Question

Explain how Texas political partys select delegates for their state party conventions

Answer 1

Explain how Texas political partys select delegates for their state party conventions

Answer-

The general eligibility requirements to be a candidate for a public elective office in Texas are that a person must: 1) be a United States citizen; 2) be 18 years of age or older on the first day of the term to be filled at the election; 3) have not been determined totally mentally incapacitated or partially mentally incapacitated without the right to vote by a final judgment of a court exercising probate jurisdiction; 4) have not been finally convicted of a felony from which the person has not been pardoned or otherwise released from the resulting disabilities; 5) have resided continuously in the state for 12 months and in the territory from which the office is elected for six months immediately preceding a date which varies according to the candidate’s status; 6) be registered to vote in the territory from which the office is elected no later than a date which varies according to the candidate’s status; and 7) satisfy any other eligibility requirements prescribed by law for the office. These requirements do not apply to an office for which the federal or state constitution or a statute outside the Texas Election Code ("the Code") prescribes exclusive eligibility requirements. Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 141.001 (Vernon Supp. 2012).

A political party that makes candidate nominations in Texas and has a state executive committee must adopt rules that, among other things, prescribe (1) the parliamentary procedure governing the conduct of party meetings and conventions from the precinct level to the state level; (2) the method of selecting the party's presidential elector candidates; (3) the manner of selecting party officers, convention delegates, convention alternates, and convention officials; and (4) the manner of adopting party rules and amendments to the rules. § 163.002. A political party's rules, including amendments to rules, governing or affecting conventions or nominees ("rule on electoral affairs") may be adopted only by a state convention or the state executive committee. A rule adopted by a state executive committee may be a temporary rule if adoption before the next state convention is necessary. Or, the rule adopted by the state executive committee may be permanent if the state executive committee is expressly required or authorized by statute to adopt a rule. § 163.004. The rules adopted must be consistent with state law. § 163.003.

THE ROLE OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN TEXAS POLITICS

1. Perhaps the most important function of parties in Texas is that they provide a label under which candidates may run and with which voters may identify.

2. Approximately 91 percent of Texas voters either identify with or lean toward the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.

IMPORTANT FUNCTIONS OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN TEXAS

1. The party label becomes the standard used in casting a ballot for a candidate.

2. Parties assist in raising money for candidates’ campaigns and in helping candidates with legal requirements. They also train candidates for campaigns.

3. Parties sometimes recruit candidates.

4. Parties assist in getting out the vote.

5. The party helps organize the government once officials have been elected.

HOW ARE POLITICAL PARTIES ORGANIZED IN TEXAS?

1. Texas does not have a system of party registration for voters.

2. Texas parties conduct primaries to select the party’s candidates for office.

3. The party is organized at the precinct, county, and state levels.

4. The precinct chair heads the precinct convention and serves on the county executive committee.

5. The county executive committee is responsible for running the county’s primary elections and planning the county convention.

6. The county chair is elected at the party’s primary election and heads the county executive committee.

7. The state executive committee and state chair and vice chair coordinate the party’s statewide activities.

8. Conventions are held at the precinct, county, and state levels.

TEXAS’S HISTORY AS A ONE-PARTY STATE

1. The defeat of Republican E. J. Davis in 1873 began a period of Democratic Party dominance that would continue until the 1990s.

2. Other parties, such as the Populists and People’s Party, had some impact.

3. The Democratic Party split between conservative and liberal ideologues in the 1950s and 1960s.

4. Republicans began to make inroads in the late 1950s and 1960s in presidential and U.S. Senate elections.

5. The election of Governors Bill Clements in 1978 and George W. Bush in 1994 signaled the beginning of a two-party state.

6. By 2006, Republican candidates were widely supported at the polls. After that year’s elections, both U.S. senators, 19 of Texas’s members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the majority of both the Texas Senate and House of Representatives were Republicans.

7. In the 2010 elections, Republicans lost control of the Texas House of Representatives.

ISSUES IN TEXAS PARTY POLITICS

1. Despite the difficulties of getting on the ballot, the 2006 gubernatorial election had two independent candidates, Carole Keeton Strayhorn and "Kinky" Friedman.

2. Whenever a single party becomes dominant in a state, factions within the party appear. Parties need to keep these factional disputes under control, or risk losing voters to the other party.

3. An estimated 20 percent of registered voters in Texas are Hispanic, a demographic change that has made Hispanic voters a growing and more influential group.

4. The recent increase in registered Hispanic voters who identify themselves as Democrats has resulted in recent Democratic wins in urban areas such as Dallas County and Harris County.