Party of Texas expects Republican House candidates in 2018 to indicate to Republican Primary voters whether they will support the Republican Speaker candidate who wins the majority of the votes in the Republican Caucus.
Matt Beebe, as well as every other four Republican candidates in the HD121 March 6, 2018 primary months ago publicly pledged to support the nominee supported by a majority of Republicans. Steve Allison has refused to sign onto such a pledge.
In the March 6th Primary, voters were asked their opinions on a variety of issues by ballot proposition. One such issue was whether “Republicans in the Texas House should select their Speaker nominee by secret ballot in a binding caucus without Democrat influence.” A super-majority of Republicans across Texas (85%) and Bexar County (85%) voted in favor of this proposition. Nearly 15,000 HD121 voters voiced their opinion on this issue.
“While the media has tried to portray this proposition as a repudiation of Speaker Straus, and a threat to “bipartisanship,” it really is just a simple message to Texas Republican legislators that asks them to stand on Republican principles and respect the majorities voters have consistently given them in the Texas Legislature to bring about conservative reforms and reinforce conservative principles within our State,” said Beebe. Recently, the Chair of the Texas House Democrat Caucus announced they are preparing a list of key attributes of a Speaker the Democrats can unify behind. Within HD121, where Speaker Straus is very popular, over 80% of HD121 primary voters agreed with the proposition and every voting precinct had majority support. Even when the voting results are limited to the several precincts south of IH-410 that Allison won, all precincts had majority support, and more than 2/3’rd of those voters agreed with the proposition that the next speaker should be selected in the Republican Caucus.
“There is much talk about not wanting Texas to become like Washington, DC, and I agree – in DC we see Republicans consistently bending to the will of the Democrats and talking heads in the media and surrendering their principles under the auspices of “bipartisanship” and “consensus building” – we can’t let that happen in Austin,” said Beebe. “At a recent candidate forum, Mr. Allison again reinforced his commitment to ‘build consensus’ in Austin if he were to be elected. I ask him to explain whether he would side with District 121 and Texans, or sell-out to Austin special interests on his very first vote.”
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