George Seay is a seventh generation Texan. He is the Founder and CEO of Annandale Capital, a money management firm in Dallas, where he lives with his wife of 20 years, Sarah Schulz Seay, and their 3 children. He is Co-Chairman of Associated Republicans of Texas and is on numerous other civic, charitable and professional Boards. His priorities are service to faith, family, and country (along with a little hunting, fishing, and reading history on the side).
The latest Census report drew national attention to Texas’s massive population gains over the past ten years. Our state added four congressional seats as a result, and a number of commentators rightly attributed Texas’s growth to a mix of appealing conservative policies and practices.
In fact, the State of Texas has become ground zero for conservatives - the state where conservative principles, ideals and politics are ascendant, and as a result, the place where Democrats would most like to erode the conservative advantage.
It is a little known fact that liberal Democrats and the plaintiffs' bar had been making steady progress up to 2010 in challenging conservative hegemony in Texas.
Although Republicans currently hold all statewide elected offices in Texas, the Texas House of Representatives had seen a diminution of its conservative majority from 88 seats in 2002 to 76 seats after the 2008 election cycle. Republicans went into the 2010 election cycle with a 1 seat majority, 76-74.
Given that the Texas House of Representatives controls the congressional redistricting process in 2011, GOP leaders in Texas saw that it would be critical to pour significant resources into challenger House races to unseat liberal Democratic House members and grow the GOP majority with a new crop of conservative Republicans. As the new Census shows, this was an even greater priority because of the additional U.S. House seats in Texas.
For such an effort as this, we couldn’t rely on the same game plan used in the past. We needed a newer, high-octane way of raising funds and providing support to candidates on the ground. As a result, leaders from the business community and the party reformed and revitalized the Associated Republicans of Texas (ART), an organization created by former Senator John Tower in 1974. ART's new business model was predicated on recruiting the most outstanding conservative business and civic leaders around Texas, so the organization was not a creature of politics; instead, it was an organization rooted in conservative philosophy, but also grounded in the "can-do", common sense, no nonsense attitude found in the private sector. New (and old) contributors to ART developed confidence that their money would be spent wisely and carefully.
There were multiple components of the ART initiative:
- Rigorous candidate interviews to determine character, aptitude, a conservative philosophy, and a willingness on the part of the candidate to do the work necessary;
- Extensive media training, which included new social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and other formerly non-traditional types of outreach;
- Substantive policy training, so candidates were well-versed in key issues, not only so they could get through their campaigns, but so they were ready to serve when the Legislative Session began; and
- Statewide and regional polling, so decision-making about resource allocation was backed by hard data.
After all this work, and a massive fundraising effort (almost $3.5 million was raised in 10 months, which represents a herculean effort in entry level state offices such as these), ART targeted approximately 20 races with plenty of resources, so that no candidate was an unknown to the electorate on election day. The number of races considered for funding consistently expanded as it became clear the wind was at conservatives' backs in 2010.
The end result was a pickup of 22 Republican House seats in the Texas Legislature in 2010, the largest single cycle increase in Texas history. Conservative Republicans won the same number of new seats in 2010 that they held in total in 1978, the first year in modern Texas history a Republican was elected Governor of Texas. Republicans had a 99-51 advantage after the November elections, and after 2 Democrats changed sides following these results, Republicans enter the 2010 Legislative Session with a 101-49 super-majority in the Texas House of Representatives. Perhaps equally important, 6 Latinos and 2 African Americans won election as Republicans. This is unprecedented, and with demographic change sweeping Texas, critically important.
Why does this matter to those conservatives outside Texas?
- As I already mentioned, Texas adds four U.S. House seats in 2012. No other state adds more than two, and most gainers only pick up one.
- The Texas House of Representatives controls the redistricting process in 2011. Although the Texas House has a constitutional duty to draw the lines fairly and appropriately, Texas is likely to stay strongly conservative for the next decade due to the accomplishments in 2010. As the second largest state behind California, which has remained heavily Democratic, this is important for the country.
- The ART effort could serve as a political roadmap for conservative Republican leaders in other states who want to have similar results.
- The Latino demographic will eventually change Texas, and Texas politics, forever. This also has national implications. Latino business leaders and families belong in the Republican Party, as they share many beliefs, values and standards familiar to the conservative mainstream. ART has 10 Latino leaders on its Board of Directors, who are leading a large initiative to reach out to the Latino community to bring them into the conservative Republican tent. Without Latinos voting Republican 40% or more on a consistent basis, conservative control of and leadership in Texas will be severely threatened before long. ART is committed to keeping Texas conservative through effective outreach to the Latino community.
2010 was an exciting year in Texas, and we expect 2012 to be exciting as well. We hope Republican leaders in other states will learn from our experience as we all look to continue our gains not only in Washington, but in our statehouses as well.
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