Closed Primaries

Here is from the Trib:

At its biennial convention last month, the Texas GOP tried to increase its party purity by approving two major rules changes: One would close the Republican primary elections so that only voters the party identifies as Republicans can participate. 

Here is the entire Trib read: Texas GOP pursues closed primaries, new censure rules | The Texas Tribune.

And here is from yesterday’s Chron hard copy front page:

Closing the primaries is a growing priority for activists and hard-right party leaders, who called for such a measure at their biennial convention a week before the runoffs. It came after voters in the GOP primary in March overwhelmingly supported a ballot proposition recommending the same.

Supporters of closing the primaries say it’s necessary to guard against moderate candidates. Experts say that’s exactly what they’ll get with that kind of system.

Here is the entire Chron read: Dade Phelan’s GOP critics call for closed primaries after his victory (houstonchronicle.com).

We all know by now that GOP Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan probably got voters with a history of voting in one or more recent Democratic Party primaries to vote for him in his runoff win a couple of weeks ago.

We also know that the MAGA GOP Texas Legislature has rigged and gerrymandered legislative district lines to elect a majority of both Texas legislative bodies. Now they want to make sure that only MAGA extremists are elected to these districts.

How they implement a closed primary system is certainly going to be a challenge. In Texas, you only register to vote once – your first time. If you move, you change your new address registration online, send in a change of address, or go to the courthouse and get it changed.

Remember, Texas does not have online voter registration. It would be insane to ask the 18 million registered voters to resubmit a hard copy voter registration form with a political party affiliation.  Likewise, if we were to ask the same 18 million to go online and designate a political party affiliation.

I guess they could create a system where if you wanted to be designated as a Democrat or Republican, you would have to physically make the request via a hard copy application submission.

You could create another system that would factor in voter history in determining what political party primary a voter could qualify.

Both above systems would exclude and pi__off millions of Texas voters.

We are Texans. Some Texas voters just don’t want to identify with either major political party but still vote in the political party primary of their choice.  Some also don’t want government to officially designate them as a Republican or Democrat.

MAGA extremist Texas legislators have rigged the system through racists gerrymandering. Now they want to further rig the system through closed political party primaries. This is certain to upset and pi__off a few million voters. Have at it.

I don’t think I have ever heard a serious Democrat call for closing Democratic Party primaries. It seems like we ought to welcome all voters. Just saying.

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Go vote early today in the Harris Central Appraisal District (HCAD) Board of Directors runoff election. The last day to vote early is tomorrow, Tuesday, June 11. The election is being held this Saturday, June 15.

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The featured photo is with my niece Becky Cuellar. It was taken this past Saturday night at Verdad in Austin at my niece Abigail’s graduation party. It was great to be with family. I sat with Becky at dinner, and we did a lot of catching up. Becky is one of my favorites.

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Ryan Pressly is certainly not the Ryan Pressly of recent past seasons. He blew his sixth game of the season yesterday, and we are still in June. He also has a 5.40 ERA. Our new closer Josh Hader also gave up a two-run walk-off dinger and his ERA is 4.08. We are now in San Fran for three starting this evening.