GOP sets priorities at state convention

Young County Republicans who attended the state GOP Convention in San Antonio this month helped decide on eight legislative priorities.

County Treasurer Kyle Milam, the former chairman of the Young County Republican Party, attended the convention and said he approved of most of the priorities for the Texas Legislature’s 89th session, starting in January, but had reservations about a plan to prohibit taxpayer-funded entities from lobbying the legislature.

The measure is designed to dilute the power of larger cities and counties which can afford to hire lobbyists, he said.

“If it’s a blanket ban then many [civic] organizations would not be able to belong to an entity that represents them,” he said. “If there is a ban then there has to be a modification for municipalities and counties by population.”

He also had doubts about a proposal to secure Texas elections by using “only handmarked, sequentially numbered paper ballots on anti-counterfeiting paper that are signed on the back by the election official at the voting location.”

“We have a secure system in Young County ... I do not trust the accuracy of hand counting thousands of ballots.”

“If there is a person counting and there is a vote for Candidate 1 and they don’t want Candidate 1, and they mark Candidate 2 as well, that spoils that ballot.”

The watermarked paper will not help with security because the County cannot legally examine the actual ballots unless the election is legally challenged, he said. The other legislative priorities include border enforcement, securing Texas elections, stopping the sexualizing of minors, securing the electric grid, banning the sale of Texas property to individuals and entities from China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia who are not legal permanent residents. The GOP also plans to “resist unconstitutional federal acts that restrict medical freedom and transportation.”