Later this week, thousands of the GOP faithful from across Texas will gather in Dallas to hammer out what amounts to a guide for elected officials. It’s state convention time and if past is prologue, the resulting platform will draw no small amount of national attention given past controversial stances on everything from immigration to secession.
Ben Philpott, senior editor at KUT in Austin, has covered Texas politics for more than a decade. Delegate nominees will be much more pro-forma now that Ted Cruz is out of the race. According to state rules, Philpott says the national delegates have to vote for Trump during the first and second ballots. But they can express their displeasure, as the case may be, in other ways – like what happened during the 2012 convention when then-Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson said they should show support for the Republican presumptive nominee Mitt Romney.
“She got some boos,” he says. “Part of that was the Ron Paul contingent that was there… but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if, during calls for unity behind Trump, there were some catcalls and maybe lukewarm applause.”
What you’ll hear in this segment:
– What high-profile topics, like bathroom ordinances, the convention will take a stance on in their platform
– How the GOP may address secession
– Previous platform items added during the GOP convention that didn’t result in state law
