SLEC Meeting 2/1/25

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Jeff Miller said:
Okay, you onow I’m good for a dumb question. I notice there is an “additional delegates” column but it looks like they are all blank. Is the proposal to not do the additional delegates for candidate performance this time?
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The additional delegates aren't part of the denominator setting. That will impact the overall number but can be determined by the credentials committee. In the past the county chair/executive committee would report to the credentials committee if they had any candidates that met the threshold. I am willing to add that in if any want to report it but the credentials committee would be the ones to verify that later. In addition any additional counties that are affiliated or counties disaffiliated through not holding a convention would impact the overall total.
 
Paul Darr said:
The additional delegates aren't part of the denominator setting. That will impact the overall number but can be determined by the credentials committee. In the past the county chair/executive committee would report to the credentials committee if they had any candidates that met the threshold. I am willing to add that in if any want to report it but the credentials committee would be the ones to verify that later. In addition any additional counties that are affiliated or counties disaffiliated through not holding a convention would impact the overall total.
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Got it, thanks.
 
Here's the latest revision of the LPTexas Org Chart. Key updates include specifying the ideal number of available positions rather than using "(s)" for multiples, along with some minor realignments and the introduction of a few renamed or newly created positions. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out, and I’d be happy to discuss them with you.
 

Attachments

Anastasia Wilford said:
I'll be making a motion on behalf of the Legislative Action Department to increase two line items in our budget

Staff Compensation $0 --> $5,000
Legislative Headquarters $0 --> $5,000

Posting my report shortly
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I support this motion but have one suggestion for an amendment to it. I agree we need to keep a presence at the Capitol and we owe it to Kevin who quit his job to do this for us.

My suggestion is if the legislative fund can raise the full amount of funds it needs this calendar year that the fund repay the $10k that is being taken from the general fund in this motion.
 
I agree that we need to do what we can to keep Kevin's time down there a success. He continues to make big sacrifices for this organization, and so we should do the same. We have general funds, but not an unlimited supply. I think Kyle's suggestion of reimbursement if funding is reached is fair.

@Anastasia Wilford , would you be willing to have a candid discussion regarding the state of fundraising as part of your report out? I would also like an understanding to the feasibility of regionally based SLEC fundraising referral codes/UTMs.
 
Kenneth Feagins said:
@Anastasia Wilford , would you be willing to have a candid discussion regarding the state of fundraising as part of your report out? I would also like an understanding to the feasibility of regionally based SLEC fundraising referral codes/UTMs.
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Not only would I be willing, but I intend to. As for regional fundraising by SLEC, I think that's a great idea and would love to see the results of such.

As for the reimbursement, I'm not going to fight SLEC on this one, but I will be disappointed if this amendment passes because I don't think it's the right thing to do but if that's what it takes to pass, then so be it.

We have the money sitting in the bank doing absolutely nothing to further the cause of liberty. Those dollars are sitting there waiting to be put toward a noble purpose. At the November meeting, SLEC funded just 5% of what was needed to support our legislative goals. I'm not asking for SLEC to fund it so Andrew, and Jess, and Carter, and several others, and I can stop fundraising. I'm asking SLEC to have just ~35% buy in on the entire project.
 
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Anastasia Wilford said:
I'm asking SLEC to have just ~35% buy in on the entire project.
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For anyone who wants to do a history deep dive into LPTexas I highly recommend this book.
Anyway, I point that out to say we stand here because of extreme measures that have been taken to get us here, including violating our own bylaws on taking on debt, and I say that not as a condemnation but as high praise for people who were wiling to do what it took to get us here. In my mind, funding this is not an "IF" it's a "HOW". We owe it to the members, the leadership who came before us and got us to this point, and to the people of Texas as a whole to be there, whatever that takes. If we need an amendment to put money back if we get rich tomorrow, if we need to spend out of the general fund, if we need to all individually call people in our district, if we need to authorize funds from the reserves, or if we need to just take time off work and each take a turn down there. Whatever that means the Texas Legislative session is the thing we prepare for the entire rest of the term and the reason we have candidates running for office. Unfortunately, none of our candidates were elected so this is what we get to do instead. $10k is not an undoable amount for us, neither is $30k, and we absolutely do need to be fundraising, but being down there has to happen, period, and I think Kevin is a great choice for who can represent us. We also have other members helping out with lodging costs by giving us a deal on their rental property.

