The Republican Party in Texas made a series of far-right statements this weekend as part of its official party platform, alleging that President Biden was not legitimately elected, and “reprimanding” Senator John Cornyn for his work on bipartisan gun laws and referring to homosexuality as ” an abnormal lifestyle choice’.
The platform was voted on in Houston at the state party’s convention, which closed on Saturday.
The resolutions on Mr. Biden and Mr. Cornyn were approved by a vote of the delegates, said James Wesolek, the communications director for the Texas Republican Party. The statements on homosexuality — as well as additional stances on abortion calling on students to “learn about the humanity of the unborn child” — were among more than 270 boards approved by a platform committee and voted on by the larger group of convention delegates using papers. ballot papers. The results of those votes were still pending Sunday, but Mr Wesolek said it was rare for a board to be voted down by the full convention after it was approved by the committee.
The resolutions passing the false claims that former President Donald J. Trump was the victim of a stolen 2020 election, as well as the other statements, were the latest examples of Texan Republicans moving further to the right in recent months. Republicans control both chambers of the legislature, the governor’s mansion and every office statewide, and have used their dominance to push through tough anti-abortion laws, create problems in the supply chain by temporarily allowing additional state inspections at the border and rename the Trump-backed state attorney general over a member of the Bush family in a May primary.
Mr. Wesolek disputed the idea that the statements were related to the right-wing tilt of the state. “That was the will of the body,” Mr. Wesolek said on Sunday. “We are proud to be a grassroots party.”
State party conventions in Texas were sometimes venues for the public airing of internal fissures. In 2012, Governor Rick Perry was loudly booed at the Republican state convention for saying he supported the powerful lieutenant governor over Ted Cruz in a disputed Senate primary. On Friday, Mr. Cornyn – a key negotiator in the gun talks with Democrats – was booed by congressmen during a speech trying to assure Republicans that the new legislation would not infringe on gun owners’ rights.
The state party’s resolution embracing the baseless claims about the stolen 2020 elections states that “significant electoral fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected results in five key states in favor of” Mr Biden. The state party, the resolution continued, rejected “the certified results of the 2020 presidential election, and we believe that Acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. not legitimately elected by the people of the United States.”
The resolution encouraged Republicans to “come to the vote” in November and “bring your friends and family, volunteer for your local Republicans, and overwhelm any potential fraud.”
State Representative Steve Toth, a Republican who represents a portion of Montgomery County, a Houston suburb, said he left the convention before voting on the resolutions, but expressed support for them. He said he hoped the Biden resolution would “encourage Republicans and Democrats to come together and call for a forensic audit” of the 2020 election.
Jason Vaughn, 38, a Republican delegate from Houston, claimed credit for adding the language “to vote” in the Biden resolution. “My fear is that if we keep telling people that the election was stolen, they won’t vote,” said Mr Vaughn.
Mary Lowe, a Fort Worth delegate who focused on education issues during the convention, said she was surprised that the 2020 election results had been the focus of attention from her Republican colleagues. But, she added, “I don’t know many people who thought Biden won.”
Ms. Lowe, the chairman of the Tarrant County branch of a group known as Moms for Liberty, said she was one of the delegates who openly criticized Mr. Cornyn. But she added that she was ashamed of the booing and did not participate.
“I don’t think booing is polite,” Mrs. Lowe said. “I think elected officials should be treated with proper decency.”
Jamie Haynes, 47, a Republican delegate who lives with her husband in the Texas Panhandle and who says they own “a lot of guns” together, said the boos against Mr Cornyn showed there was a “sounding strong opinion that Republicans don’t want to that their gun rights are shaved – not only taken away – but even in whatever form.’
The resolution reprimanding Mr Cornyn and passed at the convention violated red flag laws, which allow the seizure of weapons from people deemed dangerous. Those laws, according to the resolution, “violate one’s right to a fair trial and are a pre-crime punishment for those found not guilty.”
According to Mr Vaughn, an openly gay committee member, the homosexuality board voted 17 to 14 by the platform committee.
“It doesn’t help us move forward as a party and win voters,” he said in a video of the committee meeting. In an interview, Mr. Vaughn said the shift at the convention was the result of a small number of people “making the process miserable because they want to do all these extreme, far-right things.”
Toth disagreed, saying that on abortion, gay rights and the 2020 election, the Republican Party has consistently stuck to its conservative principles. “Marriage Defense? Abortion? Second Amendment? Where did we move to the right?” he asked. “Republicans have always been strong defenders of constitutional family values.”
A Texas congressman and Democrat, Representative Colin Allred, called the Republican Party’s actions regressive.
“The Texas Republican Party is trying to take us back to a time when women couldn’t make decisions about their own bodies and when Americans lived in fear of being punished for being themselves,” Allred said in a statement.