An American Tea Party

For many of us the term “tea party” can conjure up several images. One might be the mental picture of little girls, dress up in frills and lace with fancy hats and their mother’s best china, playing “pretend”. Another is the Boston Tea Party where patriots raided the British ships docked in the Boston harbor and dumped tea into the ocean, protesting “taxation without representation”. There was no “pretending” at that party.

Within the past couple of years there has been a Grass Roots movement among conservatives to organize in such a way to get government official elected who have core values consistent with theirs, and those, they believe, are the values upon which our nation was founded.

This Grass Roots move ment is called “Tea Party”. Participants are quick to say that this is not dumping tea into the ocean, nor do they anticipate doing anything illegal. However they do plan to “exercise, through all legal means available to us, actions to influence state and federal candidates and government officials to effect legislation consistent with our core values.” Quotes are from the Bylaws of the Leon County Tea Party.

On January 12, 2010, Leon County Tea Party and Madison County Tea Party met together at the Kimbro Center in Madisonville. The Center was filled to capacity with standing room only and the guests of honor were some State candidates who impact the two counties.

Madison County Tea Party president Henry Churchwell kicked off the meeting by introducing leaders from Madison and Leon Counties and special guests from Houston and Grimes. Churchwell then introduced Special Guest Speaker Anne Mezone who gave a five minute talk on “What is a tea party?”

“We are here because the government has forgotten who we are” began the energetic speaker. “Our country is going to hell in a hand-basket and you are here because our country is in trouble”, she continued. Then she admonished the crowd to throw “digital tea—use cell phones, email, facebook, twitter, whatever means you have to reach voters and candidates to let them know that a change is needed.”

Following Ms. Mezone’s enthusiastic speech, Churchwell introduced the candidates who were present and noted those who were “no shows”. Churchwell said there would be 5 minutes allowed per speaker.

For State Board of Education, District 9, which includes Leon County, was Don McLeroy. He will run against fellow Republican Thomas Ratliff (absent) in the March primary. McLeroy explained the importance of a conservative being on the Board of Education because that board determines which textbooks are used in the Texas classrooms.

Candidates for the State Senator District 5 race, which includes Leon County, were both available. First to speak was challenger Ben Bius who considers himself a conservative Republican. Bius said that Senator Steve Ogden had called him and said that he, Ogden, was planning to retire and this would be a good time for Bius to run for State Senator. Then Ogden changed his mind and so now the two are opponents. Although Bius generally agrees with Ogden, he feels he can be effective in stopping generational welfare using a three point plan which includes (1) drug testing, (2) U.S. Citizenship requirement (3) recipient must be able to read, write and do math at 9th grade level.

Senator Steve Ogden was next to speak, noting that he had been a senator since 1997 and was the only incumbent to attend the meeting. His three points were (1) to continue to protect the unborn. “The number of abortions is down but there is still work to be done.” (2) “We must have a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.” (3) “The state needs to redistrict in a fair and unbiased way.”

The incumbent for State Representative District 57 is Jim Dunnam, a Democrat from Waco. Dunnam was not present so his challenger Republican Marva Beck, from Leon County took the floor. Beck explained that she was the former Chair of the Republican Party of Leon County and is a retired rancher. She keeps a copy of the Constitution of the United States on her coffee table. She chose to run against “the most liberal representative in this state” and wants to be available to those who need to talk to their elected official.

The remaining candidates were running for State Representative District 17, which does not affect Leon County. Following their speeches there were questions from the floor, moderated by Churchwell.

Next week an in depth look at “What is a Tea Party?”