So let's all figure out the how of this first $10k, whether it's an amendment or we want to pass the offering plate, then after we send Kevin down we do not get to take a break for even a second because the next question we need to answer is HOW are we getting the next $10k until the session is fully funded even if that means SLEC does 100% of this when it's all said and done.

I'm not trying to be critical here; it seems most of the feedback is positive, I just really want to express for anyone who may be on the fence here how if we can't do this when the money exists, we don't deserve any donor money because this is the central goal of our entire existence as an organization.
 
I most definitely agree with the mission we have in Austin. But I also am leary of this new Legislative body with Burrows at the helm, who has made it his duty to see us off the ballot.
The reason I agree with Kyle's amendment is along the lines of 'take a penny, leave a penny.' If fundraising kicks off, the general fund is replenished from what was removed instead of remaining earmarked under Legislative Action. Why? To my knowledge, we will have filing fees to contend with, and discussions are still ongoing. That also ignores any new hurdles Burrows and the Texas GOP throw our way. If fundraising doesn't materialize, then we move on and refocus.
 
Kyle Russell said:
I support this motion but have one suggestion for an amendment to it. I agree we need to keep a presence at the Capitol and we owe it to Kevin who quit his job to do this for us.

My suggestion is if the legislative fund can raise the full amount of funds it needs this calendar year that the fund repay the $10k that is being taken from the general fund in this motion.
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Would you be open to a general amendment that instead says funds are to be first spent from the Legislative fund before touching the general fund? In my mind it effectively does the same thing but the difference I see is not having to deal with the optics that may come later from draining money from a directed donation fund into the general fund. I'm fine to make it work either way, just wanted to float the idea.
 
John Wilford said:
Would you be open to a general amendment that instead says funds are to be first spent from the Legislative fund before touching the general fund? In my mind it effectively does the same thing but the difference I see is not having to deal with the optics that may come later from draining money from a directed donation fund into the general fund. I'm fine to make it work either way, just wanted to float the idea.
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I think this approach would work. Gives us a month or two to try and get the funding before we dip into the general fund.
 
The historical practice with special projects is that the funds expended on those projects first comes from the fund itself before any allocations from general funds are spent, but if the body is concerned that that's not how it will be handled this time, then an amendment that explicitly says as much is well taken to put those concerns to rest.

What may be a better option would be to amend the policy manual section covering special projects so that we don't have to hash this out on an individual basis. Further, enforcement of such a concern will be easier to track if it is a part of the policy manual rather than an amendment to some one off budget amendment
 
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This is intended to be a point of information rather than debate:

The Legislative Action Fund was created (by me, fwiw) specifically as a donor relations management piece. It was never meant to limit our budget for legislative action—Anastasia correctly noted at the budget meeting that our legislative presence should be thought of as a fundamental operating expense, perhaps the fundamental operating expense of our party. The point of the LAF is to give donors the confidence that their donations will be going straight (and only) to legislative action, not just 'keeping the lights on'. It's a donor psychology thing.

To the extent that we can bring in directed donations through the LAF, that should be considered the gravy. The meat is what we budget for operations; not the other way around.

We led with the LAF drive because that's the obvious first move in getting some momentum up. And to the extent we're able to accomplish our goal there that will definitely take some pressure off of us. There will be more fundraising through our donor channels as we go, and by the time the session ends we will have run several money bombs on social media. On top of that, at our meeting I'll be talking about a way the officers and representatives on SLEC can help with this effort.

But with all the above in progress we still have a job to do in Austin, and we still have money in the bank that's been sitting there awhile. Again, the budget for legislative action should not be limited to what the LAF brings in.
 
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