Although it was not sent directly to me, I have been told that the attached text was sent by State Rep Stan Gerdes to voters in the House District 17 he represents that includes Bastrop, Lee, Burleson, Milam, and Caldwell Counties.
The Gerdes text responds to the Bastrop County Republican Party resolution passed unanimously on December 30, 2024, urging Gerdes to vote with the majority of his fellow Republicans for David Cook and against the Democrat-supported Uniparty speaker Dustin Burrows (aka Phelan 2.0/Straus 4.0). See also this KBTX news report on reactions to the Bastrop resolution.
The text packs a lot of misrepresentation into a small package. Here is a list of those misstatements or implications with a correction using the facts:
Misrepresentation 1: Burrows is the MAGA candidate for speaker - This is the easiest to refute by displaying the attached post on Truth and linking to its X version from Don Trump Jr urging Gerdes to align with David Cook instead of the Democrats, claiming that the MAGA mandate that Trump led and which benefitted Gerdes demands that Gerdes back Cook, not Burrows. Further proof that Burrows is not the MAGA choice is that the statewide elected officials that have been the representatives between Trump and Texas, Governor Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Patrick, AG Ken Paxton, and Ag Commissioner Sid Miller have all backed Cook, not Burrows. Note that Gerdes is now going against Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick who endorsed him in 2024. And, finally, Burrows is the Dade Phelan substitute for the Uniparty swamp team that had been supporting Phelan. Trump, of course, was adamantly opposed to Dade Phelan’s speakership, so one cannot think that a Phelan-substitute like Burrows is MAGA.
Misrepresentation 2: A Picture of Gerdes with Trump implies that Trump supports Gerdes – The over 8-year-old picture of an obviously younger Gerdes with Trump has been used to confuse voters that Trump backs Gerdes. Despite appeals from Gerdes’s patron and former employer, Rick Perry, Trump has refused to endorse Gerdes in both 2022 and 2024. Maybe the fact that the never-Trumper Koch-brothers backed PAC that was the primary source of backing of Nikki Haley also mailed in support for Gerdes in 2024 had something to do with it. Maybe Gerdes vote to impeach Ken Paxton and Trump’s vocal condemnation of that also had an impact.
Misrepresentation 3: The speaker race is about rural/small town v urban/suburban issues/values – This is easily disputed by looking at the districts and background of the Republican representatives in the majority for Cook and the minority for Burrows. In the majority Cook side, the prominent rural/small town reps are John Smithee, James Frank, Trent Ashby, Shelby Slawson, Caroline Harris Davila in neighboring Williamson County (Taylor), JM Lozano, Brian Harrison, Ellen Troxclair, Cody Vasut, Tom Craddick, and a host of freshmen, including neighboring Brazos/Washington Counties Trey Wharton and Paul Dyson and neighboring Guadalupe/Gonzales Alan Schoolcraft. In the minority Burrows camp are big city/suburban reps Carl Tepper (Lubbock), Lacey Hull (Houston), Morgan Meyer and Angie Chen Button (Dallas), Jeff Leach (Collins Co), Jared Patterson (Denton Co), Gary Gates (Fort Bend Co), Todd Hunter (Corpus Christi), and Gio Capriglione and John McQueeney (Tarrant Co). If you do a systematic analysis, it appears that the small town v urban/suburban mix is about the same in both camps. The real divide in the race is between swamp-influenced reps and grassroots reformists. Stated differently, it is it is between Republicans who prefer to ally with fellow Republicans versus “Republicans” who prefer to ally with Democrats.
Misrepresentation 4: “Billionaire special interests” “leverage” the Republican Party Against Burrows – Gerdes would have us ignore the log of billionaires backing Burrows and him to focus on the mote of much smaller funding by large grassroots donations for grassroots candidates and the party. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. During the 2024 primary campaign, donors from outside HD 17 contributed 97% of the $838K in funds received directly or indirectly by the Gerdes campaign. Large donors (which I have called swamp donations) made up 86% of that total. In my failed campaign against Gerdes in 2024, I raised 64% more money from the district than Gerdes did. To think that the precinct chairs of Bastrop County that unanimously voted to urge Gerdes to vote with fellow Republicans and who are volunteers for the Republican Party are “leveraged” by some billionaire donors is laughably ridiculous.
Misrepresentation 5: Gerdes Alleges That he Represents the Voters of HD 17 with his Speaker Choice – In 2022, more than 80% the Republican primary voters of HD 17 voted for the following ballot proposition: “The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature should end the practice of awarding committee chairmanships to Democrats.” In both the 2022 and 2024, the delegates to the Republican Party state convention voted to put “No Democrat Chairs” in the top 8 priorities of the Party. Although I have seen some Burrows supporters try to deny it, anyone who is paying attention to the speaker race and knows the history of the Texas House knows that the issue of reform that includes no Dem chairs is the heart of the issue separating the Cook reformers and Burrows Uniparty defenders. The surge for MAGA and Trump carried Gerdes to new heights in 2024. Does anyone seriously believe that the voters who were drawn to the polls to support the DC reforms proposed by MAGA and Trump were thinking as they voted down-ballot for Gerdes, “Boy, I sure hope my Republican state rep aligns with the Democrats and the swamp to select a speaker instead of working with fellow Republicans to do so.”? The very reason Gerdes used his campaign funds to fund the text is because he knows that the voters are against him, and he is trying to spin his way out of not voting as the overwhelming number voters in the district want him to.
Misrepresentation 6: Burrows is more conservative than Cook – Mark Jones of Rice University ranks Texas House members in every session from most liberal to most conservative in what is arguably the most unbiased ranking done of the Texas Legislature. In 2023, in his final, revised ranking or Republican House members, Cook was ranked much more conservative (37th most conservative out of 85) compared to Burrows (74th out of 85). In other words, only 11 Republicans were ranked more liberal than Burrows. Only 7 of the Republicans ranked below Burrows in 2023 are returning to the House this session. I would love to elect the most conservative speaker possible, and that is Cook, but the real issue of this race is which speaker is committed to move away from a despotic, swamp and Dem-serving speaker to one who will reduce his own power enough via reform, returning power to the members and voters, to make his ideology or opinions on issues far less relevant than under the Uniparty speakers of the last 15 years.
The political realities of the Texas House have changed. The misrepresentations of the swamp about what happens in Austin are being believed by fewer and fewer GOP primary voters. Will Stan Gerdes read the room and his voters? Or walk the plank for his establishment handlers? We will soon see.
Toward liberty,
Tom Glass
txce.org
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